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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/intermereOOtayl 
 
INTERMBRi. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM 
 
 ALEXANDER 
 
 TAYLOR, 
 
 GOLUMBU§,OHIO. 
 1901 1902 
 
 The XX. Century Pub. Co. 
 
 j^a 
 
COPYRIGHT BY 
 
 WM. A. TAYLOR, 
 1901. 
 

THIS IS THE STRANGE AND 
 REMARKABLE STORY, IN SUB- 
 STANCE, AND LARGELY IN DE- 
 TAIL, AS NARRATED BY GILES 
 HENRY ANDERTON, JOURNAL- 
 IST AND AMERICAN TOURIST. 
 
I. 
 
 THE TOURIST LOST IN MID- 
 OCEAN IS MYSTERIOUSLY IN- 
 TRODUCED INTO INTERMERE, 
 AND MEETS THE FIRST CITIZEN 
 AND OTHER CHIEF OFFICIALS. 
 
I. 
 
 THE MISTLETOE. 
 
 THE MISTLETOE, staunch, trim and buoy- 
 ant, steamed across the equator under the 
 glare of a midday sun from a fleckless sky, and 
 began to ascend toward the antarctic circle. 
 
 Three days later we came in sight of a great 
 bank of fog or mist, which stood like a gray 
 wall of stone across the entire horizon, plunged 
 into it and the sun disappeared — disappeared 
 forever to all except one of the gay and care- 
 less crew and passengers. 
 
 For days, as was shown by the ship's chron- 
 ometers, we steamed slowly on our course, sur- 
 rounded by an inky midnight, instinct with an 
 oppressive and fearsome calm. As we ap- 
 proached the fortieth parallel of south latitude 
 
]2 INTERMERE. 
 
 a remarkable change set in. The deathly calm 
 was suddenly broken by the rush of mighty 
 and boisterous winds, sweeping now from one 
 point of the compass, and then suddenly' veer- 
 ing to another, churning up the waters and 
 spinning the Mistletoe round and round like 
 a top. 
 
 In the midst of the terror and confusion, 
 heightened by the unheeded commands of the 
 officers, a glittering sheeny bolt, like a corrus- 
 cating column of steel, dropped straight from 
 the zenith, striking the gyrating Mistletoe 
 amidships. 
 
 There was a deafening report, the air was 
 filled with serpentine lines of flame, followed 
 simultaneously by the dull explosion of the 
 boilers, the hissing of escaping steam, the 
 groaning of cordage and machinery, the lurch- 
 ing of the vessel as the water poured in ap- 
 parently from a score of openings, a shudder- 
 ing vibration of all its parts, and then, amid 
 
INTERMERE. 13 
 
 cries and prayers and imprecations, the 
 wrecked vessel shot like a plummet to the 
 bottom. 
 
 I felt myself being dragged down to the im- 
 measurable watery depths, confused with roar- 
 ing sounds and oppressed with terrors inde- 
 scribable and horrible. The descent seemed 
 miles and miles. Then I felt myself slowly 
 rising toward the surface, followed by legions 
 of submarine monsters of grotesque shapes 
 and terrifying aspects. 
 
 With accelerated motion I approached the 
 surface and, shooting like a cork above the 
 now calm sea, fortunately fell upon a piece of 
 floating wreckage. Looking upward as I lay 
 upon it, I saw the blue sky and the brilliant 
 stars far overhead. The fierce winds and inky 
 darkness and blackness of the night were dis- 
 appearing beyond the northeastern horizon. 
 
 I tried to concentrate my scattered thoughts 
 and piece out the awful catastrophe that had 
 
14 INTERMERE. 
 
 befallen the ship and my companions, but the 
 efifort was too great a strain and I ceased to 
 think — perhaps I ceased to exist. 
 
 I seemed to be passing through a vague 
 twilight of sentient existence. Thought was 
 rudimentary with me, if, indeed, there were 
 any thoughts. They were mere sensations, 
 perhaps, or impressions imperfectly shaped, 
 but I remember them now as being so delight- 
 ful, that I prayed, in a feeble way, that I might 
 never be awakened from them. And then 
 gradually the senses of sight, hearing, and full 
 physical and mental existence returned to me. 
 
 At length I was able to determine that I lay 
 on something like a hammock on the deck of 
 a smoothly gliding vessel. Turning my head 
 first to the right and then to the left, I imag- 
 ined that I was indeed in Paradise, only the 
 reality before me was so infinitely more beau- 
 tiful than the most vivid poetic descriptions I 
 bad ever read of the longed for heaven of end 
 
INTERMERE. 15 
 
 less peace and happiness. But this could not 
 be the Paradise of the disembodied souls, for 
 I realized I was there in all my physicaJ 
 personal being. 
 
 I was sailing through a smooth, shimmering 
 sea, thickly studded with matchlessly beautiful 
 islands. They laiy in charming profusion and 
 picturesque irregularity of contour on the right 
 and the left, each a distinct type of beauty and 
 perfection. I could make out houses and gar- 
 dens and farms and people on each of them. 
 
 Looking to the right I saw what appeared to 
 be a mainland with majestic and softly modu- 
 lated mountains and broad valleys, running 
 from the distance down to the sands of the 
 seashore. Above the mountains shone the un- 
 obscured sun, but not the burning orb I had 
 known of old in the lower latitudes. It kissed 
 me with a tenderness that was entrancing, 
 filling my weakened frame with new life. 
 
 The breezes toyed with my tangled and un- 
 
16 INTERMERE. 
 
 kempt locks, fanned my brow and whispered 
 such things to me as did the zephyrs when I 
 stood upon the threshold of guileless boyhood. 
 
 Finally I was able to frame a consecutive 
 thought, in the interrogative form, and it was 
 this: 
 
 "Where am I? Is this the Heaven my 
 mother taught me to seek?" 
 
 I had as yet seen no one aboard the ship, or 
 whatever it was, although I had heard the hum 
 of what seemed to be conversation from some 
 point beyond the line of vision. Again I sil- 
 ently repeated my mental question. 
 
 As if in response to my unuttered query, a 
 being, or a man, of striking and pleasing ap- 
 pearance came to my side and laying his hand 
 softly on my forehead, addressed me in a 
 tongue at once familiar but wholly unknown, 
 as paradoxical as that may sound. 
 
 I remained silent and he again addressed me. 
 
 I did not feel disconcerted or awed by his 
 
INTERMERE. 17 
 
 appearance and said: "I speak French and 
 fTcrman imperfectly; English with some 
 fluency." 
 
 His rejoinder was in English: "You speak 
 English, but are not an Englishman except by 
 partial descent. You are an American. Not 
 a native of the eastern portion of the con- 
 tinent, but from west of the range of moun- 
 tains which separate the Atlantic seaboard 
 from the great central valley of the continent. 
 You are from the tributary Ohio valley, and 
 are, therefore, better fitted to comprehend what 
 you will be permitted to see and hear, than the 
 average habitant of the eastern seashore, 
 especially of its great cities.'' 
 
 You can possibly imagine, in a faint way, ray 
 unbounded surprise to be thus addressed by 
 one who was more than a stranger to me. 
 
 "You asked yourself two questions. I will 
 answer the first: You are in Intermere." 
 
 "And where is Inlermere?" 
 
18 INTERMERE. 
 
 ''It lies at your feet and expands on every 
 hand about you. Let that suffice. 
 
 "No, this is not the Heaven to which your 
 mother taught you to aspire. It is a part of 
 your own planet, inhabited by beings sprung 
 from the same parent stock as yourself, but 
 differing from all other nations and peoples; a 
 people who are many steps nearer to the 
 higher and better life, and is, by comparison, 
 the Paradise or Eden that masks the gateway 
 of the true Heaven, in a sphere beyond in the 
 great ITniverse." 
 
 He motioned to some one, and two persons 
 appeared with refreshments. 
 
 "Partake," he said, "and renew your ex- 
 hausted physical and mental powers." 
 
 The proffered refreshments and coidials 
 seemed to be the acme of the gustatorial 
 dreams of my former life: the suggestion of 
 other things, yet unlike them. After I had 
 partaken, a new life thrilled every nerve and 
 
INTERMERE. 19 
 
 fibre of my physical being and pulsated 
 through every mental faculty. 
 
 I arose from my recumbent position and was 
 conducted forward upon the softly carpeted 
 deck and presented to a score of others who 
 received me with every token of marked re- 
 spect, unkempt and bedraggled as I was. They 
 were men of unusual physique, a composite of 
 tlie highest types of the human race I had ever 
 seen or read of. Each ]>ossessed a distinctive 
 meiu and j)ersonality, as individuals, yet pre- 
 senting a harmonious whole, taken collectively. 
 
 Xamas, as I afterward learned to know him, 
 when I saw him presiding as First Citizen over 
 this wonderful people, said to his fellows: 
 
 "This is Giles Henry Anderton, a citizen of 
 the interior of the great Republic of North 
 America. I have fathomed him and know that 
 he is worthy our respect and considerate treat- 
 ment. He has dreamed longingly of the things 
 whereof we know, and which he has nevfM- even 
 
20 INTERMERE. 
 
 recognized as a possibility. It will be our mis- 
 sion to show him the grand possibilities of 
 human life before we restore him to his kin- 
 dred and friends. 
 
 "Not understajiding that Nature had lain all 
 treasures worth possessing in lavish profusion 
 at his feet in his own land, and guided by 
 merely commercial instincts, he sought for 
 paltry gold in distant lands and seas, and, es- 
 caping the vortex of death, has been placed in 
 our hands for some great purpose. He will be 
 addressed in the English tongue until it is de- 
 termined whether he is to be admitted to ours." 
 
 This was spoken in a language absolutely 
 unknown to me, and not a word of which I was 
 capable of framing, and yet I understood it as 
 fully as though spoken in English. So great 
 was my amazement that he should know my 
 nativity, m^-^ name, my hopes, my ambitions 
 and my purposes, I could scarcely repl}' to the 
 salutations extended to me. 
 
INTERMERE. 21 
 
 ''Do not be surprised," said Xamas, reading 
 my inmost thoughts, ''at what I say, nor need 
 you ask how I became possessed of your his- 
 tory. All that will be made plain to you here- 
 after." 
 
 Turning to one who stood near, he said: 
 "Conduct Mr. Andertou to my apartments and 
 see that he has proper 'tendance and is sup- 
 plied with suitable clothing." 
 
 With that I was conducted below to a charm- 
 ing suite of apartments lying amidships, bath- 
 ed, was massaged and shaven by an attendant, 
 as lofty of mein as Xamas himself, and fur- 
 nished with clothing suitable to the company 
 with which I was to mingle, not more unlike 
 the workmanship of my American tailor than 
 his would be unlike the handiwork of his 
 French, English or German fellow-craftsmen, 
 and yet so unlike all of them as to ft perfectly 
 into the ensemble of the habiliments of my new 
 friends. 
 
22 INTERMERE. 
 
 The ship, or Merocar, as I subsequently 
 learned was its general designation, was a mar- 
 vellous affair, unlike any water craft I had 
 ever seen. Its length was fully one hundred 
 and fifty feet, and its greatest breadth thirty,* 
 gently sloping both to stem and stern, where 
 it rounded in perfect curves. The upper, or 
 proper deck, extended over all. The lower 
 deck was a succession of suites and apart- 
 ments, richly but artistically furnished, open- 
 ing from either side into a wide and roomy 
 aisle. All the work was so light, both the 
 woods, and the metals, that it seemed fragile 
 and unsafe, but its great strength was shown 
 by the fact that none of its parts yielded to 
 the weight or pressure upon it. 
 
 There was not a mast, a spar nor a sail on 
 board. The light and richly wrought ham- 
 mocks swung on lithe and polished frames, ap- 
 parently intended to sustain the weight of fifty 
 pounds, yet capable of sustaining five or ten 
 
INTERMERE. 23 
 
 times as much. They were unprotected by 
 awnings. Sunlight rather than shade was ap- 
 parently the desideratum. 
 
 In some unaccountable way the long and 
 lithe Merocar was propelled at any desired 
 rate of speed, and was turned, as on a pivot, 
 at the will of the man who acted as captain, 
 pilot and engineer. There was no steam, no 
 furnace belching black volumes of smoke, no 
 whirr of machinery, no strain or creaking as 
 the craft shot, sometimes swiftly, sometimes 
 slowly, through the rippling water. Even mo- 
 tion was not perceptible to the physical senses. 
 
 The captain-pilot-engineer did not tug at a 
 wheel in his railed-in apartment, elevated a few 
 feet above the center of the upper deck. He 
 placed his hand upon the table before him and 
 it shot forward with incredible speed; he 
 touched another point and it stood still, with- 
 out jar or vibration. A movement of the hand, 
 and the prow of the Merocar swept gracefully 
 
24 INTERMERE. 
 
 from north to east in less than its length, to 
 pass between two beautiful islets or round 
 some sharp promontory. Hundreds of other 
 Merocars, differing in size and form, were 
 visible. 
 
 How they were propelled was so incompre- 
 hensible to me that I attributed it to super- 
 natural agencies. I learned that it was a sim- 
 pler process than the utilization of oars, or 
 sails, or steam, which the progenitors of these 
 mariners had abandoned before the days of 
 Tyre and Sidon and Memphis aud Thebes. 
 
 Rejoining the company,! endeavored to carry 
 on a conversation with them, but I fear I made 
 little headway, so deeply was I absorbed in the 
 wonderful panorama that lay before me. 
 
 Raising my eyes from the shimmering, island- 
 studded and beautj'-bestrewn sea to the blue 
 above, I uttered an ejaculation of surprise at 
 what I beheld. There I saw "the airy navies" 
 of which Tennyson had written under the spell 
 
INTERMERE. 25 
 
 of an inspiration which must have been wafted 
 from this unknown land, but marred by the 
 hostile environments of his own. 
 
 Every quarter of the heavens disclosed grace- 
 ful barques sailing hither and thither, passing 
 and repassing each other, gathering in groups, 
 tilled with people, many of them holding 
 mute communications with my companions, as 
 though friend were talking with friend, with- 
 out utterance, sign or gesture. 
 
 "1 am beyond the confines of earth," I said 
 to Xanias. "This is a higher and spiritual 
 sphere, and I am not Giles Henry Anderton, 
 but his disembodied spirit." 
 
 "You are at fault. You are within the mun- 
 dane sphere, but with a people infinitely in 
 advance of yours — a people who, by evolution- 
 ary processes, have unlocked a large propor- 
 tion of the secrets of Nature and the Universe, 
 and turned them to ennobling ends, not to 
 selfish purposes. These facts will come to you 
 
26 INTERMERE. 
 
 in time, and you will be convinced. 
 
 "See," he continued, "the city is slowly com- 
 ing into view across the horizon." 
 
 My glance followed to the point indicated, 
 and I saw a city of ineffable magnificence, softly 
 rising from the bosom of the deep, as thiough 
 obedient to the wand of a master magician. 
 
 Soon I could see that it swept around the 
 broad semicircle of the bay, many miles in 
 extent and artistically perfect in contour, the 
 land rising gently from the strand into a grand 
 and massive elevation, cut into great squares 
 and circles, and crowned with noble buildings, 
 great and small, in a style of architecture which 
 embraced all the beauties and none of the 
 blemishes of European and American crea- 
 tions. It was the full and perfect flower of the 
 crude buds of other lands. 
 
 For a time my companions remained silent 
 as I contemplated the entrancing scene and 
 drank in its beauties. Then Xamas interrupt- 
 ed me: 
 
INTERMERE. 27 
 
 "Yesterday the allied armies of the Western 
 Nations entered the capital of China, and are 
 now bivouacked in the Forbidden City, from 
 which the Empress, Emperor and Court have 
 fled." 
 
 I shook my head incredulously: 
 
 "When I sailed from New York six months 
 ago there was no thought of war between any 
 of the Western Nations and the Chinese Em- 
 pire. Russia may have invaded one of its prov- 
 inces by way of reprisal. That is a possibility." 
 
 "Great events focus and transpire within six 
 months. What I tell you is true. The hos- 
 tile standards of England, Russia, Germany, 
 France, Japan, and your own Republic, which 
 has departed from its wise traditions, flout the 
 Yellow Dragon in the precincts of his own cit- 
 adel and temple. Is not this true, Maros?" 
 turning to one who looked the prophet and 
 seer. 
 
 ''Aye, indeed, and the best loved of this man's 
 
28 INTERMERE. 
 
 kindred fell in the assault. He will know if I 
 am permitted to name him." 
 
 "Shall he be permitted?" 
 
 ''Freely." 
 
 "Albert Marshall, a sergeant of Marines, 
 your playmate and foster brother, the next be- 
 loved of your mother, the son of her deceased 
 sister; your mother reared him as her own son, 
 and she knows, as yet, nothing of the disaster 
 which has befallen you nor the loss of her fos- 
 ter son. He was of your own age, and like you 
 tall, athletic and vigorous, with fair hair and 
 complexion and blue eyes, the very counterpart 
 of yourself — a man fit for a higher destiny 
 than butchery." 
 
 '*0 Albert! O unhappy, stricken mother!" I 
 cried in agony. 
 
 "Revered sir, I believe your words. They 
 are absolutely convincing. Tell me how you 
 came into possession of this strange informa- 
 tion." 
 
INTERMERE. 29 
 
 "In time; but be patient. Lament not for 
 the dead; sorrow not for the living. We must 
 presently debark. Come to my garden tomor- 
 row. It lies within the shadow of the Temple 
 of Thought, Memory and Hope. My home is 
 unpretentious, but you will be welcome. There 
 is need that you should come. Tomorrow your 
 mother will be apprised of the death of your 
 kinsman; almost simultaneously will come ru- 
 mors of your shipwreck. 8he must be assured 
 of your safety within twenty-four hours, if you 
 hope to meet her again." 
 
 ''But how can I com '' 
 
 "Peace, patience; sufficient unto tomorrow 
 is the labor and issue thereof." 
 
 The Merocar gently ran into its slip, and we 
 debarked, Xamas carrying me to his home in a 
 vehicle of strange design and mysterious power 
 of propulsion. 
 
II. 
 
 XAMAS,THE FIRCT ( ITIZEN, EX- 
 PLAINS THE POLITY AND PRIN- 
 CIPLES GOVERNING THE GOM- 
 MONWEALTH AND PROMOTING 
 THE INTERESTS OF ALL THE 
 PEOPLE OF INTERMERE. 
 
INTERMERE. 31 
 
 II. 
 
 THE FIRST CITIZEN. 
 
 I SHALL SO FAR anticipate as to say that 
 the city in which I found myself was known as 
 the Greater City, in contradistinction of the 
 Lesser City, lying at the opposite end of the 
 inland sea or mere. 
 
 This body of water extends in an oval shape 
 or form north and south, its length being ap- 
 proximately four hundred miles, and its great- 
 est width at the latitudinal center two hundred 
 miles, gradually narrowing toward the oppo- 
 site extremes, where it gently expands into 
 rounded bays, forming the extended water 
 fronts of both cities. 
 
 The Greater City wa.s clearly the original 
 seat of the present civilization, from which it 
 
32 INTER MERE. 
 
 extended southward along both shores until 
 it met at the southern apex and became the 
 Lesser City. I was able, however,to distin- 
 guish but little, if any, difference between the 
 two. 
 
 The twelve hundred miles of shore line is 
 studded with farms, gardens, towns, villages, 
 hamlets, private residences and public edifices, 
 extending over highland and plain, as far as I 
 was permitted to see, toward the outer bound- 
 aries, the location and character of which I 
 can not even conjecture. 
 
 Many rivers, limpid and sparkling, coming 
 through level and spreading valleys, and from 
 almost every point, contribute their waters to 
 the mere. 
 
 The current of the mere is phenomenal — not 
 violent, but distinctively marked. Twice within 
 every twenty-four hours it sweepis entirely 
 around the oval, affecting one-half of the mere 
 as it moves. With the early hours of the morn- 
 
INTERMERE. 33 
 
 ing and evening it sweeps from north to south 
 throughout the eastern, and with noon and 
 midnight through the western half of the sea. 
 
 This cMurcut may be described as anti- or 
 trans-tidal; that is, the general water level 
 falls or is lowered on the side where the cur- 
 rent runs, and rises correspondingly in the op- 
 posite half. 
 
 The effect is this; From a. m. to 12 noon 
 and from G p. m. to midnight, throughout the 
 eastern half, the tide runs in from those rivers 
 falling in from the east, and correspondingly 
 rises and moves inland in those falling in from 
 the west, and then the current flows north on 
 the western side from 12 noon to 6 p. m. and 
 from midnight to (\ a. m., so that for half the 
 time the rivers on either side ebb or flow into 
 the sea, and for the other twelve hours rise and 
 flow to the interior, east or west as the case 
 may be. 
 
 The effect of this is singular indeed, or it was 
 
34 INTERMERE. 
 
 to me. The rivers appear to run inland from 
 the sea a part of the time, and then run from 
 the landward into the sea for twelve hours, or 
 an equal period, while the sea itself appears 
 to be a subdivided river forever flowing in an 
 elongated circle along the opposite shores. 
 
 The description of the Egyptian high priest, 
 carefully guarded by his successors for nine 
 thousand years, then revealed to Solon, and by 
 Solon narrated to Plato, and by Plato trans- 
 mitted to the modern world, must have had its 
 basis here. Is not this the Atlantis which en- 
 thralled the Egyptian sage, philosopher and 
 priest more than ten c3'cles ago? 
 
 To the Egyptian the ever-flowing rivers re- 
 turned to their common source through valleys 
 and landscapes of ravishing beauty, renewing 
 themselves forever. They laved the feet of cit- 
 ies, irrigated the endless succession of farms, 
 gardens and residential demesnes, and mir- 
 rored the mountains, clothed with perpetual 
 
INTERMERE. 36 
 
 verdure and crowned with the stately monii- 
 ments of genius, wisdom, art, civilization, 
 learning- and human progress, a century of 
 centuries agone. 
 
 I have spoken of the singular vehicle in 
 which, with Xamas, I left the pier and ascend- 
 ed the gentle slope into the city. It might be 
 likened, faintly however, to the best types of 
 our automobiles. But the comparison would 
 be much like that between the ox-cart and the 
 landau. 
 
 It more resembled a double-seated chair set 
 upon several small elastic wheels, scarcely 
 visible beneath the rich trappings which 
 dropped almost to the smooth street, as scru- 
 pulously clean as a ballroom floor. 
 
 Xamas pushed a tiny lever, almost hidden in 
 the rich upholstery of the arm-rest, and it 
 moved swiftly and noiselessly forward without 
 jar or oscillation. A delicate and a deftly con- 
 
36 INTERMERE. 
 
 cealed spring guided it along the graceful 
 curves of the streets, or sent it at a right angle 
 when the streets crossed at tangents. 
 
 An adjustment lowered the speed to a stroll- 
 ing pace; another movement gave a high speed, 
 while the reversal of the lever brought us to a 
 standstill that I might silently admire some 
 stately architectural pile or revel in the con- 
 templation of some lovely private home. 
 
 As we journeyed Xamas said: "Ask with all 
 frankness such questions as you desire. Wis- 
 dom is the child of patience, so be neither im- 
 patient, if the answer is not immediate, or if 
 it is at first incomprehensible. It will be some 
 time before your understanding can grasp all 
 that you see or all that you hear. 
 
 *^Your people undertake the impossible feat 
 of putting a gallon of grain into a pint vase. 
 Result: The vase is crushed and broken and 
 the grain is spilled and lost. The human mind 
 is the vase; Knowledge is the grain, from 
 
INTERMERE. 37 
 
 which Wisdom will germinate. The vase ex- 
 pands by a proces too subtle for your compre- 
 hension. To crowd it beyond its capacity with 
 the idea of expa,nding its receptiveness is a 
 dangerous and fatal folly. That is why mental 
 dwarfs multiply and mental giants diminish 
 in proportion to the increase of your people. 
 Two things are uppermost in your mind: 
 
 "First, you believe you are in a supernatural 
 sphere and surrounded by a supernatural peo- 
 ple. In this you are absolutely at fault. Ac- 
 cept this assurance without reservation. You 
 will tarry with us long enough to fully com- 
 prehend that fact. You will see nothing dur- 
 ing your stay that can not be accounted for on 
 natural and scientilic grounds. 
 
 "Second, you are consumed with curiosity to 
 know how I propel this Medocar and make it 
 obey my every wish, so to speak. The full ex- 
 planation of that I shall delegate to another, 
 who will acquaint you with our mechanisms 
 
38 INTERMERE. 
 
 and the principle that moves them. 
 
 ''When you have patiently and intelligently 
 listened to him you will know that we have 
 achieved what your wisest and deepest and 
 least appreciated thinkers have but vaguely 
 dreamed of and hoped for during long and in- 
 termittent periods. But here we are at my 
 residence. Let us enter and I will introduce 
 3'ou to my family and friends." 
 
 The Medocar halted with the last word in 
 front of a two-storied, many-gabled house with 
 broad verandas, situated in the center of spa- 
 cious grounds, beautified with trees and shrubs 
 and flowers and bubbling fountains. 
 
 Ushering me into a spacious reception hall, 
 he presented me to his wife and children — 
 grown-up sons and daughters — and then to a 
 number of men and women who had called 
 to greet him, some on social affairs and some 
 on matters of public business, concluding with: 
 "Mr. Anderton is a castawav from the other 
 
INTERMERE. 39 
 
 side of the world, who is entitled to our sym- 
 pathy and care." 
 
 If my newly made acquaintances were curi- 
 ous as to my being, personality and history, 
 they had masterful control of their feelings. 
 In all things they treated me with the most re- 
 fined courtesy and gentle consideration. They 
 did not embarrass me with expressions of pity 
 or consolotary suggestions. ' 
 
 They addressed me in my own language, 
 made me feel that I was welcome to their soci- 
 ety. Each extended an invitation to me to 
 visit them at their homes, some of them in 
 distant provinces, and these invitations were 
 gratefully accepted. There could be no mis- 
 taking the deep sincerity they implied. 
 
 After an hour's pleasant conversation on 
 many and varied subjects with my host and 
 his guests, Xamas led me to a suite of apart- 
 ments intended for my use, and said: 
 
 "Attendants will provide you with refresh- 
 
40 INTERMERE. 
 
 ments and ascertain your every want. Rest 
 and fully recuperate. Later in the day I shall 
 explain to you the polity of our Commonwealth, 
 in which I perceive you are deeply interested.'' 
 What a remarkable man! He seemed to read 
 my inmost thoughts. 
 
 As the sun Mas hanging like a softly beam- 
 ing lamp above a c-one-like mountain beyond 
 the western line of the Greater City, Xamas 
 and I were alone upon an open veranda, over- 
 grown with clambering vines of many kinds 
 in full bloom, radiant with exquisite colors and 
 shades. He abruptly said to me : 
 
 "This Comonwealth is a pure democracy. 
 Titles and offices confer no merely meretricious 
 distinctions. They temporarily impose addi- 
 tional responsibilities, duties and burdens; the 
 chief distinction of the citizen is conferred by 
 labor, for labor is honorable and praiseworthy 
 above all things else. The second is justice. 
 
INTERMERE. 41 
 
 When and where all men labor and all men are 
 just, there can be no wrong, no sin, no evil. 
 AVhere there is labor and not justice, the strong 
 enjoy, the weak suffer and endure, opulence 
 flourishes for the few, pain and poverty afflict 
 the many. Where there is neither labor nor 
 justice, where might makes right, barbarism 
 in its worst form curses the land. 
 
 "The ascent froui the third condition to the 
 first is a highway leading through the second, 
 where labor is oppressed and justice is a stran- 
 ger, until at last justice and labor join hands 
 and produce a happy and a great people. I 
 touch only on the three cardinal points. The 
 process of ascent is slow and purely evolution- 
 ary — an evolution that constantly conforms 
 itself to ever-changing environments. 
 
 "Your own so-called Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence, which so many of your people do not 
 care to comprehend, was drawn from the key- 
 stone of our own national arch — Human Equal- 
 
42 INTERMERE. 
 
 ity, the climax of human civilization and hap- 
 pinesH. 
 
 ''Thousands of years before the feet of the 
 more modern Europeans trode the soil of your 
 continent we had reached this point, and dis- 
 covered that we had but reached the initial 
 period of our usefulness and higher destiny. 
 
 "It required centuries to expel first the ani- 
 mal instincts, and then the barbarian nature 
 from our race, not by savage repression and 
 ruthless aggression and slaughter, but by the 
 study and application of the laws of Nature 
 and the Universe, which at last ultimated in 
 the principle and entity of Brotherhood and 
 the equality of all men — not equality of stat- 
 ure, mental equipment or material endowment, 
 but the equality of coiiimon rights and com- 
 mon opportunities. Labor and Justice main- 
 tain and preserve this eiiuality and Brother- 
 hood. 
 
 ''Thousands of years before Magna Charta 
 
INTERMERE. 43 
 
 we had founded our Commonwealtli on the 
 gieat principles of human equality and the 
 right of life, liberty and the pursuit of rational 
 hapi)iuess, and my ancestors, comprehending 
 the profound laws of Nature unknown to yours, 
 wafted to them these precious seed, trusting 
 that they would fall on genial and generous 
 soil, and the inspiration thus transmitted 
 through the agency of our progenitors was in- 
 scribed by yours upon rescript of your national 
 autonomy. 
 
 "Its growth, once so promising, has become 
 painful and pitiable. The upas of human greed 
 and selfishness withers it, and the prophecy of 
 bloom and fruitage is unfulfilled. The animal 
 instinct and the barbarous appetite which 
 reaches after the gaud and tinsel of excessive 
 wealth and accumulation, the two aggressive 
 forms of selfishness combined in one, hold civ- 
 ilization and human progress in check, and 
 may in your case, as in a thousand others, lead 
 
44 INTERMERE. 
 
 back to the fen and morass of primal bar- 
 barism. 
 
 ""No, this is not tlie Paradise of Socialism, as 
 you call it/' said he, interpreting the thread of 
 my thought. ''That is but an idle dream, the 
 recrudescence of primal, undeveloped and un- 
 desirable conditions, which occasionally flashes 
 through irresolute minds, unfitted to solve the 
 great problem of human existence and happi- 
 ness. 
 
 "This is the laud of absolute individuality 
 as well as absolute equality. Every man who 
 reaches maturity becomes the individual owner 
 of property in one or more of its forms, the 
 foundation being the soil for residence or pro- 
 ductive purposes, or both, at his option. All 
 lands are subject to individual ownership, 
 within clearly defined limits, the publi<' do- 
 main being held in reserve to meet new de- 
 mands of increasing population. It is the 
 common property of all until it passes into 
 
INTERMERE. 45 
 
 individual ownership, to be used for agricultu- 
 ral or other purposes, under fixed rules, a spe- 
 cilif proportion of the product, or its equiva- 
 lent, being turned into the common treasury, 
 to prosecute public improvements and for oth- 
 er public purposes. 
 
 "This stands in lieu of taxation in other 
 countries, and it is only on rare occasions that 
 it is necessaji'y to supplement it v>ith a direct 
 tax on the people, except as to the municipal 
 and provincial taxes foi" local purposes, in 
 which case each man of mature age, or twenty- 
 iive years, pays the one hundredth part of his 
 earnings monthly into the treasury, the sum 
 thus paid being evenly divided between the 
 treasuries of the province and municii)al di- 
 vision. When a surjdus ecjual to the previous 
 year's exi)enditures accumu]at(^s this tax is re- 
 mitted for the ensuing year. 
 
 "A man may ov^ii a liouu- and a separate 
 farm or garden, or business or manufacturing 
 
46 INTERMERE. 
 
 site; nor may he engage in more than one busi- 
 ness or employment, except the public service, 
 at the same time. He may change from one 
 line of business to another, but may not buy 
 or sell real estate for mere speculation. He 
 may not acquire property other than his earn- 
 ings until he reaches maturity, and designs to 
 marry and become the head of a family. If 
 his intent fail, or remains unfulfilled for three 
 years, the home thus acquired becomes public 
 property, and ma}' be sold to another who as- 
 sumes the marital relation, and the proceeds 
 divided equally between the municipal treas- 
 ury or bank and the former owner. 
 
 ''Residences may be exchanged, as may 
 farms, gardens, business sites and factories, 
 including the line of business or manufactur- 
 ing, but neither may be alienated by the owner, 
 except with the approval of the Custodian of 
 the Municipality upon a satisfactory showing 
 of the reasons therefor. 
 
INTERMERE. 47 
 
 "All persons of both sexes must take up an 
 occupation at the age of twenty, and continue 
 therein, or in some other occupation, until sixty 
 years of age, unless incapacitated, and deposit 
 in the municipal bank or treasury at least one- 
 twentieth of their monthly earnings. At sixty 
 they nuiy retire from active life, and their ac- 
 cumulations are subject to their wants and de- 
 mands under salutary rules. The residue, along 
 with their other personal property, is distrib- 
 uted pro rata among their direct descendants, 
 and if there be none, it is turned into the gen- 
 eral treasury of the Commonwealth. 
 
 "Women are entitled to their earnings, but 
 may not own real estate, the policy being that 
 men shall be the home-makers and women the 
 home-keepers. The wife is entitled to the pre- 
 vailing wage from her husband for attending 
 to his household affairs, in addition to the oth- 
 er provisions for household matters and (jcono- 
 mies which he must make. 
 
48 INTERMERE. 
 
 "Under our system there is neither opulence 
 nor poverty in the land. Great wealth has no 
 existence with us, and therefore has no allure- 
 ments. Charity is not a gaunt pack-horse, over- 
 loaded with offerings which come after the 
 eleventh hour. The equality of opportunity 
 closes every inlet to the wolves of Hunger and 
 Poverty which ravage other lands amid the 
 riotous revelry of the unjustly opulent. We 
 have had, at intervals, persons who rebelled, 
 through recurrent heredity perhaps, against 
 our admirable system, and to them we admin- 
 ister lex dernier — they are transported to some 
 other land, by methods known only to our- 
 selves, there to mingle with a new people, with 
 but a faint conception of their nativity. They 
 constitute those mysterious beings found in all 
 other countries, whose origin is forever hidden, 
 and as a rule they are excellent and strangely 
 wise citizens, for they are permitted to carry 
 with them much of the knowledge, with some 
 
INTERMERE. 49 
 
 of llio wisdom, of their ancestry." 
 
 I shall abbreviate much that Xamas gave in 
 great detail. From him I learned that every 
 male is entitled to participate in all public af- 
 fairs, including the right of franchise. All are 
 eligible to office. The Commonwealth is com- 
 posed of twenty-four provinces, each province 
 being composed of twelve municipal divisions. 
 
 The elective officers are, in their order: 
 1. First Citizen ol the Commouwealth. '2. Chief 
 Citizen of the Province. 8. Custodian of the 
 Municipality. 
 
 The First Citizen is the executive head of 
 the Commonwealth, serves but a single year, 
 and is not eligible to re-election. The Chief 
 Citizens, or executives of the provinces, con- 
 stitute his Board of Counselors to determine 
 all matters affecting the public welfare and 
 to select the various Curators of the divisional 
 interests of the entire Commonwealth. They 
 meet to perform these duties twice each year, 
 
50 INTERMERE. 
 
 alternating between the Greater and Lesser 
 
 Cities. 
 
 The Chief Citizens are the executive heads 
 of the Provinces, the Custodians of the Munic- 
 ipalities constituting their respective Boards 
 of Counsellors, They, too, meet twice each 
 year to consider and determine matters of 
 provincial interest, and to decide all questions 
 of difference which may come up from the 
 Municipalities. Their tenure of office is two 
 years, and they are not eligible to re-election. 
 
 The Custodians are the sole heads of the 
 Municipalities, and decide all questions arising 
 therein, and appeal lies from their decisions 
 to the Provincial Board of Counsellors, who 
 determine the question finally. They hold the 
 oflBce three years, and may not be re-elected. 
 The above officials appoint all the necessary 
 clerical and other assistants necessary to carry 
 out the duties imposed on them. 
 
 None of the elective officers receive salaries, 
 
INTERMERE. 51 
 
 but are allowed out of their respective treas- 
 uries 20 media f)er day for all necessary ex- 
 penses. 
 
 The media is equivalent to 20 cents Ameri- 
 can currency, and is the unit of exchange. It 
 is divided inio four tMjua! i)ails, (he coin being 
 designated quatro, while a third coin, equiva- 
 lent to 5 media, is denominated cinque, so 
 that the three coins are (luatro, silver; media, 
 gold; and cinque, gold and i)latinum in equal 
 parts, of nearly equal size and weight, repre- 
 senting live, twenty, and one hundred cents of 
 our currency, and nearly the size of an Ameri- 
 can quarter-dollar. 
 
 Twenty media is the wage of the master 
 artisan, and 15 media the wage of all other 
 males. Females receive a wage of from 8 to 15 
 media. The nuister artisan's wage is the com- 
 pensation of all official assistants in whatever 
 capacity, as well as the expense allowance of 
 the actual officials. 
 
52 INTERMERE. 
 
 In addition to the above officials of the Com- 
 monwealth there are: Curator of Revenues; 
 Curator of Works and Politj'; Curator of 
 Ivearning and Progress; Curator of Scientific 
 Research and Application, and Curator of Use- 
 ful Mechanical Devices. Their duties are sug- 
 gested by their titles. They receive the ex- 
 pense allowance, no salaries, are chosen for 
 terms of stven years, ineligible to a second 
 term, by the First Citizen and his Counsellors, 
 and appoint their own subordinates and as- 
 sistants. 
 
 There is a Curator of Revenue appointed by 
 the Chief Citizen of each Province to care for 
 the provincial, and by the Municipal Custo- 
 dian to care for the Municipal revenues. 
 
 The marriageable age of men is from 25 to 
 30, and women from 20 to 25. The offspring 
 of the mariage relation varies from two to six, 
 seldom less than two, or more than six, the 
 average being four, hence population increases 
 
INTERMERE. 53 
 
 slowly, while the great majoritiy live from 80 
 to 100 years, retaining both ])hysi(al and men- 
 tal faculties to the last. 
 
 "There is no mercenary incentive to hold 
 oflflce," said Xamas, "and it is absolutely open 
 to all, and men leave it, not with regret, but 
 with the consciousness of having performed 
 a necessary duty and service. Three months 
 hence I will leave the chief office of the State, 
 and resume my occupation as mechanical en- 
 gineer under one with, whom I have been for 
 a score or more of j^ears. He is now my Sec- 
 retary, but that is nothing unusual. It is a 
 leading part of our history, 
 
 ''But it is time for rest. You have an im- 
 portant engagement with Maros, our Curator 
 of Scientific Research and Application, to 
 morrow morning, and he exacts promptitude." 
 
III. 
 
 MAROS PLACES ANDERTON IN 
 COMMUNICATION WITH HIS 
 MOTHER, AND DISSIPATES HIS 
 SUPERSTITIOUS IDEAS AND 
 OTHERWISE ENLIGHTENS HIM 
 AS TO THE POSSIBILITIES OF 
 SCIENCE. 
 
INTERMERE. 
 
 III. 
 
 A DAY WITH MAROS. 
 
 I CALLED ON MAROS, the Curator of Sci- 
 entfir Research and Application, as per ap- 
 pointment, and found him surrounded with 
 everything calculated to contribute to the en- 
 joyments of earthly existence. His residence 
 differed in many respects from that of Xamas. 
 All its appointments and environments were 
 in the most exquisite taste. But this may be 
 said, once for all, of every i rivate residence 
 and public edifice in Intermere. The taste of 
 architects and occupants differed, but all were 
 on lines of beauty, comfort and convenience. 
 
 There is no luxury in Intermere, as we use 
 the term. Luxury is a merely comparative 
 term in the rest of the world, distiuguishing 
 
56 INTERMERE. 
 
 thiose who have much from those who have 
 little or nothing. Here every rational taste 
 is gratified in all particulars. The people have 
 clearly discovered the hidden springs of Na- 
 ture's kindly intentions toward man, and util- 
 ize them at individual and collective will. 
 
 ''You are prompt," said Maros, seating me 
 in his study. "Let us proceed with the mat- 
 ter in which you are interested." 
 
 He placed before me a perfectly drawn map 
 of a section of the United States, embracing 
 the place of my nativity, and asked me to point 
 out the exact vicinity of my mother's home. I 
 found it readily. 
 
 "The point you now occupy is the lineal op- 
 posite. Tuin to the point, or direction, you 
 have designated, and direct your concentrated 
 thought there. If a responsive impression 
 comes to you, communicate its purport to me." 
 
 I sat in silent thought a few mouients, Ma- 
 ros closely regarding me. 
 
INTERMERE. 57 
 
 -I am impressed that my mother is pros- 
 trated with grief; that she has just learned of 
 the death of my kinsman; that rumors of the 
 loss of the Mistletoe have reached her, being 
 first cabled from Singapore to New York, and 
 from thence transmitted to the press, and that 
 she is impressed with the belief that I, too, am 
 dead. I fear that she will not survive the dou- 
 ble shock." 
 
 "Frame such a thought as you would wish 
 impressed upon yonr mother's consciousness 
 and faith, and tell me what follows." 
 
 This is the thought I framed: "Mother, I am 
 alive and well in an unknown land, surrounded 
 by kind friends, and will ere long return to 
 
 you." 
 
 Later to Maros: "I am convinced. My moth- 
 er has pai-tially recovered from the shock. My 
 death would have been the fatal blow. She 
 smiles with pious resignation, through the 
 tempest of hier grief, and extends her arms as 
 
58 INTERMERE. 
 
 if to embrace me. This, however, is wholly an 
 impression; I do not see or hear her, but we 
 seem to stand face to face, and both realize it." 
 
 "Give yourself no further concern, nor seek 
 further communication with her until you 
 meet her in person. She knows you are alive 
 and will return to her. Nothing she will hear 
 will change that belief." 
 
 "Tell me by what divine or celestial power 
 I am thus enabled to project my thoughts 
 across unknown seas and continents, and re- 
 ceive responsive thoughts. Only supernatural 
 agencies could accomplish this." 
 
 "You have what you call the telephone?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "You communicate alike with friends and 
 strangers hundreds of miles distant in an ordi- 
 nary tone of voice?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Is that supernatural?" 
 
 "No; it is the result of scientific achievement 
 
INTERMERE. 59 
 
 and natural phenomena." 
 
 -Would one, coming out of the depths of ab- 
 solute ignorance of scientific achievement, as 
 you call it, regard it as a supernatural 
 agency?" 
 
 -He undouotedly would." 
 ''What would you think of his conclusion?" 
 ••That it was the result of superstition." 
 "And yet you who have just stepped out of 
 the dawn into the full day; you who have trans- 
 mitted uttered thoughts to remote distances 
 through a coarse steel or copper wire and re- 
 ceived other uttered thoughts in return, re- 
 gard with superstitious awe, as supernatural, 
 what you have just experienced. W^herein do 
 you differ from the untutored barbarian?" 
 I sat in silence. 
 
 •The telephone wire is to the thread of sen- 
 tient thought which may span the universe 
 itself, what the horseback mail-rider is to your 
 modern methods of communication — what the 
 
60 INTERMERE. 
 
 earliest dawn is to the full day." 
 
 Maros explained at full length how he be- 
 came possessed of the knowledge of my iden- 
 tity, family connections and my misfortunes, 
 Hunimiug up: 
 
 "When you were found in the remote and 
 outer ocean and brought within the precincts 
 of Intermere, you were physically unconscious, 
 but still possessing partially dormant mental 
 faculties; that is, you continued to think feebly 
 and intermittently. We traced your two in- 
 termittent lines of thought to your mother in 
 America, and to, or rather toward, your kins- 
 nuin at some unknown point. Tracing again 
 to your parent we learned that Marshall had 
 accompanied the American expeition to China 
 from Manila. Following this clew, we ascer- 
 tained that he had been killed, and that that 
 fact would reach his home in due course, as 
 well as the fact that information of the loss 
 of your ship would reach America almost 
 
INTERMERE. 61 
 
 simultaneously. What your mother now re- 
 gards as premonitions of impending evil or 
 misfortunes were communications with her 
 consciousness, far more refined and perfect 
 than the subsequent cable communications, 
 but quite as natural, and in no sense super- 
 natural." 
 
 "This is indeed amazing!" I exclaimed. 
 
 He further said thai this was an individual 
 case and purely the result of my condition. 
 "We do not seek, as a rule, knowledge of indi- 
 vidualities in the outside world, but confine 
 (■•ur inquiries to matters of general moment. 
 W'v know of the steps of progress, retrogres- 
 sion, of savagery and butchery and wrong and 
 oppression which dominate an embryotic civili- 
 zation. Amuse yourself for a time with the 
 pictures .md tapestries, and I will give you a 
 record of the outer world's important matters 
 of yesterday." 
 
 He opened a cabinet, and assumed the niein 
 
62 INTERMERE. 
 
 of expectant inquiry and meditation. Soon 
 liis hands began to move with rhythmic rapid- 
 ity over the curiously inlaid center of the flat 
 surface of the open cabinet. At the end of ten 
 or fifteen minutes his manipulations ceased, 
 a compartment above noiselessly opened, and 
 eight beautifully printed pages, four by six 
 inches, bound in the form of a booklet, fell 
 ujton the table. 
 
 It was printed in characters more gi'aceful 
 than our own Roman letters, from which they 
 might have been evolved, or the Roman Alpha- 
 bet might have deteriorated from what ap- 
 peared before me. The English language was 
 not used, and yet I could readily read and 
 comprehend the lines. The pages before me 
 comjtrised a compendium of yesterday's doings 
 of the entire world, and included a note of my 
 own cajse. 
 
 They told of all the military operations in 
 China, in the Philippines, in South Africa, 
 
INTERMERE. 63 
 
 in the far East and in the remote West; of 
 labor troubles in the mining districts of Amer- 
 ica; the strike of the textile operatives on our 
 Atlantic border; the unrest of the Finns and 
 Slavs; of plots and counterplots, and political 
 assassination and revolution, attempted or ac- 
 complished, and the full catalogue of such hap- 
 penings, with now and then a flash of loftier 
 Mvilization. 
 
 ^'What you read is being reproduced in ev- 
 ery divisional municipality of the Common- 
 wealth, with such a number T)f instantaneous 
 duplications as may be required for the pe- 
 rusal and study of all who desire to compare 
 tinseled and ornamented barbarism with true 
 civilization. 
 
 "Selfishness, oppression, slaughter, pride, 
 coufiucst, greed, vanity, self-adulation and 
 base passions make up ninety-nine one-hun- 
 dr(>dths of this recoid. What a comuicntary 
 on such humanity! To it love, brotherhood 
 
64 INTERMERE. 
 
 aud mutual helpfulness are too trivial for se- 
 rious consideration. 
 
 "The nations and their rulers, differing 
 somewhat as to degree, stand for organized 
 and dominant wrong, based primai'ily on self- 
 ishness — the exact reverse of the conditions 
 that should exist." 
 
 "This," said I, still couteiiiplating the pages, 
 "compares with our newspapers." 
 
 "As two objects may compare with each 
 other as to bulk or form, but iu no other re- 
 spect. This is to promote wisdom. The news- 
 paper to feed vicious or depraved appetite, as 
 well as to conveA' useful information. This is 
 the cold, colorless, passionless record of facts 
 and information, from which knowledge and 
 wisdom may be deduced to some extent. Your 
 newspaper is the opposite, taken iu its entire- 
 ty. It consists of the inextricable mingling 
 together of the good and the bad, of the useful 
 and the useless, and the elevating and the de- 
 
INTERMERE. 65 
 
 grading, the latter always in the ascendant. 
 
 "It foments discord instead of promoting 
 profitable discussion, which is the bridle-path 
 leading- into the highway of wisdom. It is built 
 upon the cornerstone of selfishness, the other 
 name of commercialism, and is thoroughly im- 
 bued with the spirit of greed. 
 
 "It caters to the public demand regardless 
 of the spirit or the depra\'ity behind it. 'Qua- 
 trol Quatrol Quatrol' is the burden of its cry, 
 and for (piatro it is willing to lead the world 
 forward or backward, as the case may be. It 
 has been growing in stature and retrogiading 
 in usefulness for fifty years throughout the 
 world, in all save increasing facilities, and 
 avidity for pandering to the worst and most 
 uncivilized propensities of mankind, and it 
 will probably continue to grow worse for a 
 century to come. 
 
 "Fifty year» ago it was blindly controver- 
 sial, but there was enough of reason in its dis- 
 
66 INTERMERE. 
 
 cussions to give Lope for the future. Now it is 
 a mere mental aud moral refuse oar, aud its so- 
 called religious form is devoted only to a more 
 refined class of refuse, if that expression is 
 allowable. 
 
 ''As a whole, it represents classes and not 
 the whole community; prejudices, and not 
 principles; it advocates selfish, not general in- 
 terests; it panders to petty jealousies; it in- 
 dulges in tittle-tattle in mere wantonness, and 
 has no aim save the grossly materialistic." 
 
 I winced under his fierce arraignment and 
 invective, for I am a. newspaper man myself. 
 
 "I know that I have touched you in a sensi- 
 tive spot, but I speak of the newspaper in a 
 general sense. There are worthy exceptions, 
 despite all the untoward environments; but, 
 unfortunatly, their influence is limited. Your 
 masses read and re-read accounts of how two 
 beings beat each other out of human sem- 
 blance on a wager, and pass, unread and un- 
 
INTERMERE. 67 
 
 noticed, tbo best thoughts of voiii- greatest 
 scientists and piofoiindest thinkers. It is not 
 tlie canaille Avho do this alone, but jour states- 
 men and rulers, men of large affairs and men 
 of the learned professions." 
 
 1 turned the conversation, saying: 
 
 "It is incomprehensible to me how you pro- 
 duced this record of events in so short a time 
 find without apparent mechanical or physical 
 effort." 
 
 "Doubtless, but not more incomprehensible 
 to you than your linotype machines and per- 
 fecting press would have been to Gutteuberg. 
 And your discoveries and inventions would be 
 no more incomprehensible to him than would 
 his types and crude niultiplying press be to 
 the papyrus wriiers, scriveners and hiero- 
 giyphants of the earlier world. 
 
 "The transition from the work of the papy- 
 riaus to the achievements of the Intermereans 
 is the i-esult of that evohition known as scien- 
 
68 INTERMERE. 
 
 tific research into Nature's beneficence, in 
 which mechanical invention is a mere incident, 
 and its application to a high, unselfish and 
 noble purpose, instead of selfish, base and 
 ignoble ends. 
 
 ''We had outstripped your present ideals ages 
 before the Chinese began block printing, or 
 Guttenberg fashioned his types and press. Both 
 these, as well as your own advanced mechan- 
 ism, as well as your every other great achieve- 
 ment in science and research, were the result 
 of the thought-seed sown or diffused from this 
 land, but which fell on absolutely barren soil, 
 or only grew in puny or defective forms, far 
 short of ripening or maturity. 
 
 "Your Franklin comprehended the supreme 
 and all-pervading power and genius of the 
 Universe, the knowledge of and the po\\(>r 1o 
 utilize which makes man godlike, but the 
 dense ignorance and gross materialism of his 
 day prevented him from enlightening his 
 people. 
 
INTERMERE. 69 
 
 "Your Morse concevived and executed the 
 scheme of telegraphic siguals cycles after we 
 had discai'ded it. 
 
 "Your nameless and unknown discoverers, 
 whose weak but apprehending genius was util- 
 ized by Bell, gave you the telephone ages after 
 it had been supplanted here by our more near- 
 ly perfect system of intelligent communica- 
 tion with the entire terrestrial world, and we 
 are now exploring, with it, the adjacent sys- 
 tems of the Universe with promising results. 
 
 "Your Edison and other electrical discover^ 
 ers are more than a cycle behind us, and have 
 as yet but touched the outer surface of the 
 great secret. To them and to others the cur- 
 rent of the Universe is a constant menace and 
 a danger. To us it as gentle and as harmless 
 as the flowers that bloom by the wayside, and 
 responds to our every wish and use with ab- 
 solute tractability. 
 
 "The fault of the rest of the woild is that^ 
 
70 INTERMERE. 
 
 all great discoveries, all the unlockings of Na- 
 ture's treasure-house, are turned to selfish 
 ends, to the aiggrandizement of the few, and 
 the detriment, if not the oppression, of the 
 many; hence civil commotions, wars, tyran- 
 nies, the insolence of opulence, and the failure 
 to carry forward the process of civilization 
 and the elevation of the race by the unselfish 
 aipplication of attained wisdom. The barba- 
 rian spirit of Self is dominant. 
 
 "You were about to ask if you might carry 
 this record home. No. You will be permitted 
 to Inspect it and others similar during your 
 sojourn, and carry their remembrance with 
 you, and thus be enabled to compare them 
 with your own current records of contempo- 
 raneous dates; but that is all. 
 
 'The Western nations have opened their 
 own gates and invited eventual destruction by 
 this apparently temporary invasion of the 
 East. This war, if it mav be so called, will be 
 
INTERMERE. 71 
 
 of short duration, followed by the oppression 
 inseparable from selfish greed, commercialism 
 and the love of conquest and arbitrary power 
 which compels the unwilling obedience of 
 peoples. 
 
 "But the 400,000,000, Chinese and affiliated 
 races, are more insidiously dangerous than, 
 you know. They will cultivate the seed now 
 being sown, and prepare the dragon's harvest 
 of blood. In the remoter provinces they will 
 soon breed soldiers and captains, who will 
 eclipse the bloody and destructive achieve- 
 ments of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, profit- 
 ing by your present superior knowledge of 
 mechanism and the arts of war, which they 
 will api»r()])riate and assimilate, and turn to 
 terrible final account. 
 
 "The commercial greed of the West will be 
 the enemy of the Western peoples themselves. 
 It will fit and arm the aroused avengers for 
 their world-wide invasion and conflict. Selfish 
 
72 INTERMERE. 
 
 capitalists will do this in spite of all inhibi- 
 tions, under the plea of creatinji: prosperous 
 conditions and extending commerce, and their 
 people and their posterity will perish by the 
 enginery which selfish commercial greed 
 placed in the hands of their enemies." 
 
 Maros i)resented me to another official, and 
 politely dismissed me to visit the places of in- 
 terest in the city. Upon my return to America 
 I comi)ared the contemporaneous history of 
 the world with the daily records I had been 
 permitted to inspect, the remembrance of 
 which I vividly retained, and found every fact 
 therein to be absolutely correct. 
 
IV. 
 A TRIP BY AIR AND LAND AND 
 WATER THROUGH THE PROV- 
 IN('ES, riTIES, HAMLETS AND 
 GARDENS, WITH MATCHLESS 
 BEAUTY AND ENJOYMENT ON 
 EVERY HAND. 
 
INTERMERE. 75 
 
 IV. 
 
 A TOUR OF SIGHT-SEEING. 
 
 WHAT A WONDERFUL land is Intermere, 
 and what a wonderful people live and enjoy 
 life in it to the full! 
 
 Twenty days of yisiting ten of the interior 
 provinces, bordering on thie mere, was more 
 like a dream of happiness, sight-seeing and in- 
 describable enjoyment to me than a reality. 
 Foi- reasons not explained to me I was not car- 
 ried into the fourteen remaining provinces, 
 which evidently lay in all directions toward the 
 exterior borders of the land. I rather suspect 
 that this was because it might have enabled 
 nie 1o form some definite idea of the geograph- 
 ical location of Intermere. 
 
 What I saw and experienced I still retain 
 
76 INTERMERE. 
 
 as a beautiful and ineffaceable memory, but it 
 is a picture I can not wholly rej^roduce or de- 
 scribe in anything like complete details. 1 
 can at best only give the impressions I still 
 retain. 
 
 The delightful journey was under the direc- 
 tion of Karmas, the Custodian of Works and 
 Polity, accompanied by other chief officers, 
 and the officials of the provinces, the title and 
 character of which had already been given me 
 by Xamas. 
 
 They have three modes of travel: by Medo- 
 car, by Aerocar, and by Merocar. By the first 
 you travel on land ; by the second through the 
 air; by the third on the water. While these 
 vehicles of transportation are divided into 
 three general classes as designated, they com- 
 prise thousands of beautiful and curious de- 
 signs, upon which individual names are be- 
 stowed, as we bestow names upon our horses 
 and our shops. 
 
INTERMERE. 77 
 
 There is no preference as to the mode and 
 method of journeying. Each of them seems 
 absolutely perfect. There is no physical sense 
 of motion in either, as we realize it. 
 
 They glide over the broad, smooth and per- 
 fectly kept roadways, thiough the depths of 
 the ether, or along the waters, with the same 
 imperceptible motion, and can be put to a rate 
 of speed that makes our limited railway trains 
 seem like lumbering farm wagons. All resist- 
 ance of the elements seems absolutely over- 
 come. 
 
 The power of propulsion was wholly incom- 
 prehensible at first, and later I was only able 
 to learn as to its principle, and left wholly to 
 conjecture as to its application. 
 
 Roadways, or, perhaps more properly, boule- 
 vards, interlace the whole country. They are 
 the perfection of road-building — smooth, even- 
 crowned, and free from dust, water or other 
 offensive substance. The surface is like a 
 
78 INTERMERE. 
 
 newl}' asphalted street, but Lard aud imper- 
 vious, with no depressions, cracks or flaws. 
 The engineering could hardly be improved 
 on. Accepting the statements made to me 
 that the most of these highways have been in 
 use for centuries, with few if any repairs, they 
 may be looked on as not only permanent but 
 indestructible. 
 
 Thte purpose of each of them is self-evident. 
 Every rod of it is for use and to meet some 
 requirement that presents itself. They are 
 bordered, wherever they extend, with beauti- 
 ful homes, monuments and temples, commem- 
 orative of some great achievement in civiliza- 
 tion and progress. 
 
 The residential grounds, farms and gardens 
 are marvels of exquisite taste without an ex- 
 ception, so far as I was able to note, modeled 
 after countless designs, which give the earth's 
 surface a versatility of beauty that is en- 
 chanting. 
 
INTERMERE. 79 
 
 There are farms and gardens everywhere ex- 
 cept in a limited number of the compact 
 squares of cities, small and perfectly kept, and 
 productive in a sense and to a degree abso- 
 lutely incredible to the dwellers of any other 
 laud. 
 
 As to these roadways: They are of the uni- 
 form width of two hundred feet wherever you 
 find them, whether skirting sea, lake or river, 
 penetrating valleys or clambering around and 
 around the ascent of the mountains from base 
 to apex, where some monument or temple, or 
 both, are perched, overlooking hundreds of 
 square miles. 
 
 As alrcnidy stated, they are (everywhere as 
 smooth and kept as clean as a tiled floor, with 
 a sense or (juality of elasticity, and seemingly 
 indestruclible. I Avould have regarded them 
 ;is natural i)heuomena had 1 not seen a moun- 
 laiu being terraced and a roadway being 
 graded and finished without any of the para- 
 
80 INTERMERE. 
 
 phernalia of our own methods of engiueeriug 
 and construction. 
 
 Earth and rock seemed to melt and become 
 mobile under the influence of some unseen 
 power, and gangs of men, following with lev- 
 elers of light machinery, modulated the grades 
 and contours of the crumbled rock and soil. 
 Others followed these, compounding, expand- 
 ing and laying down a plastic and rapidly 
 hardening envelope, thus finishing the surface 
 like the roads over which we were gliding, 
 some of which, I was told, had been in use for 
 many centuries without the slightest change 
 of condition. 
 
 I expressed a doubt as to their longevity. 
 
 Karmas smiled and said: 
 
 "You judge by experience. In your cities 
 you import material from some distant coun- 
 try or island, and by mechanical manipulation 
 and chemical combination and processes fit it 
 to be laid down as a pavement. When finished 
 
INTERMERE. 81 
 
 it looks almost as smootli and beautiful as 
 yonder landway being newly constructed to 
 accommodate the expanding population of the 
 district. But the resemblance ends here. 
 
 "Your chemists and engineers and construct- 
 ors have only the crudest ideas of landway or 
 terraneous works. The asphalt is a sugges- 
 tion, but the builder's compound turns it in 
 the direction of deterioration. Instead of go- 
 ing forward, they go backward. They know 
 little of the character of the materials they 
 seek to utilize, and nothing of the true princi- 
 ples of chemical combination. 
 
 "Our material is at hand, as it is at hand 
 everywhere, containing the elements which 
 need only to be properly combined and assim- 
 ilated to become practically indestructible. 
 
 "You take a clay, and by machinery, crude 
 perhaps, reduce it to dust, then moisten it back 
 into pliable clay, fashion it, subject it to an 
 intense but unrefined heat, and you have what 
 
82 INTERMERE. 
 
 will retain its form and consistence for centu- 
 ries, and resist the elemental attacks longer 
 even than granite. This is but the dawn of 
 possibilities. The semi-barbarous, thousands 
 of years ago, went further and made them flex- 
 ible as well as durable. Their discoveries were 
 long ago forgotten. 
 
 ''Your people never go beyond the point of 
 discovery. They stop short of the possibilities. 
 They lose these possibilities in material and 
 commercial utilization. Ego stands between 
 the discoverer and the world, and progress 
 ends. 
 
 "While the rest of the world has thus, again 
 and again, stood still on the threshold, or 
 moved backward or forward intermittently, for 
 obvious and selfish reasons, we have steadily 
 moved forward in scientific discovery and re- 
 search, and the application of great principles. 
 
 "The example is before you. Without any 
 of your (iiide and cumbersome machinery, the 
 
INTERMERE. 83 
 
 mountain is being terraced and fitted for the 
 abode of man, the elemental constituents are 
 being disintegrated, properly disposed, rear- 
 ranged and the surface recombined in a new 
 fonn and proportion by natural laws, and re- 
 mote generations will find yonder land way as 
 our workmen will leave it. They could level 
 the mountain as readily as they terrace it, dis- 
 tributing it over the adjacent plain, leaving it 
 a level and fertile glebe, instead of a towering 
 height of lock and sand overspread with soil. 
 
 "All that you see or will see is the result of 
 knowledge and wisdom turned to noble and 
 unselfish ends for the common betterment and 
 elevation of the race. 
 
 "Vour prttgenitors learned to dig th(^ hard 
 and soft ores fiom the earth and produce iron, 
 then took a step forward and converted it into 
 steel, of grealer sliength an durability, cai»a- 
 ble of light forms and high polish, and there 
 you have stopped at the very beginning. You 
 
84 INTER MERE. 
 
 are incapable of saving your own handiwork 
 from disintegration. The elements corrode 
 your finest steel products, and they flake away 
 to the original conditions of the crude ore, los- 
 ing a large proportion of their original virtues 
 and constituents. We have, on the contrary, 
 gone forward to the ultimate. 
 
 "You have denuded your lands of forests to 
 use as a cumbersome material for building, 
 and furniture and other purposes, the wood, 
 which decays and is soon destroyed. You 
 have, without understanding the process, mac- 
 erated and reduced woods to a pulp and fash- 
 ioned it into paper, which in several forms you 
 utilize, but you have stopped at the beginning 
 of the journey. 
 
 ''We have carried it forward, and a large 
 proportion of the material used in the con- 
 struction of our houses and furniture and 
 bridges and cars are the product of our forests 
 in a new and better and more enduring form — 
 
INTERMERE. 85 
 
 light and capable of the most graceful fashion- 
 ing. This is used in combination with the 
 metals in all departments of our economies." 
 
 I had already noticed the fact that but little 
 of the woodwork was in the natural form, and 
 that while it was incredulously light, it was 
 incredibly strong. The same was true of the 
 wrought metals, all of which differed from our 
 own forms. 
 
 In my examinations of the bridges across 
 streams, both large and small, I noted the fact 
 that they were constructed in about equal 
 parts of wood, or a substance I took therefor, 
 and metal, differing greatly from the metals 
 we use, yet not wholly unlike them. Both ma- 
 terials were of tubular construction, appear- 
 ing almost fragile in their lightness, but 
 strong and firm, and showing none of the rav- 
 ages of time and the elements. 
 
 So far as I w^as able to judge no paints were 
 used, but everything was perfectly polished. 
 The bridges were light, airy constructions, 
 
86 INTERMERE. 
 
 swung from lofty and graceful piers, a span 
 of a thfOusand feet appearing to be as firm and 
 strong asi one of fifty. 
 
 I also noticed that in their construction of 
 cars, furniture, houses, and the like, the woods 
 and metals were indiscriminately used, more 
 for beauty and ornamentation, perhaps, than 
 for strengthening purposes or utility. Light- 
 ness and gracefulness were in evidence every- 
 where. There were panels and inlays of wood 
 in its natural state, highly wrought and pol- 
 ished, as hard and impervious as the metals. 
 
 "You seem to be able to make everything 
 indestructible," I said to Karmas. | 
 
 "It is your privilege to draw your own con- 
 clusions," was his reply. 
 
 The people I met and mingled with, both 
 men and women, were superb specimens of the 
 human race, full of life, full of hope, full of 
 high ambitions, and capable of infiinite en- 
 joyments. 
 
INTERMERE. 87 
 
 Games, sports and social amenities were the 
 order of their daily life, albeit every one of 
 them engaged in some laborious or businessi 
 occupation during a part of each day. I learned 
 that under their system of economy less than 
 four hours out of the twenty-four were neces- 
 sary for the comfort, sustenance and require- 
 ments of each adult, so that labor did not de- 
 generate into slavery. Every fifth day was a 
 holiday, during which no labor was performed, 
 except such as was necessary for the enjoy- 
 ments of the day. 
 
 Manufacturing and business of different 
 kinds were diffused in proportion to the popu- 
 lation. There were no great factories or busi- 
 ness houses, but innumerable small ones. No 
 manufacturer employed more than ten per- 
 sons, usually but five, and two or three em- 
 ployes were suflicient for the business houses. 
 
 The remarkable discoveries and inventions 
 of tlu' land rc\'olul ionized all our ideas of man- 
 
88 INTERMERE. 
 
 ual labor and mechanics. Heavy and bulky 
 macliiueiy is entirely unknown. 
 
 There were no smoking furnaces, no clangor 
 of machinery. The factory was as neat and 
 practically as noiseless as the private home. 
 Useful and necessary devices and machinery 
 were turned out as quietly as a housewife dis- 
 poses of her routine labors. Science had ap- 
 parently solved the rough and knotty problem 
 of labor and production. 
 
 Nowhere did 1 see a furnace; in fact, fire was 
 visible nowhere; and yet I could see its offices 
 performed everywhere. I asked Karmas to 
 explain the phenomena. 
 
 "That," he replied, "will be explained to you 
 by Remo, Custodian of Useful Mechanical De- 
 vices. That is his oflScial sphere." 
 
 Another incredible phenomenon presented 
 itself during the journey. We passed through 
 one province early in that journey, and my at- 
 tention was called to the fact that the farmers 
 
INTERMERE. 89 
 
 were sowing their cereals, which, by the way, 
 j^reatly resemble our own, but in a much high- 
 er state of cultivation and infinitely more nu- 
 tritious. 
 
 Ten days later we repassed the same spot, 
 and they were harvesting the ripened grain. 
 
 ''In my country," I said to Karmas, "from 
 ei<;ht to ten months, dependent upon the sea- 
 son, elapses between the sowing and the har- 
 vesting of wheat. Here the period is reduced 
 to from eight to ten days. I can not under- 
 stand the discrepancy." 
 
 *'But it is an absolute mystery to you?" 
 
 "It is." 
 
 "And yet your own people have approached 
 the twilight of its solution. By selection of 
 seeds and combination of soils, and other per- 
 fectly natural processes, they have been able 
 to change the nature of vegetation and pro- 
 duce new vegetable being. The period for the 
 growth and maturing of nearly all your grains 
 
90 INTERMERE. 
 
 and vegetables has been perceptibly shortened, 
 and entirely new forms produted, within the 
 past century, and largely within the period of 
 your own lifetime. 
 
 "Your floriculturists and horticulturists 
 h(aye carried the evolution the furthest, and 
 yet they do not even faintly comprehend the 
 real principle which produces results. We un- 
 derstand and intelligently apply it. Hence 
 with us but ten days elapse between seedtime 
 and haiAest, and shorter periods in the pro- 
 duction of our common vegetables. 
 
 "We are able to produce flowers of all shapes 
 and colors at will, and with the absolute cer- 
 tainty of the operation of fixed and immutable 
 laws, while your florists, groping in the dark, 
 occasionally stumble on a result, knowing 
 nothing of the law that produces it, and give 
 their fellows a nine-days' wonder. 
 
 "Yesterday you asked me why all the farms 
 were so diminutiv(> — 'merely a ten-acre field,' 
 
INTERMERE. 91 
 
 as yon expressed it. The explanation is before 
 you. Each of these small farms is c-apable of 
 producing food for one thousand persons with 
 their constantly duplicated crops. There is 
 i-oom for a million such farms in the Common- 
 wealth, without impinging upon the residen- 
 tial demesnes or cities. 
 
 "There is no need to put these farms to the 
 full test of their productiveness. The twen- 
 tieth part suffices. We have a population of 
 50,000, Odd, increasing at the rate of scarcely 
 one per cent each year, and two-thirds of the 
 Commonwealth is public domain, for the ben- 
 efit of the countless generations yet unborn. 
 Each year and each day brings their immedi- 
 ate needs, and they are met with plenteous 
 fullness." 
 
 Karmas later gave me a fuller idea of the 
 general polity of the Comonwealth. 
 
 All men become voters at 25, If thiey are 
 
92 INTERMERE. 
 
 married, and participate in the choice of oflfi- 
 cers. All are eligible to office. On the day 
 fixed for the election of public officials the 
 voter calis up the office of the Municipal Cus- 
 todian and registers his choice in the ballot- 
 receiver, which automatically records, and at 
 the end of the balloting announces the result. 
 If for provincial officers, it is instantaneously 
 transmitted to the capital of the province, and 
 if for Commonwealth officers to the Greater 
 City. In our land this would open the door to 
 fraud, but in Intermere there is neither fraud 
 nor chicane. 
 
 There are no armies, no warships, no police, 
 no peace or distress officers, and no courts and 
 no lawyers, fc^ometimes citizens may differ, as 
 they differ in other lands, as to their respective 
 rights or obligations. In such case they re- 
 pair to the Municipal Custodian and state the 
 respective sides of their case. The Custodian 
 decides at uuce, and that ends forever the con- 
 
INTERMERE. 93 
 
 troveisy, unless one or the other appeals to 
 the Chief Citizen of the Province and his 
 Counselors, who consider the original state- 
 ments submitted to the Custodian and render 
 the final judgment. It is seldom an appeal is 
 taken, and seldom that an original decision is 
 revised. 
 
 The educational period continues from birth 
 to 20 years of age, in what may be called a 
 common school, held in the temples, which all 
 enter at the age of ten. 
 
 The spheres of the two sexes are clearly 
 marked, and both live within them, that of the 
 female being regarded as the highest and most 
 sacred. The men make the homes and the 
 women care for and beautify them, and re- 
 ceive the homage universally accorded them. 
 
 Neither sex looks upon necessary' labor as a 
 drudgery or in iinj manner degrading. They 
 all receive a like education, and the superior 
 mental equipment invariably asserts itself in 
 
94 INTERMERE. 
 
 some appropriate direction. 
 
 Almost invariably the children of the house- 
 hold marry in the order of their birth, being ab- 
 solutely free to choose their mates. There are 
 no marriages for convenience and no second 
 marriages. All are the result of affection and 
 natural affinity. 
 
 The last child to marry inherits the home- 
 stead at the death of the father. The surviv- 
 ing mother becomes the Preferred Guest ol her 
 child during the remainder of her life, and is 
 treated as such. If the father survives, he 
 retains his position as head of the household. 
 The personal estate of a deceased parent is 
 divided equally among the children. 
 
 "In short," said Karmas, "We aim to dispose 
 the burdens and distribute the enjoyments of 
 life equally and justly among all. 
 
 "Tomorrow we will be accompanied by Al- 
 paz, the Curator of Learning and Progress, 
 who will answer the other questions in your 
 mind." 
 
V. 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE, AND 
 THE FACULTY OF ITS ENJOY- 
 MENT AS PERSONIFED IN THE 
 PERSONS AND VOCATIONS OF 
 THE ENTERTAINERS. 
 
INTERMERE. 97 
 
 V. 
 
 SOME OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 
 
 THE ENVIRONMENTS of life have much 
 to do with its philosophy. This thought im- 
 pressed itself forcibly ou me in Intermere. 
 
 The environments of its people contribute 
 much, if not most, to their philosophy, or the 
 faculty of life's enjoyments. 
 
 They are pleasantly housed, handsomely 
 habilitated, physically and intellectually em- 
 ployed, sans the driving spur of necessity oi^ 
 greed, with profound and earnest aspirations 
 beyond their p-resent stage of existence. This 
 is not confined to the few, but animates and 
 elevates all. 
 
 Learning, in a loftier sense than we under- 
 sl;ind the term; art, music and all thr senses 
 
98 INTERMERE. 
 
 of physical aud mental enjoyment, and the pro- 
 motion of all of them, are pitched in a high 
 and harmonious key. 
 
 Personal adornment and physical beauty in 
 both, sexes have no tinge of vanity, and awake 
 no envy in others. Intermerean dress and its 
 adjuncts are as closely looked after as their 
 wonderful mechanism and its mysterious soul 
 or motor-spirit, which enables them to travel 
 with celerity and safety by land or air or sea, 
 or that subtler principle by which men and 
 women, separated by distance, talk to (^acli 
 other by thought instead of speech, and would 
 render the clumsy deception of our own diplo- 
 mats and other hypocrites an impossibility. 
 
 The clothing of the Interemereans, wrought 
 from native materials not wholly unlike, ex- 
 cept as to quality, those utilized by other peo- 
 ples, is of a texture and finish beyond the con- 
 ception of the outer world, and of such colors 
 aud combinations of tints as to breathe, as it 
 
INTER MERE. 99 
 
 were, both art and aptitude. 
 
 The garments of both sexes more nearly re- 
 semble those in Europe and America than any 
 others, and yet they are verj' unlike in strik- 
 ing points. Speaking of this similitude, I nmy 
 say that the polity and institutions, and men- 
 tal and physical characteristics of the people 
 who live under them, more nearly resemble 
 those of America than of any other nation or 
 I>eople. 
 
 But at that, how wide and deep and appar- 
 ently impassable is the gulf that separates 
 them. Ours is but the faint promise; theirs 
 the fulfillment of the completed prophecy. 
 
 Did we start on the journey? Have we 
 halted just beyond the first milestone? Will 
 the journe}' be resumed? Will our remoter 
 generations reach the intima Thule? What 
 splendid hope or what illimitable despair and 
 misery depend upon the Sphinx's answer to 
 these^ questions! 
 
100 INTERMERE. 
 
 While Intermere is not sown with diamonds 
 and pearls and precious stones and metals, 
 they were to be seen in profusion everywhere, 
 not as matters of garish display, but of artistic 
 taste. I doubt not that the Intermereans, 
 through their successful study of Nature, pos- 
 sess the Philosopher's Stone, capable of com- 
 bining and transmuting every substance into 
 the riches for which men die and women sacri- 
 fice more than life, and nations crush nations, 
 and peoples destroy peoples, gathering the 
 Dead Sea fruits that turn to bitter ashes on 
 their lips. 
 
 These people place no more commercial 
 value upon these than they do upon the tints 
 of the rainbow, or the purple haze that hangs 
 like a halo above the mountain tops. To them 
 they are but artistic types of beauty that add 
 to life's true enjoyments. 
 
 In mingling socially with the men and 
 women — thej do not speak of them as ladies 
 
INTERMERE. 101 
 
 and gentlemen — of Intermere, I was struck 
 with their ease and delicate frankness of en- 
 tertainment. They were very human indeed 
 in every way. There was no affectation in 
 speech or manner. They were good listeners 
 as well as good talkers, fond of art and the 
 lofty literature in which they were naturally 
 at home; anxious to learn something about the 
 outside world from their visitor, and yet not 
 inquisitive, never asking an embarrassing 
 question. 
 
 Their literary and social entertainments, 
 many of which I attended, while altogether 
 new and strange to me, were none the less 
 thoroughly enjoyable. Their social games 
 were unique — to me — and in all respects I was 
 struck with their great superiority, and 
 forcibly impressed with the belief that their 
 lives were indeed worth living. 
 
 Their conceptions of art were of the highest 
 and most <>xnlt(Ml character. Their tastes were 
 
102 INTERMERE. 
 
 not only refined but sublimated, and I felt 
 abashed at my own inability to follow them 
 rapidly, or fully comprehend them on the 
 moment. 
 
 The women were splendid types of physical 
 beauty as well as mental endowment; the men 
 were trained athletes, and the devotees of 
 physical as well as mental culture, and I 
 watched with| keen zest their prowess in the 
 athletic games everywhere indulged in. I did 
 not see a physical, mental or moral derelict in 
 the land. All were robust and perfectly 
 formed. 
 
 There were no clases. Laborers and oflfi- 
 cials met on an equal footing. There were no 
 telltale differences in dress to indicate sets, 
 circles, position or titles among the men. The 
 same was true of the women. Mental supe- 
 riority or maturity was discernible to me and 
 recognized on every hiand, not to be envied or 
 decried, but to serve as the i-uide to other feet. 
 
INTERMERE. 103 
 
 And all this was easily reconcilable to me. 
 All were coequal laborers. All were coequal 
 sharers of the common benefits of their gov- 
 ernmental system, and they all had a common 
 incentive — to ennoble and dignify the race by 
 ennobling and dignifying themselves individ- 
 ually, but contributing alike to the common 
 stock of blessings. 
 
 Never before did I fully realize the meaning 
 of the Divine Master when He said: "Whatso- 
 ever ye would that men should do to you, do 
 ye even so to them." Before me and around 
 me was the literal fulfillment of the injunction 
 in the form of the model government for man- 
 kind, founded upon the highest attribute of 
 Divinity. 
 
 But there was neither cant nor affected 
 solemnity in the never-ending performance of 
 this duty. It had become absolutely and es- 
 sentially a i»art of their nature, and was at 
 once the cornerstone and the Temple of their 
 
104 INTERMERE. 
 
 Religion; but their ideas of Religion were 
 widely different from ours. They never ex- 
 pounded, but lived it. 
 
 Delightful people accompanied us if we 
 traveled in Aerocars; delightful people met us 
 with Medocai's when we came to terra flrma, 
 and accompanied us through the bewildering 
 lanes and mazes of beauty by land; and de- 
 lightful people met us with fairy-like Merocars 
 when we sought to thread the enchanting 
 islands of the strange pulsating, moving sea. 
 
 Thus day by day I was carried from prov- 
 ince to province, from city to city, from valley 
 to valley and from mountain to mountain; re- 
 lays of entertainers met us at every stopping- 
 point to take the places of those who had ac- 
 companied us thither. Nothing could have 
 seemed more unreal; nothing could have been 
 more exquisitely enjoyable. 
 
 Now we wound through gardens smiling 
 with beautv and redolent with balm and fra- 
 
INTERMERE. 105 
 
 grance; anon we were in orchards plucking 
 the ripened fruit; then in the harvest fields of 
 the husbandman, and next in shops, factory 
 or store; I wondering at all I saw, and my con- 
 ductors kindly wondering at me, no doubt, but 
 of that they gave no significance or sign. 
 
 Almost literally speaking there is no night 
 iu Intermere. With the twilight myriads of 
 lights flash out everywhere along the streets, 
 highways, lanes, and from residences, temples 
 and monuments, more luminous than our elec- 
 tric lamps, diffusing a mellow and pleasing 
 light everywhere. But one sees no wires, as 
 with us, to feed the lamps of many sizes and 
 shades. of light, each one of which, so far as 
 we can see and realize, is independent of all 
 others and everything. 
 
 Merry parties make moonlight and starlight 
 trips by Aerocar. I enjoyed one of them, and 
 there are no words adequate to the description 
 of what I saw and enjoyed. A\'ith the moon 
 
106 INTERMERE. 
 
 ajid stars above and the millions of lights be- 
 low, with music, song and laughter ringing 
 through the ethereal depths, I was in a new 
 world, and one beyond ordinary human con- 
 ceptions, much less description. The Aerocars 
 themselves were studded with countless lights 
 of all the colors and shades, and shone like 
 trailing meteors at every angle of inclination, 
 singly here, grouped there, and in processions 
 beyond. 
 
 It may be said in this connection that while 
 the lutermereans eat the flesh of both domes- 
 tic and wild animals and fowls, resembling in 
 general features our own, and fish, they sub 
 sist chiefly on a. vegetable diet, especially be- 
 tween the age of infancy and twenty years, 
 and after sixty. 
 
 One of the mysteries confronting me was 
 that of cookery. They used no fire, nor any 
 of our ordinary cooking utensils, and yet they 
 served hot meals and drinks, prepared in what 
 
INTERMERE. 107 
 
 may be called, for lack of a better name, cbaf- 
 iiig- dislies and urns, and yet there was no 
 sense of heat or fire, except when in close con- 
 tact with the utensils. 
 
 In a. chafing dish they broiled or roasted or 
 baked; in an adjoining urn they brewed a de- 
 lightful hot drink resembling coffee, while in 
 another near by they made the most delicious 
 ices. 
 
 The housewife maintained neither dining- 
 room nor kitchen. Meals were prepared and 
 served wherever most convenient, on veranda 
 or in the house proper. The table was spread 
 in beautiful style with exquisite furnishment, 
 and presided over by the housewife. A woman 
 assistant, or more than one, according to the 
 
 requirements of the occasion, had charge of 
 a suitable sideboard, where the entire meal 
 
 was prepared, and from which it was served 
 
 to the company as desired. There were no 
 
 odors from the cooking, and nothing to sug- 
 
108 INTERMERE. 
 
 gest the kitchen or scullery. 
 
 This is so unlike our methods that it ap- 
 propriateness can not be realized short of the 
 actual experience. The culinary utensils are 
 rather ornamental than otherwise, and the 
 preparation of the dishes occupies an incred- 
 ibly short period of time. 
 
 On our various journeys by land and sea 
 and air, I found that a full stock of provisions 
 was carried, along with the culinary para- 
 phernalia, and were served regularly and with 
 as much care and taste as in any residence. 
 Ices and confections were made as readily in 
 mid-air as on land or sea. by some mysterious 
 and never-failing process. 
 
 One day as we rested in a charming suburb 
 of the Lesser City, Alpaz, the Curator of 
 Learning and Progress, appeared in a splen- 
 didly appointed Aerocar, accompanied by his 
 entire family and attended by a fleet of Aero- 
 cars carrying his assitants, provincial officials 
 
INTERMERE. 109 
 
 and men and women, who made up his entour- 
 •A'j^e. It proved to be a most delightful com- 
 pany. 
 
 After sailing overhead for hundreds of 
 miles we descended to an island, along the 
 beach of which lay a complement of Merocars, 
 to accommodate the entire party, as well as 
 some of the insular citizens who begged to ac- 
 company us. 
 
 Then ensued a voyage the memory of which 
 still lingers with me. Such dreamlike beauty 
 I never expect to see this side the gates of 
 eternity. It changed with every moment, and 
 never palled nor paled. Through this maze of 
 land and water and bewildering enchantment 
 we journeyed, listening to conversation and 
 music, till finally touching the mainland, we 
 found the Thief Citizen of the Province, and 
 his attendants and officials, with Medocars, 
 in which the entire party was carried to his 
 capital, whi(di crowned a grand elevation 
 
110 INTERMERE. 
 
 some two hundred miles inland. 
 
 Here we were entertained in magnificent 
 simplicity for a day, and here Alpaz discoursed 
 to me on the many matters in which I was in- 
 terested, and which fell within the sphere of 
 his Curatorship. 1 cannot recount them all, 
 but shall endeavor to bring out the main 
 points. 
 
 "You would learn something of our educa- 
 tional system?" he said, as though I had plied 
 him with a question. 
 
 "It is quite simple. It involves no comi)lex- 
 ities. We follow only the path of nature. 
 From birthi to the age of ten the infant is in 
 the exclusive control and tutorshij) of the 
 mother. She alone is entirely capable of 
 moulding the infantile mind, and setting its 
 feet aright in the pathway of manhood and 
 womanhood. 
 
 "In 3'our land, as in others, all too often she 
 delegates this great duty to alien and unfit 
 
INTERMERE. Ill 
 
 hands, and reaps the bitter harvest of sorrow 
 in the afternoon of motherhood. 
 
 ''At the age of ten, when the mother htis fit- 
 ted the mind for stronger impressions, the child 
 enters the broader field of learning. Our tem- 
 ples, which you meet ever3'where, are our 
 sch'oolhouses, our altars of Learning and 
 Knowledge, the cherubim of Wisdom. 
 
 "These temples are the abode of Knowledge 
 and Wisdom, handed down in the records of 
 the ages, showing each successive step taken 
 and to what it led. Here they are taught by 
 the older men and women, who having retired 
 from the activities of life, with a competence 
 assured them, matured in thought, filled with 
 knowledge and possessed of wisdom, perform 
 their final labor, a labor of love for the young- 
 er generation. 
 
 "At the age of fifteen every boy and every 
 girl develops the line of effort to which they 
 incline in the respective spheres of the sexes. 
 
112 INTERMERE. 
 
 aud thereafter, to the age of twenty for fe- 
 males and twenty-five for males, they are in- 
 structed along these lines by their tutors, in 
 the meantime devoting a part of their time to 
 some useful occupation. The result is men 
 and women in every way fitted to fulfill their 
 destiny. 
 
 "No; we have no clergy, no ministers as you 
 term them, to teach either the old or the young 
 in what you name religion. We have no 
 churches. Reverence for the Supreme Prin- 
 ciple of the Universe is instilled into every 
 mind, from infancy up, and all our people live 
 these teachings. They do not listen to them 
 one day in seven and neglect to follow all or 
 the majority of them for six. 
 
 "We know nothing, except as lamentable 
 facts, of the various so-called religious divis- 
 ions which convulse the rest of the world — 
 Confucianism, Hindooism, Mohammedanism, 
 Buddhism, Taoism, Shintoism, Judaism, Poly- 
 
INTERMERE. 113 
 
 theism and Christianity, and the many war- 
 ring 01" antagonistic sects into which they di- 
 vided and subdivided. 
 
 "We know only loving reverence for the Su- 
 preme Principle of the Universe, filial love 
 and piety, and justice to all creatures. This 
 is the soul and essence of your religion, Thris- 
 tiauity, and the basic principle of all others. 
 ^^'e prefer the last analysis to the inchoate 
 mass of contending creeds, that have drenched 
 the earth with blood for time out of mind, and 
 filled it with doubt and misery; and even now, 
 in the twilight of your Nineteenth Century, 
 and in the name of the Child of Nazareth, ])ro- 
 mulgates Christianization and evangelization 
 at the cannon's mouth and with the sword and 
 torch, of peoples whose only offense is that 
 they believe that their Cod requires thus and 
 so at their hands as a ])rei-equisite to their en- 
 trance into His heavenly kingdom. 
 
 "By gentler and educatory teachings, un- 
 
114 INTERMERE. 
 
 tainted by the corroding canker of selfishness, 
 they might be turned in the right direction 
 and their generations be led into the light, 
 provided that your educational system moved 
 on a loftier plane than theirs; but blood and 
 violence, and all the carnal lusts that follow 
 like jackals in their wake, can only eventuate 
 in driving them into lower depths. 
 
 "The spiritual instructors of the outer world, 
 past and present, are and have been, in the 
 main, sincere and earnest, but with a limited 
 idea of the spiritualism they essay to teach. 
 Powerful prelacies have grown up in all the 
 religious divisions, ambitious of temporal 
 power, and untold evils have resulted, not 
 from the system of religion, but from the love 
 of power and authiority, non-sjiiritual in its 
 nature, and as a result the spirit or principle 
 of religion has suffered undeserved obloquy. 
 
 ''To us the ideal God of your religious peo- 
 ple is strangely contradictory and irreconcila- 
 
INTER MERE. 116 
 
 ble. He is portrayed not as a spiritual being, 
 but as a common mortal in many of the essen- 
 tials. Their conception of Deity is that He 
 rules as a kiny; in heaven, before whom the re- 
 deemed and the saints forever prostrate them- 
 selves in adoration or sing praises by voice, 
 and adulate Him with harp and lute and other 
 musical instruments, confessing hourly their 
 unworthlness to come into His presence. 
 
 "This is an earthly, barbarous conception 
 of the Supreme Power of the Universe. It was 
 probably of Chinese or Oriental origin in the 
 days of supreme despotism, w'hen every sub- 
 ject must prostrate himself in the dust in the 
 presence of majesty. 
 
 "This idea was transuiilted to Christendom 
 in the ^^'est whicn royally proclaimed itself 
 (he symbol of Godhood and religion. The sub- 
 ject was taught that the monarch was the di- 
 rect representative of God, and his court was 
 iriodejed after the court of the King of kings, 
 
116 INTERMERE. 
 
 where homage and adoration and humiliation 
 were the endless order of all future life. 
 
 "We have an entirely different conception 
 of the Supreme Principle, and do not regard 
 it in the light of a ruler or king, in the mortal 
 sense, but the embodiment of justice and love, 
 that neither exacts nor receives adoration of 
 those who pass to the world beyond, the re- 
 turning children of the great and enduring 
 Principle which exists everywhere, strength- 
 ened and broadened by a previous state or 
 states of existence, wherein they were clothed 
 about with mortal and perishable habiliments. 
 
 "We look forward to the passage from this 
 world to a better one beyond with joyous ex- 
 pectation, and with no sense of terror or ap- 
 prehension, and there come us no pangs of dis- 
 solution. We have sought diligently to live 
 up to the law of love in this life, and have the 
 fullest assurance that our efforts will meet 
 the aj)pr()val of the Supreme Principle, whose 
 
INTERMERE. 117 
 
 beneficences invite and permit us to enter the 
 broader fields and more perfect worlds of a 
 higher existence. 
 
 "Death, or the exchange of worlds, has nei- 
 ther terrors for those who go, nor the stings 
 of affliction for those who tarry. It is but the 
 inevitable and necessary parting of friends 
 and relatives for a little period, and we know 
 that the shores of reunion lie just beyond the 
 filmy veil of the future. 
 
 "The end or change is never hastened nor 
 retarded by the violation of Nature's sacred 
 laws. There are but few partings or deaths in 
 the earlier periods of life. They go with joy- 
 ful alacrity, as to a feast, at four or five score, 
 and their memory, works and examples cheer 
 and sustain those who remain. 
 
 "No; we have no physicians. If, perchance, 
 some law of Nature is violated and mortal ail- 
 ment ensues, it needs no specialist to discover 
 that fact, or n'comuunul the proper method of 
 
118 INTERMERE. 
 
 rectifying- it. That is a part of the education 
 of all. Literally, we neither know nor care to 
 know what physic is. We live simply and in 
 accordance with Nature's laws, and disease, 
 such as prevails in your land and others, is 
 unknown in this, and has been for ages. Sci- 
 ence and scientific discovery, as we utilize and 
 employ them, have freed us from disease and 
 made death but the exchange of lives. We 
 know more than we care to tell of the life be- 
 yond." 
 
 He ceased abruptly after saying: 
 "Tomorrow you will be the guest of Remo, 
 the Curator of Useful Mechanical Devices. 
 You may learn much from him." 
 
VI. 
 
 THE SECRET OF INTERMERE 
 PARTIALTA'^ REVEALED TO AN- 
 DERTON, AND WHEN HE LEAST 
 EXPECTS IT HE IS RESTORED 
 TO HIS HOME AND KINDRED, 
 MUCH TO HIS REGRET. 
 
INTERMERE. 121 
 
 VL 
 
 THE SECRET OF INTERMERE. 
 
 THE SECRET of Intermere— its great me- 
 chanical secret — was revealed to me, but, alas! 
 only in part. It was as if the siin be pointed 
 out to a child who is told that it shines and is 
 a prime factor in the growth of all forms of 
 life, animal and vegetable. 
 
 The child realizes that the orb of day shines, 
 but remains wholly in the dark as to the proc- 
 esses of its rays; why it inspires animals and 
 vegetation with life and growth, and produces 
 the prismatic colors of the rainbow. 
 
 So with me. I know the fountain-head or 
 cause that gave momentum to all the mech- 
 anism of the land, shortened the period be- 
 tween germination and maturity in vegeta- 
 
122 INTERMERE. 
 
 tion, banished fire while retaining warmth, 
 turned the night into a season of beauty equal- 
 ing the full day, kept every street and high- 
 way free from debris, prevented foul emana-^ 
 tions, with their contaminations, and did 
 countless other things which our own scien- 
 tists demonstrate are desirable and necessary, 
 but still unattainable. But of the details, of 
 the why and the wherefore, of the effects and 
 the processes by which so many different re- 
 sults emanated from the same apparent cause, 
 I learned nothing. 
 
 One morning, after a season of delicious, in- 
 vigorating slumber, as I walked in the spa- 
 sious grounds of my host, the Chief Citizen of 
 the Province — grounds sweeter and fairer 
 than the fabled Gardens of Gulistan — I saw a 
 fleet of Aerocars approaching, led by one of 
 the most magnificent, and by far the largest, 
 that I had yet seen. It could not have been 
 less than one hundred feet in length and twen- 
 
INTERMERE. 123 
 
 ty in breadth at the midway point, and yet it 
 seemed to float as lightly as a feather in the 
 aerial depths. 
 
 When almost directly overhead the fleet 
 halted, and remained stationary, as though 
 firmly anchored to some immovable substance, 
 and then the leading craft slowly sank to the 
 earth at my feet, as lightly as you have seen 
 a bird alight. 
 
 It was thie Aerocar of Remo, containing a 
 score of people. I had not hitherto met Remo, 
 the Curator of Useful Mechanical Devices. 
 However, he needed no introduction to me or 
 I to him. The recognition was mutual. 
 
 He came forward and greeted me cordially, 
 and later presented me to his fellow voyagers, 
 and said: 
 
 "I know you are anxious to learn something 
 of the motive principle of our mechanisms. 
 That I shall impart to you, at least partially. 
 Our joui'iiey will begin to suit your conven- 
 
124 INTERMERE. 
 
 ienee. We will breakfast en route.'' 
 
 I hastened to say my adieux to the Chief 
 Citizen, Alpaz, and the members of the house- 
 hold, and then entered the Aerocar, taking a 
 seat near Remo. At a signal to the pilot, the 
 craft rose as lightly and majestically as it had 
 descended. 
 
 I looked about me at the passengers, ham- 
 pers of provisions, culinary utensils and table 
 equipment, and estimated that the Aerocar 
 was carrying not less than four thousand 
 pounds of dead weight. 
 
 ''You are wondering how so much bulk and 
 weight ascend without apparent cause." 
 
 I assented to the proposition. 
 
 "When you are at home and see an inflated 
 balloon ascend, carrying a man weighing one 
 hundred and fifty pounds, with seventy-five 
 pounds of sand ballast, you can understand 
 how it ascends?" 
 
 -Readily." 
 
INTERMERE. 125 
 
 "By mechanical contrivance of immense 
 compartive bulk, aided by chemical product, 
 the power of gravitation is suflSciently over- 
 come or neutralized that a disproportionately 
 small amount of weight is carried into the 
 upper air. We ascend for the same general 
 reason, the resultant of a greater, a different 
 and a fixed principle. 
 
 "Our pilot, by means of the mechanical and 
 other power at his command, neutralized the 
 attraction of gravitation, and without the aid 
 of any other appliance arose, carrying a weight 
 of more than four thousand of your pounds 
 avoirdupois. It has ascended in a direct or 
 perpendicular line, despite the breeze, which 
 would otherwise have carried us at a western 
 angle. I will have the pilot produce an equi- 
 librium, stoi)ping all movement." 
 
 A signal was given the pilot, and. after a 
 slight manii)ulation, it stood still. 
 
 "Now we will descend, first perpendicularly 
 
126 INTERMERE. 
 
 and then at an angle of forty-five degrees.'' 
 
 One signal and one manipulation, and the 
 Aerocar described the first motion. A second 
 signal and manipulation, and it described the 
 other. 
 
 ''Now we will ascend, first bv the reverse 
 angle and then by the perpendicular." 
 
 Again the signals and again the manipula- 
 tions, and again the exact movements through 
 space. 
 
 ''If your flying machine and airship builders 
 could do that, what would your people think?" 
 ''That the world had been revolutionized." 
 "But the world will not be thus revolution- 
 ized until science is freed of gross material- 
 ism and human aspiration becomes something 
 higher than selfish greed, commercialism, war, 
 conquest, opulence, and the despotisms they 
 engender. You must expel all the gods with 
 whom you most closely commune, before you 
 may commune with the true Ood or Supreme 
 
INTERMERE. 127 
 
 Principle of tbe Universe," 
 
 In the meantime the Curator's Aeroear had 
 rejoined its consorts, and we floated away to 
 the northeast, where a great semicircle of 
 mountains were dinilv outlined, and then de- 
 scended ui)on a city looking like a pearl in a 
 semicircular valley, bisected by a broad river, 
 spanned with l)ridges at short intervals as far 
 as the vision reached. 
 
 With my watch I had timed the voyage. It 
 had lasted two hours and thirty minutes. 
 
 "How far have we traveled?" I inquired of 
 Remo. 
 
 "One thousand of your miles." 
 
 "That is four hundred miles to the hour; 
 six and two-thirds miles each minute." 
 
 "The speed might easily have been doubled." 
 
 My amazement was unbounded, but I did 
 not doubt Remo's statement then. Later, I 
 I recognized it as an easy possibility. 
 
 Remo detained me until the rest of the com- 
 
128 INTERMERE. 
 
 panj had left the Aerocar, and then said ab- 
 ruptlT: "You would learn the secret of the 
 motive principle that moves our mechanical 
 devices and performs other oflQces which seem 
 to you miraculous. It is this: It is the electric 
 current which we take direct from the at- 
 mosphere at will — electricity, which is the life- 
 giving, life-preserving and life-promoting prin- 
 ciple, the superior and fountain of all law af- 
 fecting the material Universe and intervening 
 space. To command that is to command ev- 
 erything. 
 
 ^'This is the capital of my Curatorship. Here 
 all my predecessors have served the Common- 
 wealth; hither all my successors will come. 
 Here every mechanical device is tested, ap- 
 proved or rejected, and from hence their pro- 
 duction is directed, as a public right, in every 
 municipal division of the Commonwealth. 
 
 ''Nearly every monument you have seen, aa 
 you have doubtless noticed, is dedicated to 
 
INTERMERE. 129 
 
 some Chosen Son of Wisdom, and some of 
 them date back tens of eentiiries. Whoever 
 makes a great discovery, such as taking the 
 electric current direct, or dividing its capabili- 
 ties into useful and necessary directions, or 
 perfects some great mechanism, securing the 
 full beneficence of the current, brings it here 
 and dedicates it to the Commonwealth and its 
 sons and daughters. Its benefits are common 
 to all. 
 
 "His reward is that he is elected by univc^'- 
 sal acclaim as the Chosen Son of Wisdom, a 
 monument commemmorative of his achieve- 
 ment is erected at once, and he is installed in 
 a home furnished out of the public revenues, 
 receives a stipend of fifty or five cinque media 
 daily, and is the honored guest on all public 
 and private occasions. 
 
 "I shall show you many of our devices; some 
 of them will be self-explanatory, some will, to 
 a degree, be explained, others left to youi- ron- 
 
130 INTERMERE. 
 
 jectiiie, and for obvious reasous." 
 
 \\'ith this he led me through a huge num- 
 ber of what we would look upon as diminutive 
 manufacturing establishments. In the first 
 one visited he exhibited to me two crystalline 
 elongated globes, the size of an egg ea.ch, con- 
 nected by a small tube or cylinder of the same 
 material two or three inches in length. 
 
 The globes were filled with a whitish sub- 
 stance, or granulation, the upper intensely 
 white, the lower somewhat shaded. The up- 
 per one was fitted with a movable disk, and 
 could be opened by touching a lever. A clus- 
 ter of rather coarse wires, apparently an amal- 
 gam of several metals, rose above the granu- 
 lated contents. A double coil of wires, of a 
 different material or combination, running in 
 opposite directions, filled the connecting cylin- 
 der, while a cluster of almost imperceptibly 
 fine wires, of still a different material or com- 
 bination, projected from the bottom of the 
 
INTERMERE. 131 
 
 loAver globe. 
 
 These globes resembled glass, and were, to 
 all appearanees, extremely fragile. Remo 
 dashed it upon the hard floor, as though he 
 would destroy it. It rebounded, and he caught 
 it as an urchin would catch a rebounding ball. 
 
 "I did this," he said, ''to show you that these 
 appliances are not amenable to accident. This 
 is the accumulator or receiver of the current." 
 
 He touched the lever and opened a small 
 aperture directly over the cluster of wires in 
 the upper globe. 
 
 "Hold your hand below the lower portion." 
 
 he said. 
 
 I complied, and instantly my hand was 
 moved away with such resistless force that 1 
 was turned completely around and sent across 
 the room. Remo smiled at my undisguised 
 consternation, and said: 
 
 "You will not be harmed. What you expe- 
 rienced was the flow of the electric current, 
 
132 INTERMERE. 
 
 but it has not harmed you. It is physically 
 harmless. You would call this a twenty-horse 
 power motor in your country, although it looks 
 like a toy. Take it and handle it as I direct. 
 You may handle it with perfect safety. Place 
 it horizontally near that fly-wheel and push 
 the lever." 
 
 He pointed to a fly-wheel scarcely a foot in 
 diameter, with seven radiating flanges set 
 slightly at an angle. I did, and opened the 
 aperture. In less time than it takes to tell it 
 the wheel was revolving at a> rate of speed so 
 high that it seemed like a solid motionless and 
 polished mirror. 
 
 "Close the aperture, go to the side in which 
 direction it is revolving, and again open it to 
 the current." 
 
 I did so, and instantly the wheel was mo- 
 tionless. 
 
 He pointed to a, huge block of granite, which 
 rested on a metal framework a dozen inches 
 above the floor, and said: "Banish all nervous- 
 
INTERMERE. 133 
 
 ness, invert the accumulator, and hold it un- 
 der the center of the block, which weighs five 
 of your tons." 
 
 I did so, and it slowly rose toward the 
 ceiling. 
 
 "Close the aperture slowly, and finally close 
 it entirely." 
 
 This I did, and it settled back to its original 
 place. 
 
 "There," said Remo, "you have the direct 
 current and its direct application to machinery 
 and inert bodies. You know enough about 
 mechanics to understand what that means. 
 The ascent and flight and movements and de- 
 scent of the Aerocar; the running of the Medo- 
 car and the sailing of the Merocar, are not 
 such a profound mystery to you as they were 
 yesterday." 
 
 He conducted mo into another factory and 
 exhibited a number of accumulators, each 
 filled with appaiently the same granulated 
 
134 INTERMERE. 
 
 substance, but of different colors and admix- 
 ture of colors. Remo opened the apertures of 
 a long line of them upon a wire rack, and they 
 flashed into brilliant lamps of every hue and 
 color and shade — a light that was as steady 
 a& that of the stars. He closed them one by 
 one, showing the absolute independence of 
 each. 
 
 "Our lamps, with which we beautify the 
 night, are no longer a mystery to you — that is, 
 not an absolute mystery," 
 
 In another factory he exhibited more accu- 
 mulators with varicolored materials in the 
 globes. He opened one and directed its power 
 toward an ingot of metal. It melted like wax. 
 Turning its force upon a fragment of rock, it 
 was transformed into the ordinary dust of our 
 roadways. With another he turned a vessel 
 of water into a solid block of ice. 
 
 ''Our topographical construction, our culi- 
 uarv eronomv and the abseute of tire are now 
 
INTERMERE. 135 
 
 plainer than they were." 
 
 "But how do you achieve all these different 
 results with apparently the same means?" 
 
 "The first device shown you is the primary; 
 the others are subsequent discoveries. By the 
 primary medium we were able to produce or 
 secure the electric current in the form of dy- 
 namic power, eminentl}' tractable and harm- 
 less with ordinary prudence. New combina- 
 tions of the medium gave us all the other re- 
 sults, at intervals, subsequent to the original 
 discovery. And the field is not exhausted." 
 
 Remo explained that the crystalline sub- 
 stance in the upper globe of the accumulator 
 induced or gathered the electric current, giv- 
 ing it controllable direction as well as defined 
 volume, while that in the lower determined 
 its significance or divisional use. 
 
 In the minuter acumulators, for the lamps 
 only, did the current present itself in the form 
 of light, spark or flame. All the colors, from 
 
136 INTERMERE. 
 
 pure white to deep purple, with their prismatic 
 variations, were the direct result of their dif- 
 fering chemical combinations in the lower 
 globe, each of the silk-like wires throwing off 
 countless rays of unvarying intensity and 
 steadiness, but gave off no electric phenomena 
 or effects. 
 
 The heat accumulators gave moderate or in- 
 tense heat, according to the chemical combina- 
 tions through which the primary current pass- 
 ed, but there was neither glow nor light-flash. 
 So, too, the cold accumulators gave off varying 
 degrees of cold, for the same reason. 
 
 In none of them was there either the electric 
 shock or its effects, and all were tractable and 
 free from danger in what we may term the 
 electrical sense. The dynamic force of the 
 primary and the intense heat or cold of the 
 divisional currents, common prudence avoids. 
 Still it would be easily possible, by chemical 
 combination, to produce a current destructive 
 
INTERMERE. 137 
 
 of life and capable of annihilating nations, 
 without hope or possibility of escape. 
 
 •*Yoiir own scientists know,'' said Remo, 
 "that with the direct current all that you 
 have seen, and infinitely more, is but the re- 
 sult of a simple process, capable of infinite 
 multiplication." 
 
 "But what are the constituents of the me- 
 dium in the accumulator, and what are the 
 formulas of the various combinations?" 
 
 ''If you knew that you would know as much 
 as we." 
 
 This was the nearest a jest I had heard in 
 Intermere, but I knew from the character of 
 Remo's speech that the rest of the secret would 
 remain hidden from me. 
 
 As we sat at his table later he said: 
 
 ''You have been nearer to our secret than 
 any one else in the outer world, and we shall 
 see whether the seeds will grow into the tree 
 
138 INTERMERE. 
 
 of Knowledge and produce the fruits of Wis- 
 dom. Neither your people nor any other peo- 
 ple could be trusted with this secret in their 
 present moral condition. A few learned men 
 dependent u])on the rulers in one nation, know- 
 ing it, could and would plot the destruction 
 and exploitation of all others. The sacrifice 
 of human life and the accumulation of human 
 woe and misery would be appalling, 
 
 "If your leaders, with the suddenly awaken- 
 ed hunger for conquest and dominion, could 
 literally command the thunderbolts and con- 
 trol the elements as against the rest of the 
 world, they would sack Chrislendom in the 
 name of Liberty, Hunmnity and the Babe of 
 Bethlehem,but in the sjtirit of Mammon, Greed 
 and seltish love of power and riches. 
 
 "You will make some progress in discover- 
 ies along scientific and mechanical lines, but 
 no real good to the race can result until these 
 discoveries are turned to a nobler purpose 
 
INTERMERE. 139 
 
 than that of seizing commercial siipremac}', 
 subjugating alien and unwilling peoples, 
 slaughtering those who resist, exploiting those 
 who lay down their arms, gathering wealth 
 regardless of justice and the rights of man- 
 kind and building up an artificial race in the 
 form of a ruling class, who base their right to 
 exclusive privileges on wealth and the perver- 
 sion of every principle of justice and the Chris- 
 tianity they profess. 
 
 "You have been wondering why, with our 
 great knowledge and achievements, we do not 
 go forth and dominate the world. What would 
 it profit us? Could we find anything that 
 would contribute to our enjoyments, our hopes, 
 our aspirations? No. 
 
 -Even we are not proof against the paralyz- 
 ing touch of deterioration. We pay more 
 heed to the world's history than do the nations 
 and peoples who made tlitit history, during the 
 centuries, flistory is but the lighthouse which 
 
140 INTERMERE. 
 
 which warns against the reefs and rocks where 
 countless argosies have been lost. The mari- 
 ners who sail the ships of state dash reckless- 
 ly upon the rocks of destruction, despite the 
 friendly warnings of the dead and engulfed 
 who have gone before." 
 
 Turning to lighter themes, Kemo spoke of 
 the various economies of the Commonwealth, 
 and explained how the obstacles which con- 
 front our civilization are overcome. Garbage 
 and all debris, for instance, are disposed of by 
 instantaneous reduction to original conditions, 
 and then a lecombination and distribution 
 upon the grounds, farms and gardens. The 
 sewage question, the standing menace of all 
 dense and even sparse populations, is solved 
 by the same ])rocess of purification and 
 recombination. This work is constantly per- 
 formed under the eye of the municipal author- 
 ities, and under fixed rules and service. Thus 
 the absolute cleanliness which prevailed ev- 
 
INTERMERE. 141 
 
 erywhere was readily explained. 
 
 In answer to my query why Intermere had 
 so long escaped discovery from navigators, he 
 said, interrogatively: 
 
 ''Would it not be possible, with our superior 
 knowledge and wisdom, to put their reckoning 
 at fault whenever they came within a fixed 
 sphere of proximity?" 
 
 To my question as to the equability of the 
 seasons, the absence of storms, and the regu- 
 larity of the descent of moisture in the form 
 of gentle rains, he said: 
 
 "Do not imagine that our scientific knowl- 
 edge stops with the mere discovery of the di- 
 rect electric current or our mechanical de- 
 vices." 
 
 Nothing further could I elicit from him or 
 any other lutermerean on these or kindred 
 subj(M'ts. The Book of Knowledge had been 
 opened and apparently closed. 
 
 After two days' stay in Remo's capital the 
 
142 INTERMERE. 
 
 Aerocars took up a goodly entourage, and we 
 moved softly and swifth' to the Greater City. 
 
 There Xamas and all his officials awaited us, 
 along with every lutermerean of both sexes 1 
 had met in my journeys, as well as every Mu- 
 nicipal Custodian of the realm, and in addition 
 the Chief Citizens of the fourteen Provinces I 
 had not visited. 
 
 A reception fete was given me in the chief 
 temple of the city, hoary with age and instinct 
 with wisdom. There were songs and music by 
 the young and happy, and apropos discourses 
 by the older. I essayed the role of orator, 
 thanked my entertainers for thieir many cour- 
 tesies and the happy hours they had conferred 
 upon a wanderer in a strange land. The after- 
 noon and evening were a season of unalloyed 
 happiness. 
 
 As I dropped into slumber in the house of 
 Xamas I soliloquized: "This kindness and 
 these honors seem significant. Perhaps the 
 
INTERMERE. 143 
 
 Intermereans intend to adopt me into all their 
 knowledge and wisdom. Perhaps" 
 
 I felt that T was tossing on the swell of the 
 ocean. Then there was a sensation of physical 
 pain, as if from long exposure to the elements. 
 
 So keen was this sensation that I awoke 
 fully, started up and looked around me. It 
 was a grayish dawn, purpling in lines near the 
 hoi'izon. Towering above me I saw the out- 
 lines of a great ship, lying at anchor and lazily 
 nodding as the swells swe])t into the harbor. 
 
 I found myself in one of the individual Mer- 
 ocars, intended for a single passenger, but the 
 compai-tments containing the accumulatory 
 motors had been removed and the marks of re- 
 moval deftly concealed. 
 
 It was one of the most finished Merocars of 
 its class with the ex('e])tion of the motoi', con- 
 structed entirely of prepared wood, resembling 
 a piece of wicker work, but impervious to thie 
 
144 INTERMERE. 
 
 sea, and floated like a cork or a feather. 
 
 I was trying to determine where I was and 
 how^ I came to be in my present situation. 
 Then came to me this in the Language of Si- 
 lence: 
 
 "You have been safely delivered to those 
 who will restore 3'ou to your land and home. 
 Discretion is always commendable." 
 
 I knew whence this thought came, and soon 
 the increasing light showed me that I was in 
 the harbor of Singapore, lashed with a silken 
 cord to the forechains of an East Indian mer- 
 chantman. 
 
 To my infinite regret I found that I was clad 
 in the same clothes I wore when the Mistletoe 
 went to the bottom. The same trinkets and a 
 few coins and the other accessories were still 
 in the pockets. 
 
 But the handsome and natty garments of 
 Intermere were gone. I was back in the world 
 just as I left it, how long ago I could not tell, 
 
INTERMERE. 145 
 
 for the memories of Intermere seemed to cover 
 a decade at least, and I estimated that those 
 who lived to one hundred enjoyed a thousand 
 years of life. 
 
 Thelookoutontheship finally discovered me, 
 and shortly after I and my curious boat were 
 lifted to the deck and became the center of a 
 gaping crowd. 
 
 Asl could not accountfor myself reasonably, 
 I became merely evasive and did not account 
 for mj'self at all, and left the crew and pas- 
 sengers equally divided as to whether I was a 
 lunatic of a cunning knave. 
 
 Among those on board was one whose pres- 
 ence suggested Intermere. I listened and ob- 
 served, and learned that he was the Secretary 
 of a native Rajah on board the ship. He in- 
 spected me with curious disappointment. The 
 Merocar he seemed to worship both with eyes 
 and soul. 
 
 "Sell it to him, for you need money." 
 
146 INTERMERE. 
 
 That was Maros; I could not be mistaken. 
 
 The Secretary motioned me to a distant part 
 of the deck and said abruptly: 
 
 "I will give you five thousand rupees for the 
 —for the" 
 
 "Merocar." 
 
 He started as though shocked by a bolt of 
 lightning, 
 
 "I dare not talk — I cannot remember — but 1 
 dare not talk. Will you sell it me for five 
 thousand rupees, Sahib? It is all I have, but 
 I will give it freely." 
 
 "It is yours." 
 
 He went below and soon returned with the 
 amount in bills of exchange upon the bank at 
 Hong Kong. 
 
 He carried his purchase to his stateroom, 
 amid the laughter of passengers and sailors, 
 who did not conceal their merriment that any 
 man would pay such a price for a wicker bas- 
 ket, and my cunning and hypnotic knavery 
 were thoroughly established. 
 
INTERMERE. 147 
 
 I remained a few days in Singapore, con- 
 verting my bills partly into cash and partly 
 into exchange on London and New York. 
 
 Sailing later to Hong Kong, I there fell in 
 with an American military officer whom I 
 knew, and who gave me the full particulars of 
 Albert Marshall's death. With him I made 
 arrangements for the shipment of my cousin's 
 remains to his old home, via San Francisco. 
 
 Two days later I sailed for London, and 
 within six weeks reached New York, and the 
 home of my childhood. I shall not describe 
 the meeting with my mother, nor speak of 
 what was said in relation to the strange and 
 brief communications which passed between 
 us months before. 
 
148 INTERMERE. 
 
 VII. 
 
 LE ENVOI. 
 
 I HAVE READ THE FOREGOING. 
 IT IS A FAITHFUL REPRODUC- 
 TION OF WHAT I WAS ABLE TO 
 COMMUNICATE TOUCHING MY 
 EXPERIENCES. AND YET THE 
 PICTURE DRAWN IS FAINT, 
 HAZY AND FAR AWAY. COM- 
 PARED WITH THE BEAUTIFUL 
 REALITY, IT IS "AS MOONLIGHT 
 UNTO SUNLIGHT, AS WATER 
 UNTO WINE." G. H. A. 
 
 Glenford, 190L 
 
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