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diff --git a/1951-0.txt b/1951-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f5a5907 --- /dev/null +++ b/1951-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5389 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Coming Race, by Edward Bulwer Lytton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Coming Race + +Author: Edward Bulwer Lytton + +Release Date: February 18, 2006 [EBook #1951] +Last Updated: August 28, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COMING RACE *** + + + + +Produced by Fred Ihde and David Widger + + + + + +THE COMING RACE + +by Edward Bulwer, Lord Lytton + + + + +Chapter I. + + +I am a native of _____, in the United States of America. My ancestors +migrated from England in the reign of Charles II.; and my grandfather +was not undistinguished in the War of Independence. My family, +therefore, enjoyed a somewhat high social position in right of birth; +and being also opulent, they were considered disqualified for the public +service. My father once ran for Congress, but was signally defeated by +his tailor. After that event he interfered little in politics, and lived +much in his library. I was the eldest of three sons, and sent at the age +of sixteen to the old country, partly to complete my literary education, +partly to commence my commercial training in a mercantile firm at +Liverpool. My father died shortly after I was twenty-one; and being left +well off, and having a taste for travel and adventure, I resigned, for +a time, all pursuit of the almighty dollar, and became a desultory +wanderer over the face of the earth. + +In the year 18__, happening to be in _____, I was invited by a +professional engineer, with whom I had made acquaintance, to visit the +recesses of the ________ mine, upon which he was employed. + +The reader will understand, ere he close this narrative, my reason for +concealing all clue to the district of which I write, and will perhaps +thank me for refraining from any description that may tend to its +discovery. + +Let me say, then, as briefly as possible, that I accompanied the +engineer into the interior of the mine, and became so strangely +fascinated by its gloomy wonders, and so interested in my friend’s +explorations, that I prolonged my stay in the neighbourhood, and +descended daily, for some weeks, into the vaults and galleries hollowed +by nature and art beneath the surface of the earth. The engineer was +persuaded that far richer deposits of mineral wealth than had yet been +detected, would be found in a new shaft that had been commenced under +his operations. In piercing this shaft we came one day upon a chasm +jagged and seemingly charred at the sides, as if burst asunder at some +distant period by volcanic fires. Down this chasm my friend caused +himself to be lowered in a ‘cage,’ having first tested the atmosphere +by the safety-lamp. He remained nearly an hour in the abyss. When he +returned he was very pale, and with an anxious, thoughtful expression +of face, very different from its ordinary character, which was open, +cheerful, and fearless. + +He said briefly that the descent appeared to him unsafe, and leading to +no result; and, suspending further operations in the shaft, we returned +to the more familiar parts of the mine. + +All the rest of that day the engineer seemed preoccupied by some +absorbing thought. He was unusually taciturn, and there was a scared, +bewildered look in his eyes, as that of a man who has seen a ghost. At +night, as we two were sitting alone in the lodging we shared together +near the mouth of the mine, I said to my friend,-- + +“Tell me frankly what you saw in that chasm: I am sure it was something +strange and terrible. Whatever it be, it has left your mind in a state +of doubt. In such a case two heads are better than one. Confide in me.” + + +The engineer long endeavoured to evade my inquiries; but as, while he +spoke, he helped himself unconsciously out of the brandy-flask to a +degree to which he was wholly unaccustomed, for he was a very temperate +man, his reserve gradually melted away. He who would keep himself to +himself should imitate the dumb animals, and drink water. At last he +said, “I will tell you all. When the cage stopped, I found myself on +a ridge of rock; and below me, the chasm, taking a slanting direction, +shot down to a considerable depth, the darkness of which my lamp could +not have penetrated. But through it, to my infinite surprise, streamed +upward a steady brilliant light. Could it be any volcanic fire? In that +case, surely I should have felt the heat. Still, if on this there was +doubt, it was of the utmost importance to our common safety to clear it +up. I examined the sides of the descent, and found that I could venture +to trust myself to the irregular projection of ledges, at least for some +way. I left the cage and clambered down. As I drew nearer and nearer to +the light, the chasm became wider, and at last I saw, to my unspeakable +amaze, a broad level road at the bottom of the abyss, illumined as far +as the eye could reach by what seemed artificial gas-lamps placed at +regular intervals, as in the thoroughfare of a great city; and I heard +confusedly at a distance a hum as of human voices. I know, of course, +that no rival miners are at work in this district. Whose could be those +voices? What human hands could have levelled that road and marshalled +those lamps? + +“The superstitious belief, common to miners, that gnomes or fiends dwell +within the bowels of the earth, began to seize me. I shuddered at the +thought of descending further and braving the inhabitants of this nether +valley. Nor indeed could I have done so without ropes, as from the spot +I had reached to the bottom of the chasm the sides of the rock sank down +abrupt, smooth, and sheer. I retraced my steps with some difficulty. Now +I have told you all.” + +“You will descend again?” + +“I ought, yet I feel as if I durst not.” + +“A trusty companion halves the journey and doubles the courage. I will +go with you. We will provide ourselves with ropes of suitable length and +strength--and--pardon me--you must not drink more to-night, our hands +and feet must be steady and firm tomorrow.” + + + +Chapter II. + + +With the morning my friend’s nerves were rebraced, and he was not +less excited by curiosity than myself. Perhaps more; for he evidently +believed in his own story, and I felt considerable doubt of it; not that +he would have wilfully told an untruth, but that I thought he must have +been under one of those hallucinations which seize on our fancy or our +nerves in solitary, unaccustomed places, and in which we give shape to +the formless and sound to the dumb. + +We selected six veteran miners to watch our descent; and as the cage +held only one at a time, the engineer descended first; and when he had +gained the ledge at which he had before halted, the cage rearose for me. +I soon gained his side. We had provided ourselves with a strong coil of +rope. + +The light struck on my sight as it had done the day before on my +friend’s. The hollow through which it came sloped diagonally: it seemed +to me a diffused atmospheric light, not like that from fire, but soft +and silvery, as from a northern star. Quitting the cage, we descended, +one after the other, easily enough, owing to the juts in the side, till +we reached the place at which my friend had previously halted, and which +was a projection just spacious enough to allow us to stand abreast. From +this spot the chasm widened rapidly like the lower end of a vast funnel, +and I saw distinctly the valley, the road, the lamps which my companion +had described. He had exaggerated nothing. I heard the sounds he had +heard--a mingled indescribable hum as of voices and a dull tramp as of +feet. Straining my eye farther down, I clearly beheld at a distance the +outline of some large building. It could not be mere natural rock, it +was too symmetrical, with huge heavy Egyptian-like columns, and the +whole lighted as from within. I had about me a small pocket-telescope, +and by the aid of this, I could distinguish, near the building I +mention, two forms which seemed human, though I could not be sure. At +least they were living, for they moved, and both vanished within the +building. We now proceeded to attach the end of the rope we had brought +with us to the ledge on which we stood, by the aid of clamps and +grappling hooks, with which, as well as with necessary tools, we were +provided. + +We were almost silent in our work. We toiled like men afraid to speak to +each other. One end of the rope being thus apparently made firm to the +ledge, the other, to which we fastened a fragment of the rock, rested on +the ground below, a distance of some fifty feet. I was a younger man and +a more active man than my companion, and having served on board ship in +my boyhood, this mode of transit was more familiar to me than to him. In +a whisper I claimed the precedence, so that when I gained the ground I +might serve to hold the rope more steady for his descent. I got safely +to the ground beneath, and the engineer now began to lower himself. +But he had scarcely accomplished ten feet of the descent, when the +fastenings, which we had fancied so secure, gave way, or rather the +rock itself proved treacherous and crumbled beneath the strain; and the +unhappy man was precipitated to the bottom, falling just at my feet, +and bringing down with his fall splinters of the rock, one of which, +fortunately but a small one, struck and for the time stunned me. When I +recovered my senses I saw my companion an inanimate mass beside me, +life utterly extinct. While I was bending over his corpse in grief and +horror, I heard close at hand a strange sound between a snort and a +hiss; and turning instinctively to the quarter from which it came, I saw +emerging from a dark fissure in the rock a vast and terrible head, +with open jaws and dull, ghastly, hungry eyes--the head of a monstrous +reptile resembling that of the crocodile or alligator, but infinitely +larger than the largest creature of that kind I had ever beheld in my +travels. I started to my feet and fled down the valley at my utmost +speed. I stopped at last, ashamed of my panic and my flight, and +returned to the spot on which I had left the body of my friend. It +was gone; doubtless the monster had already drawn it into its den and +devoured it. The rope and the grappling-hooks still lay where they had +fallen, but they afforded me no chance of return; it was impossible to +re-attach them to the rock above, and the sides of the rock were too +sheer and smooth for human steps to clamber. I was alone in this strange +world, amidst the bowels of the earth. + + + +Chapter III. + + +Slowly and cautiously I went my solitary way down the lamplit road and +towards the large building I have described. The road itself seemed like +a great Alpine pass, skirting rocky mountains of which the one through +whose chasm I had descended formed a link. Deep below to the left lay +a vast valley, which presented to my astonished eye the unmistakeable +evidences of art and culture. There were fields covered with a strange +vegetation, similar to none I have seen above the earth; the colour of +it not green, but rather of a dull and leaden hue or of a golden red. + +There were lakes and rivulets which seemed to have been curved into +artificial banks; some of pure water, others that shone like pools of +naphtha. At my right hand, ravines and defiles opened amidst the rocks, +with passes between, evidently constructed by art, and bordered by trees +resembling, for the most part, gigantic ferns, with exquisite varieties +of feathery foliage, and stems like those of the palm-tree. Others were +more like the cane-plant, but taller, bearing large clusters of flowers. +Others, again, had the form of enormous fungi, with short thick stems +supporting a wide dome-like roof, from which either rose or drooped long +slender branches. The whole scene behind, before, and beside me far as +the eye could reach, was brilliant with innumerable lamps. The world +without a sun was bright and warm as an Italian landscape at noon, but +the air less oppressive, the heat softer. Nor was the scene before me +void of signs of habitation. I could distinguish at a distance, whether +on the banks of the lake or rivulet, or half-way upon eminences, +embedded amidst the vegetation, buildings that must surely be the homes +of men. I could even discover, though far off, forms that appeared to +me human moving amidst the landscape. As I paused to gaze, I saw to +the right, gliding quickly through the air, what appeared a small +boat, impelled by sails shaped like wings. It soon passed out of sight, +descending amidst the shades of a forest. Right above me there was no +sky, but only a cavernous roof. This roof grew higher and higher at the +distance of the landscapes beyond, till it became imperceptible, as an +atmosphere of haze formed itself beneath. + +Continuing my walk, I started,--from a bush that resembled a great +tangle of sea-weeds, interspersed with fern-like shrubs and plants of +large leafage shaped like that of the aloe or prickly-pear,--a curious +animal about the size and shape of a deer. But as, after bounding away +a few paces, it turned round and gazed at me inquisitively, I perceived +that it was not like any species of deer now extant above the earth, +but it brought instantly to my recollection a plaster cast I had seen +in some museum of a variety of the elk stag, said to have existed before +the Deluge. The creature seemed tame enough, and, after inspecting me a +moment or two, began to graze on the singular herbiage around undismayed +and careless. + + + +Chapter IV. + + +I now came in full sight of the building. Yes, it had been made by +hands, and hollowed partly out of a great rock. I should have supposed +it at the first glance to have been of the earliest form of Egyptian +architecture. It was fronted by huge columns, tapering upward from +massive plinths, and with capitals that, as I came nearer, I perceived +to be more ornamental and more fantastically graceful that Egyptian +architecture allows. As the Corinthian capital mimics the leaf of the +acanthus, so the capitals of these columns imitated the foliage of the +vegetation neighbouring them, some aloe-like, some fern-like. And now +there came out of this building a form--human;--was it human? It stood +on the broad way and looked around, beheld me and approached. It +came within a few yards of me, and at the sight and presence of it an +indescribable awe and tremor seized me, rooting my feet to the ground. +It reminded me of symbolical images of Genius or Demon that are seen on +Etruscan vases or limned on the walls of Eastern sepulchres--images that +borrow the outlines of man, and are yet of another race. It was tall, +not gigantic, but tall as the tallest man below the height of giants. + +Its chief covering seemed to me to be composed of large wings folded +over its breast and reaching to its knees; the rest of its attire was +composed of an under tunic and leggings of some thin fibrous material. +It wore on its head a kind of tiara that shone with jewels, and carried +in its right hand a slender staff of bright metal like polished steel. +But the face! it was that which inspired my awe and my terror. It was +the face of man, but yet of a type of man distinct from our known extant +races. The nearest approach to it in outline and expression is the +face of the sculptured sphinx--so regular in its calm, intellectual, +mysterious beauty. Its colour was peculiar, more like that of the red +man than any other variety of our species, and yet different from it--a +richer and a softer hue, with large black eyes, deep and brilliant, and +brows arched as a semicircle. The face was beardless; but a nameless +something in the aspect, tranquil though the expression, and beauteous +though the features, roused that instinct of danger which the sight of +a tiger or serpent arouses. I felt that this manlike image was endowed +with forces inimical to man. As it drew near, a cold shudder came over +me. I fell on my knees and covered my face with my hands. + + + +Chapter V. + + +A voice accosted me--a very quiet and very musical key of voice--in a +language of which I could not understand a word, but it served to +dispel my fear. I uncovered my face and looked up. The stranger (I could +scarcely bring myself to call him man) surveyed me with an eye that +seemed to read to the very depths of my heart. He then placed his left +hand on my forehead, and with the staff in his right, gently touched my +shoulder. The effect of this double contact was magical. In place of my +former terror there passed into me a sense of contentment, of joy, of +confidence in myself and in the being before me. I rose and spoke in +my own language. He listened to me with apparent attention, but with a +slight surprise in his looks; and shook his head, as if to signify that +I was not understood. He then took me by the hand and led me in silence +to the building. The entrance was open--indeed there was no door to it. +We entered an immense hall, lighted by the same kind of lustre as in the +scene without, but diffusing a fragrant odour. The floor was in large +tesselated blocks of precious metals, and partly covered with a sort of +matlike carpeting. A strain of low music, above and around, undulated as +if from invisible instruments, seeming to belong naturally to the place, +just as the sound of murmuring waters belongs to a rocky landscape, or +the warble of birds to vernal groves. + +A figure in a simpler garb than that of my guide, but of similar +fashion, was standing motionless near the threshold. My guide touched +it twice with his staff, and it put itself into a rapid and gliding +movement, skimming noiselessly over the floor. Gazing on it, I then saw +that it was no living form, but a mechanical automaton. It might be two +minutes after it vanished through a doorless opening, half screened by +curtains at the other end of the hall, when through the same opening +advanced a boy of about twelve years old, with features closely +resembling those of my guide, so that they seemed to me evidently son +and father. On seeing me the child uttered a cry, and lifted a staff +like that borne by my guide, as if in menace. At a word from the elder +he dropped it. The two then conversed for some moments, examining me +while they spoke. The child touched my garments, and stroked my face +with evident curiosity, uttering a sound like a laugh, but with an +hilarity more subdued that the mirth of our laughter. Presently the roof +of the hall opened, and a platform descended, seemingly constructed +on the same principle as the ‘lifts’ used in hotels and warehouses for +mounting from one story to another. + +The stranger placed himself and the child on the platform, and motioned +to me to do the same, which I did. We ascended quickly and safely, and +alighted in the midst of a corridor with doorways on either side. + +Through one of these doorways I was conducted into a chamber fitted up +with an oriental splendour; the walls were tesselated with spars, and +metals, and uncut jewels; cushions and divans abounded; apertures as for +windows but unglazed, were made in the chamber opening to the floor; +and as I passed along I observed that these openings led into spacious +balconies, and commanded views of the illumined landscape without. In +cages suspended from the ceiling there were birds of strange form and +bright plumage, which at our entrance set up a chorus of song, modulated +into tune as is that of our piping bullfinches. A delicious fragrance, +from censers of gold elaborately sculptured, filled the air. Several +automata, like the one I had seen, stood dumb and motionless by the +walls. The stranger placed me beside him on a divan and again spoke +to me, and again I spoke, but without the least advance towards +understanding each other. + +But now I began to feel the effects of the blow I had received from the +splinters of the falling rock more acutely that I had done at first. + +There came over me a sense of sickly faintness, accompanied with acute, +lancinating pains in the head and neck. I sank back on the seat and +strove in vain to stifle a groan. On this the child, who had hitherto +seemed to eye me with distrust or dislike, knelt by my side to support +me; taking one of my hands in both his own, he approached his lips to +my forehead, breathing on it softly. In a few moments my pain ceased; a +drowsy, heavy calm crept over me; I fell asleep. + +How long I remained in this state I know not, but when I woke I felt +perfectly restored. My eyes opened upon a group of silent forms, seated +around me in the gravity and quietude of Orientals--all more or less +like the first stranger; the same mantling wings, the same fashion of +garment, the same sphinx-like faces, with the deep dark eyes and red +man’s colour; above all, the same type of race--race akin to man’s, but +infinitely stronger of form and grandeur of aspect--and inspiring the +same unutterable feeling of dread. Yet each countenance was mild and +tranquil, and even kindly in expression. And, strangely enough, it +seemed to me that in this very calm and benignity consisted the secret +of the dread which the countenances inspired. They seemed as void of the +lines and shadows which care and sorrow, and passion and sin, leave upon +the faces of men, as are the faces of sculptured gods, or as, in the +eyes of Christian mourners, seem the peaceful brows of the dead. + +I felt a warm hand on my shoulder; it was the child’s. In his eyes there +was a sort of lofty pity and tenderness, such as that with which we may +gaze on some suffering bird or butterfly. I shrank from that touch--I +shrank from that eye. I was vaguely impressed with a belief that, had he +so pleased, that child could have killed me as easily as a man can kill +a bird or a butterfly. The child seemed pained at my repugnance, quitted +me, and placed himself beside one of the windows. The others continued +to converse with each other in a low tone, and by their glances towards +me I could perceive that I was the object of their conversation. One +in especial seemed to be urging some proposal affecting me on the being +whom I had first met, and this last by his gesture seemed about to +assent to it, when the child suddenly quitted his post by the window, +placed himself between me and the other forms, as if in protection, and +spoke quickly and eagerly. By some intuition or instinct I felt that +the child I had before so dreaded was pleading in my behalf. Ere he had +ceased another stranger entered the room. He appeared older than the +rest, though not old; his countenance less smoothly serene than theirs, +though equally regular in its features, seemed to me to have more the +touch of a humanity akin to my own. He listened quietly to the words +addressed to him, first by my guide, next by two others of the group, +and lastly by the child; then turned towards myself, and addressed +me, not by words, but by signs and gestures. These I fancied that I +perfectly understood, and I was not mistaken. I comprehended that he +inquired whence I came. I extended my arm, and pointed towards the road +which had led me from the chasm in the rock; then an idea seized me. +I drew forth my pocket-book, and sketched on one of its blank leaves a +rough design of the ledge of the rock, the rope, myself clinging to it; +then of the cavernous rock below, the head of the reptile, the lifeless +form of my friend. I gave this primitive kind of hieroglyph to my +interrogator, who, after inspecting it gravely, handed it to his next +neighbour, and it thus passed round the group. The being I had at first +encountered then said a few words, and the child, who approached and +looked at my drawing, nodded as if he comprehended its purport, and, +returning to the window, expanded the wings attached to his form, shook +them once or twice, and then launched himself into space without. I +started up in amaze and hastened to the window. The child was already in +the air, buoyed on his wings, which he did not flap to and fro as a +bird does, but which were elevated over his head, and seemed to bear him +steadily aloft without effort of his own. His flight seemed as swift +as an eagle’s; and I observed that it was towards the rock whence I +had descended, of which the outline loomed visible in the brilliant +atmosphere. In a very few minutes he returned, skimming through the +opening from which he had gone, and dropping on the floor the rope and +grappling-hooks I had left at the descent from the chasm. Some words in +a low tone passed between the being present; one of the group touched an +automaton, which started forward and glided from the room; then the last +comer, who had addressed me by gestures, rose, took me by the hand, +and led me into the corridor. There the platform by which I had mounted +awaited us; we placed ourselves on it and were lowered into the hall +below. My new companion, still holding me by the hand, conducted me from +the building into a street (so to speak) that stretched beyond it, with +buildings on either side, separated from each other by gardens bright +with rich-coloured vegetation and strange flowers. Interspersed amidst +these gardens, which were divided from each other by low walls, or +walking slowly along the road, were many forms similar to those I had +already seen. Some of the passers-by, on observing me, approached my +guide, evidently by their tones, looks, and gestures addressing to him +inquiries about myself. In a few moments a crowd collected around us, +examining me with great interest, as if I were some rare wild animal. +Yet even in gratifying their curiosity they preserved a grave and +courteous demeanour; and after a few words from my guide, who seemed to +me to deprecate obstruction in our road, they fell back with a +stately inclination of head, and resumed their own way with tranquil +indifference. Midway in this thoroughfare we stopped at a building that +differed from those we had hitherto passed, inasmuch as it formed three +sides of a vast court, at the angles of which were lofty pyramidal +towers; in the open space between the sides was a circular fountain of +colossal dimensions, and throwing up a dazzling spray of what seemed to +me fire. We entered the building through an open doorway and came +into an enormous hall, in which were several groups of children, all +apparently employed in work as at some great factory. There was a huge +engine in the wall which was in full play, with wheels and cylinders +resembling our own steam-engines, except that it was richly ornamented +with precious stones and metals, and appeared to emanate a pale +phosphorescent atmosphere of shifting light. Many of the children were +at some mysterious work on this machinery, others were seated before +tables. I was not allowed to linger long enough to examine into the +nature of their employment. Not one young voice was heard--not one young +face turned to gaze on us. They were all still and indifferent as may +be ghosts, through the midst of which pass unnoticed the forms of the +living. + +Quitting this hall, my guide led me through a gallery richly painted +in compartments, with a barbaric mixture of gold in the colours, +like pictures by Louis Cranach. The subjects described on these walls +appeared to my glance as intended to illustrate events in the history of +the race amidst which I was admitted. In all there were figures, most +of them like the manlike creatures I had seen, but not all in the same +fashion of garb, nor all with wings. There were also the effigies +of various animals and birds, wholly strange to me, with backgrounds +depicting landscapes or buildings. So far as my imperfect knowledge of +the pictorial art would allow me to form an opinion, these paintings +seemed very accurate in design and very rich in colouring, showing +a perfect knowledge of perspective, but their details not +arranged according to the rules of composition acknowledged by our +artists--wanting, as it were, a centre; so that the effect was vague, +scattered, confused, bewildering--they were like heterogeneous fragments +of a dream of art. + +We now came into a room of moderate size, in which was assembled what I +afterwards knew to be the family of my guide, seated at a table spread +as for repast. The forms thus grouped were those of my guide’s wife, his +daughter, and two sons. I recognised at once the difference between +the two sexes, though the two females were of taller stature and ampler +proportions than the males; and their countenances, if still more +symmetrical in outline and contour, were devoid of the softness and +timidity of expression which give charm to the face of woman as seen on +the earth above. The wife wore no wings, the daughter wore wings longer +than those of the males. + +My guide uttered a few words, on which all the persons seated rose, +and with that peculiar mildness of look and manner which I have before +noticed, and which is, in truth, the common attribute of this formidable +race, they saluted me according to their fashion, which consists in +laying the right hand very gently on the head and uttering a soft +sibilant monosyllable--S.Si, equivalent to “Welcome.” + +The mistress of the house then seated me beside her, and heaped a golden +platter before me from one of the dishes. + +While I ate (and though the viands were new to me, I marvelled more +at the delicacy than the strangeness of their flavour), my companions +conversed quietly, and, so far as I could detect, with polite avoidance +of any direct reference to myself, or any obtrusive scrutiny of my +appearance. Yet I was the first creature of that variety of the human +race to which I belong that they had ever beheld, and was consequently +regarded by them as a most curious and abnormal phenomenon. But all +rudeness is unknown to this people, and the youngest child is taught to +despise any vehement emotional demonstration. When the meal was ended, +my guide again took me by the hand, and, re-entering the gallery, +touched a metallic plate inscribed with strange figures, and which I +rightly conjectured to be of the nature of our telegraphs. A platform +descended, but this time we mounted to a much greater height than in the +former building, and found ourselves in a room of moderate dimensions, +and which in its general character had much that might be familiar to +the associations of a visitor from the upper world. There were shelves +on the wall containing what appeared to be books, and indeed were so; +mostly very small, like our diamond duodecimos, shaped in the fashion +of our volumes, and bound in sheets of fine metal. There were several +curious-looking pieces of mechanism scattered about, apparently models, +such as might be seen in the study of any professional mechanician. Four +automata (mechanical contrivances which, with these people, answer the +ordinary purposes of domestic service) stood phantom-like at each angle +in the wall. In a recess was a low couch, or bed with pillows. A window, +with curtains of some fibrous material drawn aside, opened upon a large +balcony. My host stepped out into the balcony; I followed him. We were +on the uppermost story of one of the angular pyramids; the view beyond +was of a wild and solemn beauty impossible to describe:--the vast +ranges of precipitous rock which formed the distant background, the +intermediate valleys of mystic many-coloured herbiage, the flash of +waters, many of them like streams of roseate flame, the serene lustre +diffused over all by myriads of lamps, combined to form a whole of which +no words of mine can convey adequate description; so splendid was it, +yet so sombre; so lovely, yet so awful. + +But my attention was soon diverted from these nether landscapes. +Suddenly there arose, as from the streets below, a burst of joyous +music; then a winged form soared into the space; another as if in chase +of the first, another and another; others after others, till the crowd +grew thick and the number countless. But how describe the fantastic +grace of these forms in their undulating movements! They appeared +engaged in some sport or amusement; now forming into opposite squadrons; +now scattering; now each group threading the other, soaring, descending, +interweaving, severing; all in measured time to the music below, as if +in the dance of the fabled Peri. + +I turned my gaze on my host in a feverish wonder. I ventured to place my +hand on the large wings that lay folded on his breast, and in doing so a +slight shock as of electricity passed through me. I recoiled in fear; +my host smiled, and as if courteously to gratify my curiosity, slowly +expanded his pinions. I observed that his garment beneath them became +dilated as a bladder that fills with air. The arms seemed to slide +into the wings, and in another moment he had launched himself into the +luminous atmosphere, and hovered there, still, and with outspread wings, +as an eagle that basks in the sun. Then, rapidly as an eagle swoops, he +rushed downwards into the midst of one of the groups, skimming through +the midst, and as suddenly again soaring aloft. Thereon, three forms, +in one of which I thought to recognise my host’s daughter, detached +themselves from the rest, and followed him as a bird sportively follows +a bird. My eyes, dazzled with the lights and bewildered by the throngs, +ceased to distinguish the gyrations and evolutions of these winged +playmates, till presently my host re-emerged from the crowd and alighted +at my side. + +The strangeness of all I had seen began now to operate fast on my +senses; my mind itself began to wander. Though not inclined to be +superstitious, nor hitherto believing that man could be brought into +bodily communication with demons, I felt the terror and the wild +excitement with which, in the Gothic ages, a traveller might have +persuaded himself that he witnessed a ‘sabbat’ of fiends and witches. +I have a vague recollection of having attempted with vehement +gesticulation, and forms of exorcism, and loud incoherent words, to +repel my courteous and indulgent host; of his mild endeavors to calm and +soothe me; of his intelligent conjecture that my fright and bewilderment +were occasioned by the difference of form and movement between us which +the wings that had excited my marvelling curiosity had, in exercise, +made still more strongly perceptible; of the gentle smile with which he +had sought to dispel my alarm by dropping the wings to the ground and +endeavouring to show me that they were but a mechanical contrivance. +That sudden transformation did but increase my horror, and as extreme +fright often shows itself by extreme daring, I sprang at his throat like +a wild beast. On an instant I was felled to the ground as by an electric +shock, and the last confused images floating before my sight ere I +became wholly insensible, were the form of my host kneeling beside +me with one hand on my forehead, and the beautiful calm face of his +daughter, with large, deep, inscrutable eyes intently fixed upon my own. + + + +Chapter VI. + + +I remained in this unconscious state, as I afterwards learned, for many +days, even for some weeks according to our computation of time. When +I recovered I was in a strange room, my host and all his family were +gathered round me, and to my utter amaze my host’s daughter accosted me +in my own language with a slightly foreign accent. + +“How do you feel?” she asked. + +It was some moments before I could overcome my surprise enough to falter +out, “You know my language? How? Who and what are you?” + +My host smiled and motioned to one of his sons, who then took from a +table a number of thin metallic sheets on which were traced drawings of +various figures--a house, a tree, a bird, a man, &c. + +In these designs I recognised my own style of drawing. Under each figure +was written the name of it in my language, and in my writing; and in +another handwriting a word strange to me beneath it. + +Said the host, “Thus we began; and my daughter Zee, who belongs to the +College of Sages, has been your instructress and ours too.” + +Zee then placed before me other metallic sheets, on which, in my +writing, words first, and then sentences, were inscribed. Under each +word and each sentence strange characters in another hand. Rallying my +senses, I comprehended that thus a rude dictionary had been effected. +Had it been done while I was dreaming? “That is enough now,” said Zee, +in a tone of command. “Repose and take food.” + + + +Chapter VII. + + +A room to myself was assigned to me in this vast edifice. It was +prettily and fantastically arranged, but without any of the splendour +of metal-work or gems which was displayed in the more public apartments. +The walls were hung with a variegated matting made from the stalks and +fibers of plants, and the floor carpeted with the same. + +The bed was without curtains, its supports of iron resting on balls of +crystal; the coverings, of a thin white substance resembling cotton. +There were sundry shelves containing books. A curtained recess +communicated with an aviary filled with singing-birds, of which I +did not recognise one resembling those I have seen on earth, except a +beautiful species of dove, though this was distinguished from our doves +by a tall crest of bluish plumes. All these birds had been trained +to sing in artful tunes, and greatly exceeded the skill of our piping +bullfinches, which can rarely achieve more than two tunes, and cannot, I +believe, sing those in concert. One might have supposed one’s self at +an opera in listening to the voices in my aviary. There were duets +and trios, and quartetts and choruses, all arranged as in one piece of +music. Did I want silence from the birds? I had but to draw a curtain +over the aviary, and their song hushed as they found themselves left in +the dark. Another opening formed a window, not glazed, but on touching a +spring, a shutter ascended from the floor, formed of some substance +less transparent than glass, but still sufficiently pellucid to allow +a softened view of the scene without. To this window was attached a +balcony, or rather hanging garden, wherein grew many graceful plants +and brilliant flowers. The apartment and its appurtenances had thus a +character, if strange in detail, still familiar, as a whole, to modern +notions of luxury, and would have excited admiration if found attached +to the apartments of an English duchess or a fashionable French author. +Before I arrived this was Zee’s chamber; she had hospitably assigned it +to me. + +Some hours after the waking up which is described in my last chapter, I +was lying alone on my couch trying to fix my thoughts on conjecture as +to the nature and genus of the people amongst whom I was thrown, when my +host and his daughter Zee entered the room. My host, still speaking +my native language, inquired with much politeness, whether it would be +agreeable to me to converse, or if I preferred solitude. I replied, that +I should feel much honoured and obliged by the opportunity offered me to +express my gratitude for the hospitality and civilities I had received +in a country to which I was a stranger, and to learn enough of its +customs and manners not to offend through ignorance. + +As I spoke, I had of course risen from my couch: but Zee, much to my +confusion, curtly ordered me to lie down again, and there was something +in her voice and eye, gentle as both were, that compelled my obedience. +She then seated herself unconcernedly at the foot of my bed, while her +father took his place on a divan a few feet distant. + +“But what part of the world do you come from?” asked my host, “that we +should appear so strange to you and you to us? I have seen individual +specimens of nearly all the races differing from our own, except the +primeval savages who dwell in the most desolate and remote recesses of +uncultivated nature, unacquainted with other light than that they obtain +from volcanic fires, and contented to grope their way in the dark, as do +many creeping, crawling and flying things. But certainly you cannot be a +member of those barbarous tribes, nor, on the other hand, do you seem to +belong to any civilised people.” + +I was somewhat nettled at this last observation, and replied that I had +the honour to belong to one of the most civilised nations of the earth; +and that, so far as light was concerned, while I admired the ingenuity +and disregard of expense with which my host and his fellow-citizens had +contrived to illumine the regions unpenetrated by the rays of the sun, +yet I could not conceive how any who had once beheld the orbs of heaven +could compare to their lustre the artificial lights invented by the +necessities of man. But my host said he had seen specimens of most of +the races differing from his own, save the wretched barbarians he had +mentioned. Now, was it possible that he had never been on the surface +of the earth, or could he only be referring to communities buried within +its entrails? + +My host was for some moments silent; his countenance showed a degree of +surprise which the people of that race very rarely manifest under any +circumstances, howsoever extraordinary. But Zee was more intelligent, +and exclaimed, “So you see, my father, that there is truth in the old +tradition; there always is truth in every tradition commonly believed in +all times and by all tribes.” + +“Zee,” said my host mildly, “you belong to the College of Sages, and +ought to be wiser than I am; but, as chief of the Light-preserving +Council, it is my duty to take nothing for granted till it is proved to +the evidence of my own senses.” Then, turning to me, he asked me several +questions about the surface of the earth and the heavenly bodies; upon +which, though I answered him to the best of my knowledge, my answers +seemed not to satisfy nor convince him. He shook his head quietly, and, +changing the subject rather abruptly, asked how I had come down from +what he was pleased to call one world to the other. I answered, that +under the surface of the earth there were mines containing minerals, +or metals, essential to our wants and our progress in all arts and +industries; and I then briefly explained the manner in which, while +exploring one of those mines, I and my ill-fated friend had obtained a +glimpse of the regions into which we had descended, and how the descent +had cost him his life; appealing to the rope and grappling-hooks +that the child had brought to the house in which I had been at first +received, as a witness of the truthfulness of my story. + +My host then proceeded to question me as to the habits and modes of +life among the races on the upper earth, more especially among those +considered to be the most advanced in that civilisation which he was +pleased to define “the art of diffusing throughout a community the +tranquil happiness which belongs to a virtuous and well-ordered +household.” Naturally desiring to represent in the most favourable +colours the world from which I came, I touched but slightly, though +indulgently, on the antiquated and decaying institutions of Europe, in +order to expatiate on the present grandeur and prospective pre-eminence +of that glorious American Republic, in which Europe enviously seeks its +model and tremblingly foresees its doom. Selecting for an example of the +social life of the United States that city in which progress advances +at the fastest rate, I indulged in an animated description of the moral +habits of New York. Mortified to see, by the faces of my listeners, that +I did not make the favourable impression I had anticipated, I elevated +my theme; dwelling on the excellence of democratic institutions, their +promotion of tranquil happiness by the government of party, and the +mode in which they diffused such happiness throughout the community by +preferring, for the exercise of power and the acquisition of honours, +the lowliest citizens in point of property, education, and character. +Fortunately recollecting the peroration of a speech, on the purifying +influences of American democracy and their destined spread over the +world, made by a certain eloquent senator (for whose vote in the Senate +a Railway Company, to which my two brothers belonged, had just paid +20,000 dollars), I wound up by repeating its glowing predictions of the +magnificent future that smiled upon mankind--when the flag of freedom +should float over an entire continent, and two hundred millions of +intelligent citizens, accustomed from infancy to the daily use of +revolvers, should apply to a cowering universe the doctrine of the +Patriot Monroe. + +When I had concluded, my host gently shook his head, and fell into a +musing study, making a sign to me and his daughter to remain silent +while he reflected. And after a time he said, in a very earnest and +solemn tone, “If you think as you say, that you, though a stranger, have +received kindness at the hands of me and mine, I adjure you to reveal +nothing to any other of our people respecting the world from which you +came, unless, on consideration, I give you permission to do so. Do you +consent to this request?” “Of course I pledge my word, to it,” said +I, somewhat amazed; and I extended my right hand to grasp his. But +he placed my hand gently on his forehead and his own right hand on my +breast, which is the custom amongst this race in all matters of promise +or verbal obligations. Then turning to his daughter, he said, “And you, +Zee, will not repeat to any one what the stranger has said, or may say, +to me or to you, of a world other than our own.” Zee rose and kissed her +father on the temples, saying, with a smile, “A Gy’s tongue is wanton, +but love can fetter it fast. And if, my father, you fear lest a chance +word from me or yourself could expose our community to danger, by a +desire to explore a world beyond us, will not a wave of the ‘vril,’ +properly impelled, wash even the memory of what we have heard the +stranger say out of the tablets of the brain?” + +“What is the vril?” I asked. + +Therewith Zee began to enter into an explanation of which I understood +very little, for there is no word in any language I know which is an +exact synonym for vril. I should call it electricity, except that it +comprehends in its manifold branches other forces of nature, to which, +in our scientific nomenclature, differing names are assigned, such as +magnetism, galvanism, &c. These people consider that in vril they have +arrived at the unity in natural energetic agencies, which has been +conjectured by many philosophers above ground, and which Faraday thus +intimates under the more cautious term of correlation:-- + +“I have long held an opinion,” says that illustrious experimentalist, +“almost amounting to a conviction, in common, I believe, with many other +lovers of natural knowledge, that the various forms under which the +forces of matter are made manifest, have one common origin; or, in other +words, are so directly related and mutually dependent that they are +convertible, as it were into one another, and possess equivalents of +power in their action.” + +These subterranean philosophers assert that by one operation of vril, +which Faraday would perhaps call ‘atmospheric magnetism,’ they can +influence the variations of temperature--in plain words, the weather; +that by operations, akin to those ascribed to mesmerism, electro- +biology, odic force, &c., but applied scientifically, through vril +conductors, they can exercise influence over minds, and bodies animal +and vegetable, to an extent not surpassed in the romances of our +mystics. To all such agencies they give the common name of vril.” + +Zee asked me if, in my world, it was not known that all the faculties of +the mind could be quickened to a degree unknown in the waking state, +by trance or vision, in which the thoughts of one brain could be +transmitted to another, and knowledge be thus rapidly interchanged. +I replied, that there were amongst us stories told of such trance +or vision, and that I had heard much and seen something in mesmeric +clairvoyance; but that these practices had fallen much into disuse or +contempt, partly because of the gross impostures to which they had +been made subservient, and partly because, even where the effects upon +certain abnormal constitutions were genuinely produced, the effects when +fairly examined and analysed, were very unsatisfactory--not to be relied +upon for any systematic truthfulness or any practical purpose, and +rendered very mischievous to credulous persons by the superstitions +they tended to produce. Zee received my answers with much benignant +attention, and said that similar instances of abuse and credulity had +been familiar to their own scientific experience in the infancy of their +knowledge, and while the properties of vril were misapprehended, but +that she reserved further discussion on this subject till I was more +fitted to enter into it. She contented herself with adding, that it +was through the agency of vril, while I had been placed in the state +of trance, that I had been made acquainted with the rudiments of their +language; and that she and her father, who alone of the family, took +the pains to watch the experiment, had acquired a greater proportionate +knowledge of my language than I of their own; partly because my language +was much simpler than theirs, comprising far less of complex ideas; and +partly because their organisation was, by hereditary culture, much more +ductile and more readily capable of acquiring knowledge than mine. At +this I secretly demurred; and having had in the course of a practical +life, to sharpen my wits, whether at home or in travel, I could not +allow that my cerebral organisation could possibly be duller than that +of people who had lived all their lives by lamplight. However, while I +was thus thinking, Zee quietly pointed her forefinger at my forehead, +and sent me to sleep. + + + +Chapter VIII. + + +When I once more awoke I saw by my bed-side the child who had brought +the rope and grappling-hooks to the house in which I had been first +received, and which, as I afterwards learned, was the residence of +the chief magistrate of the tribe. The child, whose name was Taee +(pronounced Tar-ee), was the magistrate’s eldest son. I found that +during my last sleep or trance I had made still greater advance in the +language of the country, and could converse with comparative ease and +fluency. + +This child was singularly handsome, even for the beautiful race to which +he belonged, with a countenance very manly in aspect for his years, and +with a more vivacious and energetic expression than I had hitherto seen +in the serene and passionless faces of the men. He brought me the tablet +on which I had drawn the mode of my descent, and had also sketched the +head of the horrible reptile that had scared me from my friend’s corpse. +Pointing to that part of the drawing, Taee put to me a few questions +respecting the size and form of the monster, and the cave or chasm from +which it had emerged. His interest in my answers seemed so grave as +to divert him for a while from any curiosity as to myself or my +antecedents. But to my great embarrassment, seeing how I was pledged to +my host, he was just beginning to ask me where I came from, when Zee, +fortunately entered, and, overhearing him, said, “Taee, give to our +guest any information he may desire, but ask none from him in return. To +question him who he is, whence he comes, or wherefore he is here, would +be a breach of the law which my father has laid down in this house.” + +“So be it,” said Taee, pressing his hand to his breast; and from that +moment, till the one in which I saw him last, this child, with whom I +became very intimate, never once put to me any of the questions thus +interdicted. + + + +Chapter IX. + + +It was not for some time, and until, by repeated trances, if they are to +be so called, my mind became better prepared to interchange ideas with +my entertainers, and more fully to comprehend differences of manners +and customs, at first too strange to my experience to be seized by my +reason, that I was enabled to gather the following details respecting +the origin and history of the subterranean population, as portion of one +great family race called the Ana. + +According to the earliest traditions, the remote progenitors of the +race had once tenanted a world above the surface of that in which their +descendants dwelt. Myths of that world were still preserved in their +archives, and in those myths were legends of a vaulted dome in which the +lamps were lighted by no human hand. But such legends were considered by +most commentators as allegorical fables. According to these traditions +the earth itself, at the date to which the traditions ascend, was not +indeed in its infancy, but in the throes and travail of transition +from one form of development to another, and subject to many violent +revolutions of nature. By one of such revolutions, that portion of the +upper world inhabited by the ancestors of this race had been subjected +to inundations, not rapid, but gradual and uncontrollable, in which all, +save a scanty remnant, were submerged and perished. Whether this be +a record of our historical and sacred Deluge, or of some earlier one +contended for by geologists, I do not pretend to conjecture; though, +according to the chronology of this people as compared with that of +Newton, it must have been many thousands of years before the time of +Noah. On the other hand, the account of these writers does not harmonise +with the opinions most in vogue among geological authorities, inasmuch +as it places the existence of a human race upon earth at dates long +anterior to that assigned to the terrestrial formation adapted to the +introduction of mammalia. A band of the ill-fated race, thus invaded by +the Flood, had, during the march of the waters, taken refuge in caverns +amidst the loftier rocks, and, wandering through these hollows, they +lost sight of the upper world forever. Indeed, the whole face of the +earth had been changed by this great revulsion; land had been turned +into sea--sea into land. In the bowels of the inner earth, even now, +I was informed as a positive fact, might be discovered the remains of +human habitation--habitation not in huts and caverns, but in vast cities +whose ruins attest the civilisation of races which flourished before +the age of Noah, and are not to be classified with those genera to which +philosophy ascribes the use of flint and the ignorance of iron. + +The fugitives had carried with them the knowledge of the arts they had +practised above ground--arts of culture and civilisation. Their earliest +want must have been that of supplying below the earth the light they had +lost above it; and at no time, even in the traditional period, do the +races, of which the one I now sojourned with formed a tribe, seem to +have been unacquainted with the art of extracting light from gases, or +manganese, or petroleum. They had been accustomed in their former state +to contend with the rude forces of nature; and indeed the lengthened +battle they had fought with their conqueror Ocean, which had taken +centuries in its spread, had quickened their skill in curbing waters +into dikes and channels. To this skill they owed their preservation in +their new abode. “For many generations,” said my host, with a sort +of contempt and horror, “these primitive forefathers are said to have +degraded their rank and shortened their lives by eating the flesh of +animals, many varieties of which had, like themselves, escaped the +Deluge, and sought shelter in the hollows of the earth; other animals, +supposed to be unknown to the upper world, those hollows themselves +produced.” + +When what we should term the historical age emerged from the twilight +of tradition, the Ana were already established in different communities, +and had attained to a degree of civilisation very analogous to that +which the more advanced nations above the earth now enjoy. They +were familiar with most of our mechanical inventions, including the +application of steam as well as gas. The communities were in fierce +competition with each other. They had their rich and their poor; they +had orators and conquerors; they made war either for a domain or +an idea. Though the various states acknowledged various forms of +government, free institutions were beginning to preponderate; popular +assemblies increased in power; republics soon became general; the +democracy to which the most enlightened European politicians look +forward as the extreme goal of political advancement, and which +still prevailed among other subterranean races, whom they despised as +barbarians, the loftier family of Ana, to which belonged the tribe I was +visiting, looked back to as one of the crude and ignorant experiments +which belong to the infancy of political science. It was the age of envy +and hate, of fierce passions, of constant social changes more or less +violent, of strife between classes, of war between state and state. This +phase of society lasted, however, for some ages, and was finally brought +to a close, at least among the nobler and more intellectual +populations, by the gradual discovery of the latent powers stored in the +all-permeating fluid which they denominate Vril. + +According to the account I received from Zee, who, as an erudite +professor of the College of Sages, had studied such matters more +diligently than any other member of my host’s family, this fluid is +capable of being raised and disciplined into the mightiest agency over +all forms of matter, animate or inanimate. It can destroy like the flash +of lightning; yet, differently applied, it can replenish or invigorate +life, heal, and preserve, and on it they chiefly rely for the cure +of disease, or rather for enabling the physical organisation to +re-establish the due equilibrium of its natural powers, and thereby +to cure itself. By this agency they rend way through the most solid +substances, and open valleys for culture through the rocks of their +subterranean wilderness. From it they extract the light which supplies +their lamps, finding it steadier, softer, and healthier than the other +inflammable materials they had formerly used. + +But the effects of the alleged discovery of the means to direct the more +terrible force of vril were chiefly remarkable in their influence upon +social polity. As these effects became familiarly known and skillfully +administered, war between the vril-discoverers ceased, for they brought +the art of destruction to such perfection as to annul all superiority in +numbers, discipline, or military skill. The fire lodged in the hollow +of a rod directed by the hand of a child could shatter the strongest +fortress, or cleave its burning way from the van to the rear of an +embattled host. If army met army, and both had command of this agency, +it could be but to the annihilation of each. The age of war was +therefore gone, but with the cessation of war other effects bearing +upon the social state soon became apparent. Man was so completely at +the mercy of man, each whom he encountered being able, if so willing, +to slay him on the instant, that all notions of government by force +gradually vanished from political systems and forms of law. It is only +by force that vast communities, dispersed through great distances of +space, can be kept together; but now there was no longer either the +necessity of self-preservation or the pride of aggrandisement to make +one state desire to preponderate in population over another. + +The Vril-discoverers thus, in the course of a few generations, +peacefully split into communities of moderate size. The tribe amongst +which I had fallen was limited to 12,000 families. Each tribe occupied +a territory sufficient for all its wants, and at stated periods the +surplus population departed to seek a realm of its own. There appeared +no necessity for any arbitrary selection of these emigrants; there was +always a sufficient number who volunteered to depart. + +These subdivided states, petty if we regard either territory or +population,--all appertained to one vast general family. They spoke +the same language, though the dialects might slightly differ. They +intermarried; They maintained the same general laws and customs; and so +important a bond between these several communities was the knowledge +of vril and the practice of its agencies, that the word A-Vril was +synonymous with civilisation; and Vril-ya, signifying “The Civilised +Nations,” was the common name by which the communities employing the +uses of vril distinguished themselves from such of the Ana as were yet +in a state of barbarism. + +The government of the tribe of Vril-ya I am treating of was apparently +very complicated, really very simple. It was based upon a principle +recognised in theory, though little carried out in practice, above +ground--viz., that the object of all systems of philosophical thought +tends to the attainment of unity, or the ascent through all intervening +labyrinths to the simplicity of a single first cause or principle. +Thus in politics, even republican writers have agreed that a benevolent +autocracy would insure the best administration, if there were any +guarantees for its continuance, or against its gradual abuse of the +powers accorded to it. This singular community elected therefore a +single supreme magistrate styled Tur; he held his office nominally +for life, but he could seldom be induced to retain it after the first +approach of old age. There was indeed in this society nothing to induce +any of its members to covet the cares of office. No honours, no insignia +of higher rank, were assigned to it. The supreme magistrate was not +distinguished from the rest by superior habitation or revenue. On the +other hand, the duties awarded to him were marvellously light and easy, +requiring no preponderant degree of energy or intelligence. There being +no apprehensions of war, there were no armies to maintain; there being +no government of force, there was no police to appoint and direct. What +we call crime was utterly unknown to the Vril-ya; and there were no +courts of criminal justice. The rare instances of civil disputes were +referred for arbitration to friends chosen by either party, or decided +by the Council of Sages, which will be described later. There were +no professional lawyers; and indeed their laws were but amicable +conventions, for there was no power to enforce laws against an offender +who carried in his staff the power to destroy his judges. There were +customs and regulations to compliance with which, for several ages, +the people had tacitly habituated themselves; or if in any instance an +individual felt such compliance hard, he quitted the community and went +elsewhere. There was, in fact, quietly established amid this state, +much the same compact that is found in our private families, in which we +virtually say to any independent grown-up member of the family whom +we receive to entertain, “Stay or go, according as our habits and +regulations suit or displease you.” But though there were no laws such +as we call laws, no race above ground is so law-observing. Obedience to +the rule adopted by the community has become as much an instinct as +if it were implanted by nature. Even in every household the head of it +makes a regulation for its guidance, which is never resisted nor even +cavilled at by those who belong to the family. They have a proverb, +the pithiness of which is much lost in this paraphrase, “No happiness +without order, no order without authority, no authority without unity.” + The mildness of all government among them, civil or domestic, may be +signalised by their idiomatic expressions for such terms as illegal or +forbidden--viz., “It is requested not to do so and so.” Poverty among +the Ana is as unknown as crime; not that property is held in common, or +that all are equals in the extent of their possessions or the size and +luxury of their habitations: but there being no difference of rank or +position between the grades of wealth or the choice of occupations, each +pursues his own inclinations without creating envy or vying; some like +a modest, some a more splendid kind of life; each makes himself happy in +his own way. Owing to this absence of competition, and the limit placed +on the population, it is difficult for a family to fall into distress; +there are no hazardous speculations, no emulators striving for superior +wealth and rank. No doubt, in each settlement all originally had the +same proportions of land dealt out to them; but some, more adventurous +than others, had extended their possessions farther into the bordering +wilds, or had improved into richer fertility the produce of their +fields, or entered into commerce or trade. Thus, necessarily, some +had grown richer than others, but none had become absolutely poor, or +wanting anything which their tastes desired. If they did so, it was +always in their power to migrate, or at the worst to apply, without +shame and with certainty of aid, to the rich, for all the members of +the community considered themselves as brothers of one affectionate and +united family. More upon this head will be treated of incidentally as my +narrative proceeds. + +The chief care of the supreme magistrate was to communicate with certain +active departments charged with the administration of special details. +The most important and essential of such details was that connected with +the due provision of light. Of this department my host, Aph-Lin, was +the chief. Another department, which might be called the foreign, +communicated with the neighbouring kindred states, principally for the +purpose of ascertaining all new inventions; and to a third department +all such inventions and improvements in machinery were committed for +trial. Connected with this department was the College of Sages--a +college especially favoured by such of the Ana as were widowed and +childless, and by the young unmarried females, amongst whom Zee was +the most active, and, if what we call renown or distinction was a thing +acknowledged by this people (which I shall later show it is not), among +the more renowned or distinguished. It is by the female Professors +of this College that those studies which are deemed of least use in +practical life--as purely speculative philosophy, the history of remote +periods, and such sciences as entomology, conchology, &c.--are the more +diligently cultivated. Zee, whose mind, active as Aristotle’s, equally +embraced the largest domains and the minutest details of thought, had +written two volumes on the parasite insect that dwells amid the hairs +of a tiger’s* paw, which work was considered the best authority on that +interesting subject. + +* The animal here referred to has many points of difference from the +tiger of the upper world. It is larger, and with a broader paw, and +still more receding frontal. It haunts the side of lakes and pools, +and feeds principally on fishes, though it does not object to any +terrestrial animal of inferior strength that comes in its way. It is +becoming very scarce even in the wild districts, where it is devoured +by gigantic reptiles. I apprehended that it clearly belongs to the tiger +species, since the parasite animalcule found in its paw, like that in +the Asiatic tiger, is a miniature image of itself. + +But the researches of the sages are not confined to such subtle or +elegant studies. They comprise various others more important, and +especially the properties of vril, to the perception of which their +finer nervous organisation renders the female Professors eminently keen. +It is out of this college that the Tur, or chief magistrate, selects +Councillors, limited to three, in the rare instances in which novelty of +event or circumstance perplexes his own judgment. + +There are a few other departments of minor consequence, but all are +carried on so noiselessly, and quietly that the evidence of a government +seems to vanish altogether, and social order to be as regular and +unobtrusive as if it were a law of nature. Machinery is employed to an +inconceivable extent in all the operations of labour within and without +doors, and it is the unceasing object of the department charged with its +administration to extend its efficiency. There is no class of labourers +or servants, but all who are required to assist or control the machinery +are found in the children, from the time they leave the care of their +mothers to the marriageable age, which they place at sixteen for the +Gy-ei (the females), twenty for the Ana (the males). These children are +formed into bands and sections under their own chiefs, each following +the pursuits in which he is most pleased, or for which he feels himself +most fitted. Some take to handicrafts, some to agriculture, some to +household work, and some to the only services of danger to which the +population is exposed; for the sole perils that threaten this tribe are, +first, from those occasional convulsions within the earth, to foresee +and guard against which tasks their utmost ingenuity--irruptions of fire +and water, the storms of subterranean winds and escaping gases. At +the borders of the domain, and at all places where such peril might +be apprehended, vigilant inspectors are stationed with telegraphic +communications to the hall in which chosen sages take it by turns to +hold perpetual sittings. These inspectors are always selected from the +elder boys approaching the age of puberty, and on the principle that at +that age observation is more acute and the physical forces more alert +than at any other. The second service of danger, less grave, is in the +destruction of all creatures hostile to the life, or the culture, or +even the comfort, of the Ana. Of these the most formidable are the vast +reptiles, of some of which antediluvian relics are preserved in our +museums, and certain gigantic winged creatures, half bird, half reptile. +These, together with lesser wild animals, corresponding to our tigers +or venomous serpents, it is left to the younger children to hunt and +destroy; because, according to the Ana, here ruthlessness is wanted, +and the younger the child the more ruthlessly he will destroy. There is +another class of animals in the destruction of which discrimination +is to be used, and against which children of intermediate age are +appointed--animals that do not threaten the life of man, but ravage the +produce of his labour, varieties of the elk and deer species, and +a smaller creature much akin to our rabbit, though infinitely more +destructive to crops, and much more cunning in its mode of depredation. +It is the first object of these appointed infants, to tame the more +intelligent of such animals into respect for enclosures signalised by +conspicuous landmarks, as dogs are taught to respect a larder, or even +to guard the master’s property. It is only where such creatures are +found untamable to this extent that they are destroyed. Life is never +taken away for food or for sport, and never spared where untamably +inimical to the Ana. Concomitantly with these bodily services and tasks, +the mental education of the children goes on till boyhood ceases. It is +the general custom, then, to pass though a course of instruction at +the College of Sages, in which, besides more general studies, the pupil +receives special lessons in such vocation or direction of intellect +as he himself selects. Some, however, prefer to pass this period of +probation in travel, or to emigrate, or to settle down at once +into rural or commercial pursuits. No force is put upon individual +inclination. + + + +Chapter X. + + +The word Ana (pronounced broadly ‘Arna’) corresponds with our plural +‘men;’ An (pronounced ‘Arn’), the singular, with ‘man.’ The word for +woman is Gy (pronounced hard, as in Guy); it forms itself into Gy-ei for +the plural, but the G becomes soft in the plural like Jy-ei. They have +a proverb to the effect that this difference in pronunciation is +symbolical, for that the female sex is soft in the concrete, but hard to +deal with in the individual. The Gy-ei are in the fullest enjoyment of +all the rights of equality with males, for which certain philosophers +above ground contend. + +In childhood they perform the offices of work and labour impartially +with the boys, and, indeed, in the earlier age appropriated to the +destruction of animals irreclaimably hostile, the girls are frequently +preferred, as being by constitution more ruthless under the influence of +fear or hate. In the interval between infancy and the marriageable age +familiar intercourse between the sexes is suspended. At the marriageable +age it is renewed, never with worse consequences than those which attend +upon marriage. All arts and vocations allotted to the one sex are open +to the other, and the Gy-ei arrogate to themselves a superiority in all +those abstruse and mystical branches of reasoning, for which they say +the Ana are unfitted by a duller sobriety of understanding, or the +routine of their matter-of-fact occupations, just as young ladies in our +own world constitute themselves authorities in the subtlest points of +theological doctrine, for which few men, actively engaged in worldly +business have sufficient learning or refinement of intellect. +Whether owing to early training in gymnastic exercises, or to their +constitutional organisation, the Gy-ei are usually superior to the Ana +in physical strength (an important element in the consideration and +maintenance of female rights). They attain to loftier stature, and amid +their rounder proportions are imbedded sinews and muscles as hardy +as those of the other sex. Indeed they assert that, according to the +original laws of nature, females were intended to be larger than males, +and maintain this dogma by reference to the earliest formations of life +in insects, and in the most ancient family of the vertebrata--viz., +fishes--in both of which the females are generally large enough to make +a meal of their consorts if they so desire. Above all, the Gy-ei have a +readier and more concentred power over that mysterious fluid or agency +which contains the element of destruction, with a larger portion of that +sagacity which comprehends dissimulation. Thus they cannot only defend +themselves against all aggressions from the males, but could, at any +moment when he least expected his danger, terminate the existence of an +offending spouse. To the credit of the Gy-ei no instance of their abuse +of this awful superiority in the art of destruction is on record for +several ages. The last that occurred in the community I speak of appears +(according to their chronology) to have been about two thousand years +ago. A Gy, then, in a fit of jealousy, slew her husband; and this +abominable act inspired such terror among the males that they emigrated +in a body and left all the Gy-ei to themselves. The history runs that +the widowed Gy-ei, thus reduced to despair, fell upon the murderess when +in her sleep (and therefore unarmed), and killed her, and then entered +into a solemn obligation amongst themselves to abrogate forever the +exercise of their extreme conjugal powers, and to inculcate the +same obligation for ever and ever on their female children. By this +conciliatory process, a deputation despatched to the fugitive consorts +succeeded in persuading many to return, but those who did return were +mostly the elder ones. The younger, either from too craven a doubt of +their consorts, or too high an estimate of their own merits, rejected +all overtures, and, remaining in other communities, were caught up there +by other mates, with whom perhaps they were no better off. But the loss +of so large a portion of the male youth operated as a salutary warning +on the Gy-ei, and confirmed them in the pious resolution to which they +pledged themselves. Indeed it is now popularly considered that, by long +hereditary disuse, the Gy-ei have lost both the aggressive and defensive +superiority over the Ana which they once possessed, just as in the +inferior animals above the earth many peculiarities in their original +formation, intended by nature for their protection, gradually fade or +become inoperative when not needed under altered circumstances. I should +be sorry, however, for any An who induced a Gy to make the experiment +whether he or she were the stronger. + +From the incident I have narrated, the Ana date certain alterations in +the marriage customs, tending, perhaps, somewhat to the advantage of the +male. They now bind themselves in wedlock only for three years; at the +end of each third year either male or female can divorce the other and +is free to marry again. At the end of ten years the An has the privilege +of taking a second wife, allowing the first to retire if she so please. +These regulations are for the most part a dead letter; divorces and +polygamy are extremely rare, and the marriage state now seems +singularly happy and serene among this astonishing people;--the Gy-ei, +notwithstanding their boastful superiority in physical strength and +intellectual abilities, being much curbed into gentle manners by the +dread of separation or of a second wife, and the Ana being very much the +creatures of custom, and not, except under great aggravation, likely +to exchange for hazardous novelties faces and manners to which they +are reconciled by habit. But there is one privilege the Gy-ei carefully +retain, and the desire for which perhaps forms the secret motive of most +lady asserters of woman rights above ground. They claim the privilege, +here usurped by men, of proclaiming their love and urging their suit; +in other words, of being the wooing party rather than the wooed. Such a +phenomenon as an old maid does not exist among the Gy-ei. Indeed it +is very seldom that a Gy does not secure any An upon whom she sets her +heart, if his affections be not strongly engaged elsewhere. However coy, +reluctant, and prudish, the male she courts may prove at first, yet her +perseverance, her ardour, her persuasive powers, her command over the +mystic agencies of vril, are pretty sure to run down his neck into +what we call “the fatal noose.” Their argument for the reversal of that +relationship of the sexes which the blind tyranny of man has established +on the surface of the earth, appears cogent, and is advanced with a +frankness which might well be commended to impartial consideration. +They say, that of the two the female is by nature of a more loving +disposition than the male--that love occupies a larger space in her +thoughts, and is more essential to her happiness, and that therefore +she ought to be the wooing party; that otherwise the male is a shy and +dubitant creature--that he has often a selfish predilection for the +single state--that he often pretends to misunderstand tender glances +and delicate hints--that, in short, he must be resolutely pursued and +captured. They add, moreover, that unless the Gy can secure the An of +her choice, and one whom she would not select out of the whole world +becomes her mate, she is not only less happy than she otherwise would +be, but she is not so good a being, that her qualities of heart are not +sufficiently developed; whereas the An is a creature that less lastingly +concentrates his affections on one object; that if he cannot get the +Gy whom he prefers he easily reconciles himself to another Gy; and, +finally, that at the worst, if he is loved and taken care of, it is less +necessary to the welfare of his existence that he should love as well +as be loved; he grows contented with his creature comforts, and the many +occupations of thought which he creates for himself. + +Whatever may be said as to this reasoning, the system works well for the +male; for being thus sure that he is truly and ardently loved, and that +the more coy and reluctant he shows himself, the more determination +to secure him increases, he generally contrives to make his consent +dependent on such conditions as he thinks the best calculated to insure, +if not a blissful, at least a peaceful life. Each individual An has his +own hobbies, his own ways, his own predilections, and, whatever they may +be, he demands a promise of full and unrestrained concession to them. +This, in the pursuit of her object, the Gy readily promises; and as the +characteristic of this extraordinary people is an implicit veneration +for truth, and her word once given is never broken even by the giddiest +Gy, the conditions stipulated for are religiously observed. In fact, +notwithstanding all their abstract rights and powers, the Gy-ei are the +most amiable, conciliatory, and submissive wives I have ever seen even +in the happiest households above ground. It is an aphorism among them, +that “where a Gy loves it is her pleasure to obey.” It will be observed +that in the relationship of the sexes I have spoken only of marriage, +for such is the moral perfection to which this community has attained, +that any illicit connection is as little possible amongst them as it +would be to a couple of linnets during the time they agree to live in +pairs. + + + +Chapter XI. + + +Nothing had more perplexed me in seeking to reconcile my sense to the +existence of regions extending below the surface of the earth, and +habitable by beings, if dissimilar from, still, in all material points +of organism, akin to those in the upper world, than the contradiction +thus presented to the doctrine in which, I believe, most geologists +and philosophers concur--viz., that though with us the sun is the great +source of heat, yet the deeper we go beneath the crust of the earth, the +greater is the increasing heat, being, it is said, found in the ratio of +a degree for every foot, commencing from fifty feet below the surface. +But though the domains of the tribe I speak of were, on the higher +ground, so comparatively near to the surface, that I could account for a +temperature, therein, suitable to organic life, yet even the ravines and +valleys of that realm were much less hot than philosophers would deem +possible at such a depth--certainly not warmer than the south of France, +or at least of Italy. And according to all the accounts I received, vast +tracts immeasurably deeper beneath the surface, and in which one might +have thought only salamanders could exist, were inhabited by innumerable +races organised like ourselves, I cannot pretend in any way to account +for a fact which is so at variance with the recognised laws of science, +nor could Zee much help me towards a solution of it. She did but +conjecture that sufficient allowance had not been made by our +philosophers for the extreme porousness of the interior earth--the +vastness of its cavities and irregularities, which served to create free +currents of air and frequent winds--and for the various modes in which +heat is evaporated and thrown off. She allowed, however, that there was +a depth at which the heat was deemed to be intolerable to such organised +life as was known to the experience of the Vril-ya, though their +philosophers believed that even in such places life of some kind, life +sentient, life intellectual, would be found abundant and thriving, could +the philosophers penetrate to it. “Wherever the All-Good builds,” + said she, “there, be sure, He places inhabitants. He loves not empty +dwellings.” She added, however, that many changes in temperature and +climate had been effected by the skill of the Vril-ya, and that the +agency of vril had been successfully employed in such changes. She +described a subtle and life-giving medium called Lai, which I suspect +to be identical with the ethereal oxygen of Dr. Lewins, wherein work all +the correlative forces united under the name of vril; and contended that +wherever this medium could be expanded, as it were, sufficiently for the +various agencies of vril to have ample play, a temperature congenial to +the highest forms of life could be secured. She said also, that it was +the belief of their naturalists that flowers and vegetation had been +produced originally (whether developed from seeds borne from the surface +of the earth in the earlier convulsions of nature, or imported by +the tribes that first sought refuge in cavernous hollows) through the +operations of the light constantly brought to bear on them, and the +gradual improvement in culture. She said also, that since the vril light +had superseded all other light-giving bodies, the colours of flower and +foliage had become more brilliant, and vegetation had acquired larger +growth. + +Leaving these matters to the consideration of those better competent to +deal with them, I must now devote a few pages to the very interesting +questions connected with the language of the Vril-ya. + + + +Chapter XII. + + +The language of the Vril-ya is peculiarly interesting, because it seems +to me to exhibit with great clearness the traces of the three main +transitions through which language passes in attaining to perfection of +form. + +One of the most illustrious of recent philologists, Max Muller, in +arguing for the analogy between the strata of language and the strata +of the earth, lays down this absolute dogma: “No language can, by +any possibility, be inflectional without having passed through the +agglutinative and isolating stratum. No language can be agglutinative +without clinging with its roots to the underlying stratum of +isolation.”--‘On the Stratification of Language,’ p. 20. + +Taking then the Chinese language as the best existing type of the +original isolating stratum, “as the faithful photograph of man in his +leading-strings trying the muscles of his mind, groping his way, and so +delighted with his first successful grasps that he repeats them again +and again,” (Max Muller, p. 3)--we have, in the language of the Vril-ya, +still “clinging with its roots to the underlying stratum,” the evidences +of the original isolation. It abounds in monosyllables, which are the +foundations of the language. The transition into the agglutinative +form marks an epoch that must have gradually extended through ages, +the written literature of which has only survived in a few fragments of +symbolical mythology and certain pithy sentences which have passed +into popular proverbs. With the extant literature of the Vril-ya the +inflectional stratum commences. No doubt at that time there must have +operated concurrent causes, in the fusion of races by some dominant +people, and the rise of some great literary phenomena by which the +form of language became arrested and fixed. As the inflectional stage +prevailed over the agglutinative, it is surprising to see how much more +boldly the original roots of the language project from the surface that +conceals them. In the old fragments and proverbs of the preceding stage +the monosyllables which compose those roots vanish amidst words of +enormous length, comprehending whole sentences from which no one part +can be disentangled from the other and employed separately. But when +the inflectional form of language became so far advanced as to have its +scholars and grammarians, they seem to have united in extirpating all +such polysynthetical or polysyllabic monsters, as devouring invaders of +the aboriginal forms. Words beyond three syllables became proscribed +as barbarous and in proportion as the language grew thus simplified it +increased in strength, in dignity, and in sweetness. Though now very +compressed in sound, it gains in clearness by that compression. By a +single letter, according to its position, they contrive to express +all that with civilised nations in our upper world it takes the waste, +sometimes of syllables, sometimes of sentences, to express. Let me here +cite one or two instances: An (which I will translate man), Ana (men); +the letter ‘s’ is with them a letter implying multitude, according to +where it is placed; Sana means mankind; Ansa, a multitude of men. The +prefix of certain letters in their alphabet invariably denotes compound +significations. For instance, Gl (which with them is a single letter, as +‘th’ is a single letter with the Greeks) at the commencement of a word +infers an assemblage or union of things, sometimes kindred, sometimes +dissimilar--as Oon, a house; Gloon, a town (i. e., an assemblage of +houses). Ata is sorrow; Glata, a public calamity. Aur-an is the health +or wellbeing of a man; Glauran, the wellbeing of the state, the good of +the community; and a word constantly in ther mouths is A-glauran, which +denotes their political creed--viz., that “the first principle of a +community is the good of all.” Aub is invention; Sila, a tone in music. +Glaubsila, as uniting the ideas of invention and of musical intonation, +is the classical word for poetry--abbreviated, in ordinary conversation, +to Glaubs. Na, which with them is, like Gl, but a single letter, always, +when an initial, implies something antagonistic to life or joy or +comfort, resembling in this the Aryan root Nak, expressive of perishing +or destruction. Nax is darkness; Narl, death; Naria, sin or evil. +Nas--an uttermost condition of sin and evil--corruption. In writing, +they deem it irreverent to express the Supreme Being by any special +name. He is symbolized by what may be termed the heiroglyphic of a +pyramid, /\. In prayer they address Him by a name which they deem too +sacred to confide to a stranger, and I know it not. In conversation they +generally use a periphrastic epithet, such as the All-Good. The letter +V, symbolical of the inverted pyramid, where it is an initial, nearly +always denotes excellence of power; as Vril, of which I have said so +much; Veed, an immortal spirit; Veed-ya, immortality; Koom, pronounced +like the Welsh Cwm, denotes something of hollowness. Koom itself is +a cave; Koom-in, a hole; Zi-koom, a valley; Koom-zi, vacancy or void; +Bodh-koom, ignorance (literally, knowledge-void). Koom-posh is their +name for the government of the many, or the ascendancy of the most +ignorant or hollow. Posh is an almost untranslatable idiom, implying, as +the reader will see later, contempt. The closest rendering I can give to +it is our slang term, “bosh;” and this Koom-Posh may be loosely rendered +“Hollow-Bosh.” But when Democracy or Koom-Posh degenerates from popular +ignorance into that popular passion or ferocity which precedes its +decease, as (to cite illustrations from the upper world) during the +French Reign of Terror, or for the fifty years of the Roman Republic +preceding the ascendancy of Augustus, their name for that state of +things is Glek-Nas. Ek is strife--Glek, the universal strife. Nas, as I +before said, is corruption or rot; thus, Glek-Nas may be construed, “the +universal strife-rot.” Their compounds are very expressive; thus, +Bodh being knowledge, and Too a participle that implies the action of +cautiously approaching,--Too-bodh is their word for Philosophy; Pah is +a contemptuous exclamation analogous to our idiom, “stuff and nonsense;” + Pah-bodh (literally stuff and nonsense-knowledge) is their term for +futile and false philosophy, and applied to a species of metaphysical or +speculative ratiocination formerly in vogue, which consisted in making +inquiries that could not be answered, and were not worth making; such, +for instance, as “Why does an An have five toes to his feet instead of +four or six? Did the first An, created by the All-Good, have the same +number of toes as his descendants? In the form by which an An will be +recognised by his friends in the future state of being, will he retain +any toes at all, and, if so, will they be material toes or spiritual +toes?” I take these illustrations of Pahbodh, not in irony or jest, but +because the very inquiries I name formed the subject of controversy by +the latest cultivators of that ‘science,’--4000 years ago. + +In the declension of nouns I was informed that anciently there were +eight cases (one more than in the Sanskrit Grammar); but the effect +of time has been to reduce these cases, and multiply, instead of these +varying terminations, explanatory propositions. At present, in the +Grammar submitted to my study, there were four cases to nouns, three +having varying terminations, and the fourth a differing prefix. + + SINGULAR. PLURAL. + Nom. An, Man, | Nom. Ana, Men. + Dat. Ano, to Man, | Dat. Anoi, to Men. + Ac. Anan, Man, | Ac. Ananda, Men. + Voc. Hil-an, O Man, | Voc. Hil-Ananda, O Men. + +In the elder inflectional literature the dual form existed--it has long +been obsolete. + +The genitive case with them is also obsolete; the dative supplies its +place: they say the House ‘to’ a Man, instead of the House ‘of’ a Man. +When used (sometimes in poetry), the genitive in the termination is the +same as the nominative; so is the ablative, the preposition that marks +it being a prefix or suffix at option, and generally decided by ear, +according to the sound of the noun. It will be observed that the +prefix Hil marks the vocative case. It is always retained in addressing +another, except in the most intimate domestic relations; its omission +would be considered rude: just as in our of forms of speech in +addressing a king it would have been deemed disrespectful to say “King,” + and reverential to say “O King.” In fact, as they have no titles of +honour, the vocative adjuration supplies the place of a title, and is +given impartially to all. The prefix Hil enters into the composition of +words that imply distant communications, as Hil-ya, to travel. + +In the conjugation of their verbs, which is much too lengthy a subject +to enter on here, the auxiliary verb Ya, “to go,” which plays so +considerable part in the Sanskrit, appears and performs a kindred +office, as if it were a radical in some language from which both +had descended. But another auxiliary or opposite signification also +accompanies it and shares its labours--viz., Zi, to stay or repose. Thus +Ya enters into the future tense, and Zi in the preterite of all verbs +requiring auxiliaries. Yam, I shall go--Yiam, I may go--Yani-ya, I shall +go (literally, I go to go), Zam-poo-yan, I have gone (literally, I +rest from gone). Ya, as a termination, implies by analogy, progress, +movement, efflorescence. Zi, as a terminal, denotes fixity, sometimes in +a good sense, sometimes in a bad, according to the word with which it +is coupled. Iva-zi, eternal goodness; Nan-zi, eternal evil. Poo (from) +enters as a prefix to words that denote repugnance, or things from +which we ought to be averse. Poo-pra, disgust; Poo-naria, falsehood, +the vilest kind of evil. Poosh or Posh I have already confessed to be +untranslatable literally. It is an expression of contempt not unmixed +with pity. This radical seems to have originated from inherent sympathy +between the labial effort and the sentiment that impelled it, Poo being +an utterance in which the breath is exploded from the lips with more or +less vehemence. On the other hand, Z, when an initial, is with them a +sound in which the breath is sucked inward, and thus Zu, pronounced Zoo +(which in their language is one letter), is the ordinary prefix to words +that signify something that attracts, pleases, touches the heart--as +Zummer, lover; Zutze, love; Zuzulia, delight. This indrawn sound of +Z seems indeed naturally appropriate to fondness. Thus, even in our +language, mothers say to their babies, in defiance of grammar, “Zoo +darling;” and I have heard a learned professor at Boston call his wife +(he had been only married a month) “Zoo little pet.” + +I cannot quit this subject, however, without observing by what slight +changes in the dialects favoured by different tribes of the same race, +the original signification and beauty of sounds may become confused and +deformed. Zee told me with much indignation that Zummer (lover) which in +the way she uttered it, seemed slowly taken down to the very depths of +her heart, was, in some not very distant communities of the Vril-ya, +vitiated into the half-hissing, half-nasal, wholly disagreeable, sound +of Subber. I thought to myself it only wanted the introduction of ‘n’ +before ‘u’ to render it into an English word significant of the last +quality an amorous Gy would desire in her Zummer. + +I will but mention another peculiarity in this language which gives +equal force and brevity to its forms of expressions. + +A is with them, as with us, the first letter of the alphabet, and +is often used as a prefix word by itself to convey a complex idea of +sovereignty or chiefdom, or presiding principle. For instance, Iva is +goodness; Diva, goodness and happiness united; A-Diva is unerring and +absolute truth. I have already noticed the value of A in A-glauran, +so, in vril (to whose properties they trace their present state of +civilisation), A-vril, denotes, as I have said, civilisation itself. + +The philologist will have seen from the above how much the language +of the Vril-ya is akin to the Aryan or Indo-Germanic; but, like all +languages, it contains words and forms in which transfers from very +opposite sources of speech have been taken. The very title of Tur, which +they give to their supreme magistrate, indicates theft from a tongue +akin to the Turanian. They say themselves that this is a foreign word +borrowed from a title which their historical records show to have been +borne by the chief of a nation with whom the ancestors of the Vril-ya +were, in very remote periods, on friendly terms, but which has long +become extinct, and they say that when, after the discovery of vril, +they remodelled their political institutions, they expressly adopted a +title taken from an extinct race and a dead language for that of their +chief magistrate, in order to avoid all titles for that office with +which they had previous associations. + +Should life be spared to me, I may collect into systematic form such +knowledge as I acquired of this language during my sojourn amongst the +Vril-ya. But what I have already said will perhaps suffice to show to +genuine philological students that a language which, preserving so many +of the roots in the aboriginal form, and clearing from the immediate, +but transitory, polysynthetical stage so many rude incumbrances, has +attained to such a union of simplicity and compass in its final +inflectional forms, must have been the gradual work of countless ages +and many varieties of mind ; that it contains the evidence of fusion +between congenial races, and necessitated, in arriving at the shape of +which I have given examples, the continuous culture of a highly +thoughtful people. + +That, nevertheless, the literature which belongs to this language is a +literature of the past; that the present felicitous state of society at +which the Ana have attained forbids the progressive cultivation of +literature, especially in the two main divisions of fiction and history, +--I shall have occasion to show. + + + + +Chapter XIII. + + +This people have a religion, and, whatever may be said against it, at +least it has these strange peculiarities: firstly, that all believe in +the creed they profess; secondly, that they all practice the precepts +which the creed inculcates. They unite in the worship of one divine +Creator and Sustainer of the universe. They believe that it is one of +the properties of the all-permeating agency of vril, to transmit to +the well-spring of life and intelligence every thought that a living +creature can conceive; and though they do not contend that the idea of a +Diety is innate, yet they say that the An (man) is the only creature, +so far as their observation of nature extends, to whom ‘the capacity +of conceiving that idea,’ with all the trains of thought which open out +from it, is vouchsafed. They hold that this capacity is a privilege that +cannot have been given in vain, and hence that prayer and thanksgiving +are acceptable to the divine Creator, and necessary to the complete +development of the human creature. They offer their devotions both in +private and public. Not being considered one of their species, I was +not admitted into the building or temple in which the public worship is +rendered; but I am informed that the service is exceedingly short, and +unattended with any pomp of ceremony. It is a doctrine with the Vril-ya, +that earnest devotion or complete abstraction from the actual world +cannot, with benefit to itself, be maintained long at a stretch by the +human mind, especially in public, and that all attempts to do so either +lead to fanaticism or to hypocrisy. When they pray in private, it is +when they are alone or with their young children. + +They say that in ancient times there was a great number of books written +upon speculations as to the nature of the Diety, and upon the forms of +belief or worship supposed to be most agreeable to Him. But these were +found to lead to such heated and angry disputations as not only to shake +the peace of the community and divide families before the most united, +but in the course of discussing the attributes of the Diety, the +existence of the Diety Himself became argued away, or, what was +worse, became invested with the passions and infirmities of the human +disputants. “For,” said my host, “since a finite being like an An cannot +possibly define the Infinite, so, when he endeavours to realise an idea +of the Divinity, he only reduces the Divinity into an An like himself.” + During the later ages, therefore, all theological speculations, though +not forbidden, have been so discouraged as to have fallen utterly +into disuse. The Vril-ya unite in a conviction of a future state, more +felicitous and more perfect than the present. If they have very vague +notions of the doctrine of rewards and punishments, it is perhaps +because they have no systems of rewards and punishments among +themselves, for there are no crimes to punish, and their moral standard +is so even that no An among them is, upon the whole, considered more +virtuous than another. If one excels, perhaps in one virtue, another +equally excels in some other virtue; If one has his prevalent fault or +infirmity, so also another has his. In fact, in their extraordinary +mode of life. There are so few temptations to wrong, that they are good +(according to their notions of goodness) merely because they live. +They have some fanciful notions upon the continuance of life, when once +bestowed, even in the vegetable world, as the reader will see in the +next chapter. + + + +Chapter XIV. + + +Though, as I have said, the Vril-ya discourage all speculations on the +nature of the Supreme Being, they appear to concur in a belief by which +they think to solve that great problem of the existence of evil which +has so perplexed the philosophy of the upper world. They hold that +wherever He has once given life, with the perceptions of that life, +however faint it be, as in a plant, the life is never destroyed; it +passes into new and improved forms, though not in this planet (differing +therein from the ordinary doctrine of metempsychosis), and that the +living thing retains the sense of identity, so that it connects its past +life with its future, and is ‘conscious’ of its progressive improvement +in the scale of joy. For they say that, without this assumption, they +cannot, according to the lights of human reason vouchsafed to them, +discover the perfect justice which must be a constituent quality of the +All-Wise and the All-Good. Injustice, they say, can only emanate +from three causes: want of wisdom to perceive what is just, want of +benevolence to desire, want of power to fulfill it; and that each of +these three wants is incompatible in the All-Wise, the All-Good, +the All-Powerful. But that, while even in this life, the wisdom, +the benevolence, and the power of the Supreme Being are sufficiently +apparent to compel our recognition, the justice necessarily resulting +from those attributes, absolutely requires another life, not for man +only, but for every living thing of the inferior orders. That, alike in +the animal and the vegetable world, we see one individual rendered, by +circumstances beyond its control, exceedingly wretched compared to its +neighbours--one only exists as the prey of another--even a plant suffers +from disease till it perishes prematurely, while the plant next to it +rejoices in its vitality and lives out its happy life free from a pang. +That it is an erroneous analogy from human infirmities to reply by +saying that the Supreme Being only acts by general laws, thereby making +his own secondary causes so potent as to mar the essential kindness of +the First Cause; and a still meaner and more ignorant conception of the +All-Good, to dismiss with a brief contempt all consideration of justice +for the myriad forms into which He has infused life, and assume that +justice is only due to the single product of the An. There is no small +and no great in the eyes of the divine Life-Giver. But once grant that +nothing, however humble, which feels that it lives and suffers, can +perish through the series of ages, that all its suffering here, if +continuous from the moment of its birth to that of its transfer to +another form of being, would be more brief compared with eternity than +the cry of the new-born is compared to the whole life of a man; and once +suppose that this living thing retains its sense of identity when so +transformed (for without that sense it could be aware of no future +being), and though, indeed, the fulfilment of divine justice is removed +from the scope of our ken, yet we have a right to assume it to be +uniform and universal, and not varying and partial, as it would be +if acting only upon general and secondary laws; because such perfect +justice flows of necessity from perfectness of knowledge to conceive, +perfectness of love to will, and perfectness of power to complete it. + +However fantastic this belief of the Vril-ya may be, it tends perhaps to +confirm politically the systems of government which, admitting different +degrees of wealth, yet establishes perfect equality in rank, exquisite +mildness in all relations and intercourse, and tenderness to all created +things which the good of the community does not require them to destroy. +And though their notion of compensation to a tortured insect or a +cankered flower may seem to some of us a very wild crotchet, yet, +at least, is not a mischievous one; and it may furnish matter for no +unpleasing reflection to think that within the abysses of earth, never +lit by a ray from the material heavens, there should have penetrated so +luminous a conviction of the ineffable goodness of the Creator--so +fixed an idea that the general laws by which He acts cannot admit of any +partial injustice or evil, and therefore cannot be comprehended without +reference to their action over all space and throughout all time. And +since, as I shall have occasion to observe later, the intellectual +conditions and social systems of this subterranean race comprise and +harmonise great, and apparently antagonistic, varieties in philosophical +doctrine and speculation which have from time to time been started, +discussed, dismissed, and have re-appeared amongst thinkers or dreamers +in the upper world,--so I may perhaps appropriately conclude this +reference to the belief of the Vril-ya, that self-conscious or sentient +life once given is indestructible among inferior creatures as well as +in man, by an eloquent passage from the work of that eminent zoologist, +Louis Agassiz, which I have only just met with, many years after I had +committed to paper these recollections of the life of the Vril-ya which +I now reduce into something like arrangement and form: “The relations +which individual animals bear to one another are of such a character +that they ought long ago to have been considered as sufficient proof +that no organised being could ever have been called into existence by +other agency than by the direct intervention of a reflective mind. +This argues strongly in favour of the existence in every animal of +an immaterial principle similar to that which by its excellence and +superior endowments places man so much above the animals; yet the +principle unquestionably exists, and whether it be called sense, reason, +or instinct, it presents in the whole range of organised beings a series +of phenomena closely linked together, and upon it are based not only +the higher manifestations of the mind, but the very permanence of the +specific differences which characterise every organism. Most of the +arguments in favour of the immortality of man apply equally to the +permanency of this principle in other living beings. May I not add that +a future life in which man would be deprived of that great source of +enjoyment and intellectual and moral improvement which results from +the contemplation of the harmonies of an organic world would involve +a lamentable loss? And may we not look to a spiritual concert of the +combined worlds and ALL their inhabitants in the presence of +their Creator as the highest conception of paradise?”--‘Essay on +Classification,’ sect. xvii. p. 97-99. + + + +Chapter XV. + + +Kind to me as I found all in this household, the young daughter of my +host was the most considerate and thoughtful in her kindness. At her +suggestion I laid aside the habiliments in which I had descended +from the upper earth, and adopted the dress of the Vril-ya, with the +exception of the artful wings which served them, when on foot, as a +graceful mantle. But as many of the Vril-ya, when occupied in urban +pursuits, did not wear these wings, this exception created no marked +difference between myself and the race among whom I sojourned, and I was +thus enabled to visit the town without exciting unpleasant curiosity. +Out of the household no one suspected that I had come from the upper +world, and I was but regarded as one of some inferior and barbarous +tribe whom Aph-Lin entertained as a guest. + +The city was large in proportion to the territory round it, which was of +no greater extent than many an English or Hungarian nobleman’s estate; +but the whole if it, to the verge of the rocks which constituted its +boundary, was cultivated to the nicest degree, except where certain +allotments of mountain and pasture were humanely left free to the +sustenance of the harmless animals they had tamed, though not for +domestic use. So great is their kindness towards these humbler +creatures, that a sum is devoted from the public treasury for the +purpose of deporting them to other Vril-ya communities willing to +receive them (chiefly new colonies), whenever they become too numerous +for the pastures allotted to them in their native place. They do not, +however, multiply to an extent comparable to the ratio at which, with +us, animals bred for slaughter, increase. It seems a law of nature that +animals not useful to man gradually recede from the domains he occupies, +or even become extinct. It is an old custom of the various sovereign +states amidst which the race of the Vril-ya are distributed, to leave +between each state a neutral and uncultivated border-land. In the +instance of the community I speak of, this tract, being a ridge of +savage rocks, was impassable by foot, but was easily surmounted, whether +by the wings of the inhabitants or the air-boats, of which I shall speak +hereafter. Roads through it were also cut for the transit of vehicles +impelled by vril. These intercommunicating tracts were always kept +lighted, and the expense thereof defrayed by a special tax, to which all +the communities comprehended in the denomination of Vril-ya contribute +in settled proportions. By these means a considerable commercial traffic +with other states, both near and distant, was carried on. The surplus +wealth on this special community was chiefly agricultural. The community +was also eminent for skill in constructing implements connected with the +arts of husbandry. In exchange for such merchandise it obtained articles +more of luxury than necessity. There were few things imported on which +they set a higher price than birds taught to pipe artful tunes in +concert. These were brought from a great distance, and were marvellous +for beauty of song and plumage. I understand that extraordinary care was +taken by their breeders and teachers in selection, and that the species +had wonderfully improved during the last few years. I saw no other +pet animals among this community except some very amusing and sportive +creatures of the Batrachian species, resembling frogs, but with very +intelligent countenances, which the children were fond of, and kept in +their private gardens. They appear to have no animals akin to our dogs +or horses, though that learned naturalist, Zee, informed me that such +creatures had once existed in those parts, and might now be found in +regions inhabited by other races than the Vril-ya. She said that they +had gradually disappeared from the more civilised world since the +discovery of vril, and the results attending that discovery had +dispensed with their uses. Machinery and the invention of wings had +superseded the horse as a beast of burden; and the dog was no longer +wanted either for protection or the chase, as it had been when the +ancestors of the Vril-ya feared the aggressions of their own kind, or +hunted the lesser animals for food. Indeed, however, so far as the horse +was concerned, this region was so rocky that a horse could have been, +there, of little use either for pastime or burden. The only creature +they use for the latter purpose is a kind of large goat which is much +employed on farms. The nature of the surrounding soil in these +districts may be said to have first suggested the invention of wings and +air-boats. The largeness of space in proportion to the space occupied by +the city, was occasioned by the custom of surrounding every house with a +separate garden. The broad main street, in which Aph-Lin dwelt, expanded +into a vast square, in which were placed the College of Sages and all +the public offices; a magnificent fountain of the luminous fluid which I +call naptha (I am ignorant of its real nature) in the centre. All these +public edifices have a uniform character of massiveness and solidity. +They reminded me of the architectural pictures of Martin. Along the +upper stories of each ran a balcony, or rather a terraced garden, +supported by columns, filled with flowering plants, and tenanted by +many kinds of tame birds. + +From the square branched several streets, all broad and brilliantly +lighted, and ascending up the eminence on either side. In my excursions +in the town I was never allowed to go alone; Aph-Lin or his daughter was +my habitual companion. In this community the adult Gy is seen walking +with any young An as familiarly as if there were no difference of sex. + +The retail shops are not very numerous; the persons who attend on a +customer are all children of various ages, and exceedingly intelligent +and courteous, but without the least touch of importunity or cringing. +The shopkeeper himself might or might not be visible; when visible, he +seemed rarely employed on any matter connected with his professional +business; and yet he had taken to that business from special liking for +it, and quite independently of his general sources of fortune. + +The Ana of the community are, on the whole, an indolent set of beings +after the active age of childhood. Whether by temperament or philosophy, +they rank repose among the chief blessings of life. Indeed, when you +take away from a human being the incentives to action which are found in +cupidity or ambition, it seems to me no wonder that he rests quiet. + +In their ordinary movements they prefer the use of their feet to that +of their wings. But for their sports or (to indulge in a bold misuse of +terms) their public ‘promenades,’ they employ the latter, also for the +aerial dances I have described, as well as for visiting their country +places, which are mostly placed on lofty heights; and, when still young, +they prefer their wings for travel into the other regions of the Ana, to +vehicular conveyances. + +Those who accustom themselves to flight can fly, if less rapidly than +some birds, yet from twenty-five to thirty miles an hour, and keep up +that rate for five or six hours at a stretch. But the Ana generally, on +reaching middle age, are not fond of rapid movements requiring violent +exercise. Perhaps for this reason, as they hold a doctrine which our +own physicians will doubtless approve--viz., that regular transpiration +through the pores of the skin is essential to health, they habitually +use the sweating-baths to which we give the name Turkish or Roman, +succeeded by douches of perfumed waters. They have great faith in the +salubrious virtue of certain perfumes. + +It is their custom also, at stated but rare periods, perhaps four times +a-year when in health, to use a bath charged with vril.* + +* I once tried the effect of the vril bath. It was very similar in its +invigorating powers to that of the baths at Gastein, the virtues +of which are ascribed by many physicians to electricity; but though +similar, the effect of the vril bath was more lasting. + +They consider that this fluid, sparingly used, is a great sustainer of +life; but used in excess, when in the normal state of health, rather +tends to reaction and exhausted vitality. For nearly all their diseases, +however, they resort to it as the chief assistant to nature in throwing +off their complaint. + +In their own way they are the most luxurious of people, but all their +luxuries are innocent. They may be said to dwell in an atmosphere of +music and fragrance. Every room has its mechanical contrivances for +melodious sounds, usually tuned down to soft-murmured notes, which seem +like sweet whispers from invisible spirits. They are too accustomed to +these gentle sounds to find them a hindrance to conversation, nor, when +alone, to reflection. But they have a notion that to breathe an air +filled with continuous melody and perfume has necessarily an effect +at once soothing and elevating upon the formation of character and the +habits of thought. Though so temperate, and with total abstinence from +other animal food than milk, and from all intoxicating drinks, they are +delicate and dainty to an extreme in food and beverage; and in all their +sports even the old exhibit a childlike gaiety. Happiness is the end at +which they aim, not as the excitement of a moment, but as the prevailing +condition of the entire existence; and regard for the happiness of each +other is evinced by the exquisite amenity of their manners. + +Their conformation of skull has marked differences from that of any +known races in the upper world, though I cannot help thinking it a +development, in the course of countless ages of the Brachycephalic type +of the Age of Stone in Lyell’s ‘Elements of Geology,’ C. X., p. 113, as +compared with the Dolichocephalic type of the beginning of the Age of +Iron, correspondent with that now so prevalent amongst us, and called +the Celtic type. It has the same comparative massiveness of forehead, +not receding like the Celtic--the same even roundness in the frontal +organs; but it is far loftier in the apex, and far less pronounced +in the hinder cranial hemisphere where phrenologists place the animal +organs. To speak as a phrenologist, the cranium common to the Vril-ya +has the organs of weight, number, tune, form, order, causality, very +largely developed; that of construction much more pronounced than +that of ideality. Those which are called the moral organs, such as +conscientiousness and benevolence, are amazingly full; amativeness +and combativeness are both small; adhesiveness large; the organ of +destructiveness (i.e., of determined clearance of intervening +obstacles) immense, but less than that of benevolence; and their +philoprogenitiveness takes rather the character of compassion and +tenderness to things that need aid or protection than of the animal love +of offspring. I never met with one person deformed or misshapen. The +beauty of their countenances is not only in symmetry of feature, but in +a smoothness of surface, which continues without line or wrinkle to the +extreme of old age, and a serene sweetness of expression, combined with +that majesty which seems to come from consciousness of power and the +freedom of all terror, physical or moral. It is that very sweetness, +combined with that majesty, which inspired in a beholder like myself, +accustomed to strive with the passions of mankind, a sentiment of +humiliation, of awe, of dread. It is such an expression as a painter +might give to a demi-god, a genius, an angel. The males of the Vril-ya +are entirely beardless; the Gy-ei sometimes, in old age, develop a small +moustache. + +I was surprised to find that the colour of their skin was not uniformly +that which I had remarked in those individuals whom I had first +encountered,--some being much fairer, and even with blue eyes, and hair +of a deep golden auburn, though still of complexions warmer or richer in +tone than persons in the north of Europe. + +I was told that this admixture of colouring arose from intermarriage +with other and more distant tribes of the Vril-ya, who, whether by the +accident of climate or early distinction of race, were of fairer hues +than the tribes of which this community formed one. It was considered +that the dark-red skin showed the most ancient family of Ana; but they +attached no sentiment of pride to that antiquity, and, on the contrary, +believed their present excellence of breed came from frequent crossing +with other families differing, yet akin; and they encourage such +intermarriages, always provided that it be with the Vril-ya nations. +Nations which, not conforming their manners and institutions to those +of the Vril-ya, nor indeed held capable of acquiring the powers over +the vril agencies which it had taken them generations to attain and +transmit, were regarded with more disdain than the citizens of New York +regard the negroes. + +I learned from Zee, who had more lore in all matters than any male with +whom I was brought into familiar converse, that the superiority of +the Vril-ya was supposed to have originated in the intensity of their +earlier struggles against obstacles in nature amidst the localities +in which they had first settled. “Wherever,” said Zee, moralising, +“wherever goes on that early process in the history of civilisation, by +which life is made a struggle, in which the individual has to put forth +all his powers to compete with his fellow, we invariably find this +result--viz., since in the competition a vast number must perish, nature +selects for preservation only the strongest specimens. With our +race, therefore, even before the discovery of vril, only the highest +organisations were preserved; and there is among our ancient books a +legend, once popularly believed, that we were driven from a region +that seems to denote the world you come from, in order to perfect our +condition and attain to the purest elimination of our species by the +severity of the struggles our forefathers underwent; and that, when our +education shall become finally completed, we are destined to return +to the upper world, and supplant all the inferior races now existing +therein.” + +Aph-Lin and Zee often conversed with me in private upon the +political and social conditions of that upper world, in which Zee so +philosophically assumed that the inhabitants were to be exterminated +one day or other by the advent of the Vril-ya. They found in my +accounts,--in which I continued to do all I could (without launching +into falsehoods so positive that they would have been easily detected by +the shrewdness of my listeners) to present our powers and ourselves in +the most flattering point of view,--perpetual subjects of comparison +between our most civilised populations and the meaner subterranean races +which they considered hopelessly plunged in barbarism, and doomed to +gradual if certain extinction. But they both agreed in desiring to +conceal from their community all premature opening into the regions +lighted by the sun; both were humane, and shrunk from the thought of +annihilating so many millions of creatures; and the pictures I drew of +our life, highly coloured as they were, saddened them. In vain I boasted +of our great men--poets, philosophers, orators, generals--and defied the +Vril-ya to produce their equals. “Alas,” said Zee, “this predominance +of the few over the many is the surest and most fatal sign of a race +incorrigibly savage. See you not that the primary condition of mortal +happiness consists in the extinction of that strife and competition +between individuals, which, no matter what forms of government they +adopt, render the many subordinate to the few, destroy real liberty to +the individual, whatever may be the nominal liberty of the state, and +annul that calm of existence, without which, felicity, mental or bodily, +cannot be attained? Our notion is, that the more we can assimilate life +to the existence which our noblest ideas can conceive to be that of +spirits on the other side of the grave, why, the more we approximate +to a divine happiness here, and the more easily we glide into the +conditions of being hereafter. For, surely, all we can imagine of the +life of gods, or of blessed immortals, supposes the absence of self-made +cares and contentious passions, such as avarice and ambition. It seems +to us that it must be a life of serene tranquility, not indeed without +active occupations to the intellectual or spiritual powers, +but occupations, of whatsoever nature they be, congenial to the +idiosyncrasies of each, not forced and repugnant--a life gladdened by +the untrammelled interchange of gentle affections, in which the moral +atmosphere utterly kills hate and vengeance, and strife and rivalry. +Such is the political state to which all the tribes and families of +the Vril-ya seek to attain, and towards that goal all our theories of +government are shaped. You see how utterly opposed is such a progress to +that of the uncivilised nations from which you come, and which aim at +a systematic perpetuity of troubles, and cares, and warring passions +aggravated more and more as their progress storms its way onward. The +most powerful of all the races in our world, beyond the pale of the +Vril-ya, esteems itself the best governed of all political societies, +and to have reached in that respect the extreme end at which political +wisdom can arrive, so that the other nations should tend more or less to +copy it. It has established, on its broadest base, the Koom-Posh--viz., +the government of the ignorant upon the principle of being the most +numerous. It has placed the supreme bliss in the vying with each other +in all things, so that the evil passions are never in repose--vying for +power, for wealth, for eminence of some kind; and in this rivalry it +is horrible to hear the vituperation, the slanders, and calumnies which +even the best and mildest among them heap on each other without remorse +or shame.” + +“Some years ago,” said Aph-Lin, “I visited this people, and their +misery and degradation were the more appalling because they were always +boasting of their felicity and grandeur as compared with the rest of +their species. And there is no hope that this people, which evidently +resembles your own, can improve, because all their notions tend to +further deterioration. They desire to enlarge their dominion more and +more, in direct antagonism to the truth that, beyond a very limited +range, it is impossible to secure to a community the happiness which +belongs to a well-ordered family; and the more they mature a system +by which a few individuals are heated and swollen to a size above the +standard slenderness of the millions, the more they chuckle and exact, +and cry out, ‘See by what great exceptions to the common littleness of +our race we prove the magnificent results of our system!’” + +“In fact,” resumed Zee, “if the wisdom of human life be to approximate +to the serene equality of immortals, there can be no more direct flying +off into the opposite direction than a system which aims at carrying +to the utmost the inequalities and turbulences of mortals. Nor do I see +how, by any forms of religious belief, mortals, so acting, could fit +themselves even to appreciate the joys of immortals to which they still +expect to be transferred by the mere act of dying. On the contrary, +minds accustomed to place happiness in things so much the reverse of +godlike, would find the happiness of gods exceedingly dull, and would +long to get back to a world in which they could quarrel with each +other.” + + + +Chapter XVI. + + +I have spoken so much of the Vril Staff that my reader may expect me +to describe it. This I cannot do accurately, for I was never allowed to +handle it for fear of some terrible accident occasioned by my ignorance +of its use; and I have no doubt that it requires much skill and practice +in the exercise of its various powers. It is hollow, and has in the +handle several stops, keys, or springs by which its force can be +altered, modified, or directed--so that by one process it destroys, by +another it heals--by one it can rend the rock, by another disperse the +vapour--by one it affects bodies, by another it can exercise a certain +influence over minds. It is usually carried in the convenient size of +a walking-staff, but it has slides by which it can be lengthened or +shortened at will. When used for special purposes, the upper part rests +in the hollow of the palm with the fore and middle fingers protruded. +I was assured, however, that its power was not equal in all, but +proportioned to the amount of certain vril properties in the wearer in +affinity, or ‘rapport’ with the purposes to be effected. Some were more +potent to destroy, others to heal, &c.; much also depended on the calm +and steadiness of volition in the manipulator. They assert that the +full exercise of vril power can only be acquired by the constitutional +temperament--i.e., by hereditarily transmitted organisation--and that +a female infant of four years old belonging to the Vril-ya races can +accomplish feats which a life spent in its practice would not enable +the strongest and most skilled mechanician, born out of the pale of the +Vril-ya to achieve. All these wands are not equally complicated; those +intrusted to children are much simpler than those borne by sages of +either sex, and constructed with a view to the special object on which +the children are employed; which as I have before said, is among the +youngest children the most destructive. In the wands of wives and +mothers the correlative destroying force is usually abstracted, the +healing power fully charged. I wish I could say more in detail of this +singular conductor of the vril fluid, but its machinery is as exquisite +as its effects are marvellous. + +I should say, however, that this people have invented certain tubes by +which the vril fluid can be conducted towards the object it is meant +to destroy, throughout a distance almost indefinite; at least I put +it modestly when I say from 500 to 1000 miles. And their mathematical +science as applied to such purpose is so nicely accurate, that on +the report of some observer in an air-boat, any member of the vril +department can estimate unerringly the nature of intervening obstacles, +the height to which the projectile instrument should be raised, and the +extent to which it should be charged, so as to reduce to ashes within a +space of time too short for me to venture to specify it, a capital twice +as vast as London. + +Certainly these Ana are wonderful mathematicians--wonderful for the +adaptation of the inventive faculty to practical uses. + +I went with my host and his daughter Zee over the great public museum, +which occupies a wing in the College of Sages, and in which are hoarded, +as curious specimens of the ignorant and blundering experiments of +ancient times, many contrivances on which we pride ourselves as recent +achievements. In one department, carelessly thrown aside as obsolete +lumber, are tubes for destroying life by metallic balls and an +inflammable powder, on the principle of our cannons and catapults, and +even still more murderous than our latest improvements. + +My host spoke of these with a smile of contempt, such as an artillery +officer might bestow on the bows and arrows of the Chinese. In another +department there were models of vehicles and vessels worked by steam, +and of an air-balloon which might have been constructed by Montgolfier. +“Such,” said Zee, with an air of meditative wisdom--“such were the +feeble triflings with nature of our savage forefathers, ere they had +even a glimmering perception of the properties of vril!” + +This young Gy was a magnificent specimen of the muscular force to which +the females of her country attain. Her features were beautiful, like +those of all her race: never in the upper world have I seen a face so +grand and so faultless, but her devotion to the severer studies had +given to her countenance an expression of abstract thought which +rendered it somewhat stern when in repose; and such a sternness became +formidable when observed in connection with her ample shoulders and +lofty stature. She was tall even for a Gy, and I saw her lift up a +cannon as easily as I could lift a pocket-pistol. Zee inspired me with a +profound terror--a terror which increased when we came into a department +of the museum appropriated to models of contrivances worked by the +agency of vril; for here, merely by a certain play of her vril staff, +she herself standing at a distance, she put into movement large and +weighty substances. She seemed to endow them with intelligence, and to +make them comprehend and obey her command. She set complicated pieces of +machinery into movement, arrested the movement or continued it, until, +within an incredibly short time, various kinds of raw material were +reproduced as symmetrical works of art, complete and perfect. Whatever +effect mesmerism or electro-biology produces over the nerves and muscles +of animated objects, this young Gy produced by the motions of her +slender rod over the springs and wheels of lifeless mechanism. + +When I mentioned to my companions my astonishment at this influence +over inanimate matter--while owning that, in our world, I had witnessed +phenomena which showed that over certain living organisations certain +other living organisations could establish an influence genuine in +itself, but often exaggerated by credulity or craft--Zee, who was more +interested in such subjects than her father, bade me stretch forth my +hand, and then, placing it beside her own, she called my attention to +certain distinctions of type and character. In the first place, the +thumb of the Gy (and, as I afterwards noticed, of all that race, male or +female) was much larger, at once longer and more massive, than is found +with our species above ground. There is almost, in this, as great a +difference as there is between the thumb of a man and that of a gorilla. +Secondly, the palm is proportionally thicker than ours--the texture of +the skin infinitely finer and softer--its average warmth is greater. +More remarkable than all this, is a visible nerve, perceptible under the +skin, which starts from the wrist skirting the ball of the thumb, and +branching, fork-like, at the roots of the fore and middle fingers. “With +your slight formation of thumb,” said the philosophical young Gy, “and +with the absence of the nerve which you find more or less developed in +the hands of our race, you can never achieve other than imperfect +and feeble power over the agency of vril; but so far as the nerve is +concerned, that is not found in the hands of our earliest progenitors, +nor in those of the ruder tribes without the pale of the Vril-ya. It has +been slowly developed in the course of generations, commencing in the +early achievements, and increasing with the continuous exercise, of the +vril power; therefore, in the course of one or two thousand years, such +a nerve may possibly be engendered in those higher beings of your +race, who devote themselves to that paramount science through which +is attained command over all the subtler forces of nature permeated +by vril. But when you talk of matter as something in itself inert +and motionless, your parents or tutors surely cannot have left you so +ignorant as not to know that no form of matter is motionless and inert: +every particle is constantly in motion and constantly acted upon by +agencies, of which heat is the most apparent and rapid, but vril the +most subtle, and, when skilfully wielded, the most powerful. So that, +in fact, the current launched by my hand and guided by my will does but +render quicker and more potent the action which is eternally at work +upon every particle of matter, however inert and stubborn it may seem. +If a heap of metal be not capable of originating a thought of its own, +yet, through its internal susceptibility to movement, it obtains the +power to receive the thought of the intellectual agent at work on it; by +which, when conveyed with a sufficient force of the vril power, it is +as much compelled to obey as if it were displaced by a visible bodily +force. It is animated for the time being by the soul thus infused into +it, so that one may almost say that it lives and reasons. Without this +we could not make our automata supply the place of servants.” + +I was too much in awe of the thews and the learning of the young Gy +to hazard the risk of arguing with her. I had read somewhere in my +schoolboy days that a wise man, disputing with a Roman Emperor, suddenly +drew in his horns; and when the emperor asked him whether he had nothing +further to say on his side of the question, replied, “Nay, Caesar, there +is no arguing against a reasoner who commands ten legions.” + +Though I had a secret persuasion that, whatever the real effects of +vril upon matter, Mr. Faraday could have proved her a very shallow +philosopher as to its extent or its causes, I had no doubt that Zee +could have brained all the Fellows of the Royal Society, one after the +other, with a blow of her fist. Every sensible man knows that it is +useless to argue with any ordinary female upon matters he comprehends; +but to argue with a Gy seven feet high upon the mysteries of vril,--as +well argue in a desert, and with a simoon! + +Amid the various departments to which the vast building of the College +of Sages was appropriated, that which interested me most was devoted to +the archaeology of the Vril-ya, and comprised a very ancient collection +of portraits. In these the pigments and groundwork employed were of +so durable a nature that even pictures said to be executed at dates as +remote as those in the earliest annals of the Chinese, retained much +freshness of colour. In examining this collection, two things especially +struck me:--first, that the pictures said to be between 6000 and 7000 +years old were of a much higher degree of art than any produced within +the last 3000 or 4000 years; and, second, that the portraits within the +former period much more resembled our own upper world and European types +of countenance. Some of them, indeed reminded me of the Italian heads +which look out from the canvases of Titian--speaking of ambition or +craft, of care or of grief, with furrows in which the passions have +passed with iron ploughshare. These were the countenances of men who had +lived in struggle and conflict before the discovery of the latent forces +of vril had changed the character of society--men who had fought with +each other for power or fame as we in the upper world fight. + +The type of face began to evince a marked change about a thousand years +after the vril revolution, becoming then, with each generation, more +serene, and in that serenity more terribly distinct from the faces of +labouring and sinful men; while in proportion as the beauty and the +grandeur of the countenance itself became more fully developed, the art +of the painter became more tame and monotonous. + +But the greatest curiosity in the collection was that of three portraits +belonging to the pre-historical age, and, according to mythical +tradition, taken by the orders of a philosopher, whose origin and +attributes were as much mixed up with symbolical fable as those of an +Indian Budh or a Greek Prometheus. + +From this mysterious personage, at once a sage and a hero, all the +principal sections of the Vril-ya race pretend to trace a common origin. + +The portraits are of the philosopher himself, of his grandfather, and +great-grandfather. They are all at full length. The philosopher is +attired in a long tunic which seems to form a loose suit of scaly +armour, borrowed, perhaps, from some fish or reptile, but the feet and +hands are exposed: the digits in both are wonderfully long, and webbed. +He has little or no perceptible throat, and a low receding forehead, not +at all the ideal of a sage’s. He has bright brown prominent eyes, a very +wide mouth and high cheekbones, and a muddy complexion. According to +tradition, this philosopher had lived to a patriarchal age, extending +over many centuries, and he remembered distinctly in middle life his +grandfather as surviving, and in childhood his great-grandfather; the +portrait of the first he had taken, or caused to be taken, while yet +alive--that of the latter was taken from his effigies in mummy. +The portrait of his grandfather had the features and aspect of the +philosopher, only much more exaggerated: he was not dressed, and the +colour of his body was singular; the breast and stomach yellow, the +shoulders and legs of a dull bronze hue: the great-grandfather was a +magnificent specimen of the Batrachian genus, a Giant Frog, ‘pur et +simple.’ + +Among the pithy sayings which, according to tradition, the philosopher +bequeathed to posterity in rhythmical form and sententious brevity, this +is notably recorded: “Humble yourselves, my descendants; the father of +your race was a ‘twat’ (tadpole): exalt yourselves, my descendants, for +it was the same Divine Thought which created your father that develops +itself in exalting you.” + +Aph-Lin told me this fable while I gazed on the three Batrachian +portraits. I said in reply: “You make a jest of my supposed ignorance +and credulity as an uneducated Tish, but though these horrible daubs +may be of great antiquity, and were intended, perhaps, for some +rude caracature, I presume that none of your race even in the less +enlightened ages, ever believed that the great-grandson of a Frog became +a sententious philosopher; or that any section, I will not say of the +lofty Vril-ya, but of the meanest varieties of the human race, had its +origin in a Tadpole.” + +“Pardon me,” answered Aph-Lin: “in what we call the Wrangling or +Philosophical Period of History, which was at its height about seven +thousand years ago, there was a very distinguished naturalist, who +proved to the satisfaction of numerous disciples such analogical and +anatomical agreements in structure between an An and a Frog, as to +show that out of the one must have developed the other. They had some +diseases in common; they were both subject to the same parasitical worms +in the intestines; and, strange to say, the An has, in his structure, a +swimming-bladder, no longer of any use to him, but which is a rudiment +that clearly proves his descent from a Frog. Nor is there any argument +against this theory to be found in the relative difference of size, for +there are still existent in our world Frogs of a size and stature not +inferior to our own, and many thousand years ago they appear to have +been still larger.” + +“I understand that,” said I, “because Frogs this enormous are, according +to our eminent geologists, who perhaps saw them in dreams, said to have +been distinguished inhabitants of the upper world before the Deluge; and +such Frogs are exactly the creatures likely to have flourished in the +lakes and morasses of your subterranean regions. But pray, proceed.” + +“In the Wrangling Period of History, whatever one sage asserted another +sage was sure to contradict. In fact, it was a maxim in that age, that +the human reason could only be sustained aloft by being tossed to and +fro in the perpetual motion of contradiction; and therefore another +sect of philosophers maintained the doctrine that the An was not the +descendant of the Frog, but that the Frog was clearly the improved +development of the An. The shape of the Frog, taken generally, was much +more symmetrical than that of the An; beside the beautiful conformation +of its lower limbs, its flanks and shoulders the majority of the Ana in +that day were almost deformed, and certainly ill-shaped. Again, the Frog +had the power to live alike on land and in water--a mighty privilege, +partaking of a spiritual essence denied to the An, since the disuse +of his swimming-bladder clearly proves his degeneration from a higher +development of species. Again, the earlier races of the Ana seem to +have been covered with hair, and, even to a comparatively recent date, +hirsute bushes deformed the very faces of our ancestors, spreading wild +over their cheeks and chins, as similar bushes, my poor Tish, spread +wild over yours. But the object of the higher races of the Ana through +countless generations has been to erase all vestige of connection with +hairy vertebrata, and they have gradually eliminated that debasing +capillary excrement by the law of sexual selection; the Gy-ei naturally +preferring youth or the beauty of smooth faces. But the degree of the +Frog in the scale of the vertebrata is shown in this, that he has +no hair at all, not even on his head. He was born to that hairless +perfection which the most beautiful of the Ana, despite the culture of +incalculable ages, have not yet attained. The wonderful complication and +delicacy of a Frog’s nervous system and arterial circulation were shown +by this school to be more susceptible of enjoyment than our inferior, or +at least simpler, physical frame allows us to be. The examination of +a Frog’s hand, if I may use that expression, accounted for its keener +susceptibility to love, and to social life in general. In fact, +gregarious and amatory as are the Ana, Frogs are still more so. In +short, these two schools raged against each other; one asserting the An +to be the perfected type of the Frog; the other that the Frog was the +highest development of the An. The moralists were divided in +opinion with the naturalists, but the bulk of them sided with the +Frog-preference school. They said, with much plausibility, that in moral +conduct (viz., in the adherence to rules best adapted to the health and +welfare of the individual and the community) there could be no doubt +of the vast superiority of the Frog. All history showed the wholesale +immorality of the human race, the complete disregard, even by the +most renowned amongst them, of the laws which they acknowledged to be +essential to their own and the general happiness and wellbeing. But the +severest critic of the Frog race could not detect in their manners a +single aberration from the moral law tacitly recognised by themselves. +And what, after all, can be the profit of civilisation if superiority in +moral conduct be not the aim for which it strives, and the test by which +its progress should be judged? + +“In fine, the adherents of this theory presumed that in some remote +period the Frog race had been the improved development of the Human; but +that, from some causes which defied rational conjecture, they had not +maintained their original position in the scale of nature; while the +Ana, though of inferior organisation, had, by dint less of their virtues +than their vices, such as ferocity and cunning, gradually acquired +ascendancy, much as among the human race itself tribes utterly barbarous +have, by superiority in similar vices, utterly destroyed or reduced +into insignificance tribes originally excelling them in mental gifts +and culture. Unhappily these disputes became involved with the religious +notions of that age; and as society was then administered under the +government of the Koom-Posh, who, being the most ignorant, were of +course the most inflammable class--the multitude took the whole question +out of the hands of the philosophers; political chiefs saw that the +Frog dispute, so taken up by the populace, could become a most valuable +instrument of their ambition; and for not less than one thousand years +war and massacre prevailed, during which period the philosophers on both +sides were butchered, and the government of Koom-Posh itself was happily +brought to an end by the ascendancy of a family that clearly established +its descent from the aboriginal tadpole, and furnished despotic rulers +to the various nations of the Ana. These despots finally disappeared, at +least from our communities, as the discovery of vril led to the tranquil +institutions under which flourish all the races of the Vril-ya.” + +“And do no wranglers or philosophers now exist to revive the dispute; or +do they all recognise the origin of your race in the tadpole?” + +“Nay, such disputes,” said Zee, with a lofty smile, “belong to the +Pah-bodh of the dark ages, and now only serve for the amusement of +infants. When we know the elements out of which our bodies are composed, +elements in common to the humblest vegetable plants, can it signify +whether the All-Wise combined those elements out of one form more than +another, in order to create that in which He has placed the capacity to +receive the idea of Himself, and all the varied grandeurs of intellect +to which that idea gives birth? The An in reality commenced to exist +as An with the donation of that capacity, and, with that capacity, the +sense to acknowledge that, however through the countless ages his race +may improve in wisdom, it can never combine the elements at its command +into the form of a tadpole.” + +“You speak well, Zee,” said Aph-Lin; “and it is enough for us shortlived +mortals to feel a reasonable assurance that whether the origin of the +An was a tadpole or not, he is no more likely to become a tadpole again +than the institutions of the Vril-ya are likely to relapse into the +heaving quagmire and certain strife-rot of a Koom-Posh.” + + +Chapter XVII. + + +The Vril-ya, being excluded from all sight of the heavenly bodies, and +having no other difference between night and day than that which they +deem it convenient to make for themselves,--do not, of course, arrive at +their divisions of time by the same process that we do; but I found it +easy by the aid of my watch, which I luckily had about me, to compute +their time with great nicety. I reserve for a future work on the science +and literature of the Vril-ya, should I live to complete it, all details +as to the manner in which they arrive at their rotation of time; and +content myself here with saying, that in point of duration, their year +differs very slightly from ours, but that the divisions of their year +are by no means the same. Their day, (including what we call night) +consists of twenty hours of our time, instead of twenty-four, and of +course their year comprises the correspondent increase in the number of +days by which it is summed up. They subdivide the twenty hours of their +day thus--eight hours,* called the “Silent Hours,” for repose; eight +hours, called the “Earnest Time,” for the pursuits and occupations of +life; and four hours called the “Easy Time” (with which what I may term +their day closes), allotted to festivities, sport, recreation, or family +converse, according to their several tastes and inclinations. + +* For the sake of convenience, I adopt the word hours, days, years, +&c., in any general reference to subdivisions of time among the Vril-ya; +those terms but loosely corresponding, however, with such subdivisions. + +But, in truth, out of doors there is no night. They maintain, both +in the streets and in the surrounding country, to the limits of their +territory, the same degree of light at all hours. Only, within doors, +they lower it to a soft twilight during the Silent Hours. They have +a great horror of perfect darkness, and their lights are never wholly +extinguished. On occasions of festivity they continue the duration of +full light, but equally keep note of the distinction between night and +day, by mechanical contrivances which answer the purpose of our clocks +and watches. They are very fond of music; and it is by music that these +chronometers strike the principal division of time. At every one +of their hours, during their day, the sounds coming from all the +time-pieces in their public buildings, and caught up, as it were, by +those of houses or hamlets scattered amidst the landscapes without the +city, have an effect singularly sweet, and yet singularly solemn. +But during the Silent Hours these sounds are so subdued as to be only +faintly heard by a waking ear. They have no change of seasons, and, at +least on the territory of this tribe, the atmosphere seemed to me very +equable, warm as that of an Italian summer, and humid rather than dry; +in the forenoon usually very still, but at times invaded by strong +blasts from the rocks that made the borders of their domain. But time +is the same to them for sowing or reaping as in the Golden Isles of the +ancient poets. At the same moment you see the younger plants in blade or +bud, the older in ear or fruit. All fruit-bearing plants, however, after +fruitage, either shed or change the colour of their leaves. But that +which interested me most in reckoning up their divisions of time was the +ascertainment of the average duration of life amongst them. I found on +minute inquiry that this very considerably exceeded the term allotted to +us on the upper earth. What seventy years are to us, one hundred +years are to them. Nor is this the only advantage they have over us in +longevity, for as few among us attain to the age of seventy, so, on the +contrary, few among them die before the age of one hundred; and they +enjoy a general degree of health and vigour which makes life itself a +blessing even to the last. Various causes contribute to this result: +the absence of all alcoholic stimulants; temperance in food; more +especially, perhaps, a serenity of mind undisturbed by anxious +occupations and eager passions. They are not tormented by our avarice +or our ambition; they appear perfectly indifferent even to the desire of +fame; they are capable of great affection, but their love shows +itself in a tender and cheerful complaisance, and, while forming their +happiness, seems rarely, if ever, to constitute their woe. As the Gy is +sure only to marry where she herself fixes her choice, and as here, not +less than above ground, it is the female on whom the happiness of home +depends; so the Gy, having chosen the mate she prefers to all others, is +lenient to his faults, consults his humours, and does her best to secure +his attachment. The death of a beloved one is of course with them, as +with us, a cause for sorrow; but not only is death with them so much +more rare before that age in which it becomes a release, but when it +does occur the survivor takes much more consolation than, I am afraid, +the generality of us do, in the certainty of reunion in another and yet +happier life. + +All these causes, then, concur to their healthful and enjoyable +longevity, though, no doubt, much also must be owing to hereditary +organisation. According to their records, however, in those earlier +stages of their society when they lived in communities resembling ours, +agitated by fierce competition, their lives were considerably shorter, +and their maladies more numerous and grave. They themselves say that +the duration of life, too, has increased, and is still on the increase, +since their discovery of the invigorating and medicinal properties of +vril, applied for remedial purposes. They have few professional and +regular practitioners of medicine, and these are chiefly Gy-ei, who, +especially if widowed and childless, find great delight in the healing +art, and even undertake surgical operations in those cases required by +accident, or, more rarely, by disease. + +They have their diversions and entertainments, and, during the Easy +Time of their day, they are wont to assemble in great numbers for those +winged sports in the air which I have already described. They have also +public halls for music, and even theatres, at which are performed +pieces that appeared to me somewhat to resemble the plays of the +Chinese--dramas that are thrown back into distant times for their events +and personages, in which all classic unities are outrageously violated, +and the hero, in once scene a child, in the next is an old man, and so +forth. These plays are of very ancient composition, and their stories +cast in remote times. They appeared to me very dull, on the whole, +but were relieved by startling mechanical contrivances, and a kind of +farcical broad humour, and detached passages of great vigour and power +expressed in language highly poetical, but somewhat overcharged with +metaphor and trope. In fine, they seemed to me very much what the plays +of Shakespeare seemed to a Parisian in the time of Louis XV., or perhaps +to an Englishman in the reign of Charles II. + +The audience, of which the Gy-ei constituted the chief portion, appeared +to enjoy greatly the representation of these dramas, which, for so +sedate and majestic a race of females, surprised me, till I observed +that all the performers were under the age of adolescence, and +conjectured truly that the mothers and sisters came to please their +children and brothers. + +I have said that these dramas are of great antiquity. No new plays, +indeed no imaginative works sufficiently important to survive their +immediate day, appear to have been composed for several generations. In +fact, though there is no lack of new publications, and they have even +what may be called newspapers, these are chiefly devoted to mechanical +science, reports of new inventions, announcements respecting various +details of business--in short, to practical matters. Sometimes a child +writes a little tale of adventure, or a young Gy vents her amorous hopes +or fears in a poem; but these effusions are of very little merit, +and are seldom read except by children and maiden Gy-ei. The most +interesting works of a purely literary character are those of +explorations and travels into other regions of this nether world, +which are generally written by young emigrants, and are read with great +avidity by the relations and friends they have left behind. + +I could not help expressing to Aph-Lin my surprise that a community in +which mechanical science had made so marvellous a progress, and in +which intellectual civilisation had exhibited itself in realising +those objects for the happiness of the people, which the political +philosophers above ground had, after ages of struggle, pretty generally +agreed to consider unattainable visions, should, nevertheless, be so +wholly without a contemporaneous literature, despite the excellence +to which culture had brought a language at once so rich and simple, +vigourous and musical. + +My host replied--“Do you not perceive that a literature such as you mean +would be wholly incompatible with that perfection of social or political +felicity at which you do us the honour to think we have arrived? We have +at last, after centuries of struggle, settled into a form of government +with which we are content, and in which, as we allow no differences of +rank, and no honours are paid to administrators distinguishing them from +others, there is no stimulus given to individual ambition. No one would +read works advocating theories that involved any political or social +change, and therefore no one writes them. If now and then an An feels +himself dissatisfied with our tranquil mode of life, he does not attack +it; he goes away. Thus all that part of literature (and to judge by the +ancient books in our public libraries, it was once a very large part), +which relates to speculative theories on society is become utterly +extinct. Again, formerly there was a vast deal written respecting +the attributes and essence of the All-Good, and the arguments for and +against a future state; but now we all recognise two facts, that there +IS a Divine Being, and there IS a future state, and we all equally agree +that if we wrote our fingers to the bone, we could not throw any light +upon the nature and conditions of that future state, or quicken our +apprehensions of the attributes and essence of that Divine Being. Thus +another part of literature has become also extinct, happily for our +race; for in the time when so much was written on subjects which no one +could determine, people seemed to live in a perpetual state of quarrel +and contention. So, too, a vast part of our ancient literature consists +of historical records of wars an revolutions during the times when the +Ana lived in large and turbulent societies, each seeking aggrandisement +at the expense of the other. You see our serene mode of life now; such +it has been for ages. We have no events to chronicle. What more of us +can be said than that, ‘they were born, they were happy, they died?’ +Coming next to that part of literature which is more under the control +of the imagination, such as what we call Glaubsila, or colloquially +‘Glaubs,’ and you call poetry, the reasons for its decline amongst us +are abundantly obvious. + +“We find, by referring to the great masterpieces in that department +of literature which we all still read with pleasure, but of which none +would tolerate imitations, that they consist in the portraiture of +passions which we no longer experience--ambition, vengeance, unhallowed +love, the thirst for warlike renown, and suchlike. The old poets lived +in an atmosphere impregnated with these passions, and felt vividly what +they expressed glowingly. No one can express such passions now, for no +one can feel them, or meet with any sympathy in his readers if he did. +Again, the old poetry has a main element in its dissection of those +complex mysteries of human character which conduce to abnormal vices and +crimes, or lead to signal and extraordinary virtues. But our society, +having got rid of temptations to any prominent vices and crimes, has +necessarily rendered the moral average so equal, that there are no +very salient virtues. Without its ancient food of strong passions, vast +crimes, heroic excellences, poetry therefore is, if not actually starved +to death, reduced to a very meagre diet. There is still the poetry of +description--description of rocks, and trees, and waters, and common +household life; and our young Gy-ei weave much of this insipid kind of +composition into their love verses.” + +“Such poetry,” said I, “might surely be made very charming; and we have +critics amongst us who consider it a higher kind than that which depicts +the crimes, or analyses the passions, of man. At all events, poetry of +the inspired kind you mention is a poetry that nowadays commands more +readers than any other among the people I have left above ground.” + +“Possibly; but then I suppose the writers take great pains with the +language they employ, and devote themselves to the culture and polish of +words and rhythms of an art?” + +“Certainly they do: all great poets do that. Though the gift of poetry +may be inborn, the gift requires as much care to make it available as a +block of metal does to be made into one of your engines.” + +“And doubtless your poets have some incentive to bestow all those pains +upon such verbal prettinesses?” + +“Well, I presume their instinct of song would make them sing as the bird +does; but to cultivate the song into verbal or artificial prettiness, +probably does need an inducement from without, and our poets find it in +the love of fame--perhaps, now and then, in the want of money.” + +“Precisely so. But in our society we attach fame to nothing which man, +in that moment of his duration which is called ‘life,’ can perform. We +should soon lose that equality which constitutes the felicitous essence +of our commonwealth if we selected any individual for pre-eminent +praise: pre-eminent praise would confer pre-eminent power, and the +moment it were given, evil passions, now dormant, would awake: other +men would immediately covet praise, then would arise envy, and with envy +hate, and with hate calumny and persecution. Our history tells us that +most of the poets and most of the writers who, in the old time, were +favoured with the greatest praise, were also assailed by the greatest +vituperation, and even, on the whole, rendered very unhappy, partly +by the attacks of jealous rivals, partly by the diseased mental +constitution which an acquired sensitiveness to praise and to blame +tends to engender. As for the stimulus of want; in the first place, no +man in our community knows the goad of poverty; and, secondly, if he +did, almost every occupation would be more lucrative than writing. + +“Our public libraries contain all the books of the past which time has +preserved; those books, for the reasons above stated, are infinitely +better than any can write nowadays, and they are open to all to read +without cost. We are not such fools as to pay for reading inferior +books, when we can read superior books for nothing.” + +“With us, novelty has an attraction; and a new book, if bad, is read +when an old book, though good, is neglected.” + +“Novelty, to barbarous states of society struggling in despair for +something better, has no doubt an attraction, denied to us, who see +nothing to gain in novelties; but after all, it is observed by one of +our great authors four thousand years ago, that ‘he who studies old +books will always find in them something new, and he who reads new books +will always find in them something old.’ But to return to the question +you have raised, there being then amongst us no stimulus to painstaking +labour, whether in desire of fame or in pressure of want, such as have +the poetic temperament, no doubt vent it in song, as you say the bird +sings; but for lack of elaborate culture it fails of an audience, +and, failing of an audience, dies out, of itself, amidst the ordinary +avocations of life.” + +“But how is it that these discouragements to the cultivation of +literature do not operate against that of science?” + +“Your question amazes me. The motive to science is the love of truth +apart from all consideration of fame, and science with us too is devoted +almost solely to practical uses, essential to our social conversation +and the comforts of our daily life. No fame is asked by the inventor, +and none is given to him; he enjoys an occupation congenial to his +tastes, and needing no wear and tear of the passions. Man must have +exercise for his mind as well as body; and continuous exercise, rather +than violent, is best for both. Our most ingenious cultivators of +science are, as a general rule, the longest lived and the most free from +disease. Painting is an amusement to many, but the art is not what it +was in former times, when the great painters in our various communities +vied with each other for the prize of a golden crown, which gave them a +social rank equal to that of the kings under whom they lived. You +will thus doubtless have observed in our archaeological department how +superior in point of art the pictures were several thousand years ago. +Perhaps it is because music is, in reality, more allied to science than +it is to poetry, that, of all the pleasurable arts, music is that which +flourishes the most amongst us. Still, even in music the absence of +stimulus in praise or fame has served to prevent any great superiority +of one individual over another; and we rather excel in choral music, +with the aid of our vast mechanical instruments, in which we make great +use of the agency of water,* than in single performers.” + +* This may remind the student of Nero’s invention of a musical machine, +by which water was made to perform the part of an orchestra, and on +which he was employed when the conspiracy against him broke out. + +“We have had scarcely any original composer for some ages. Our favorite +airs are very ancient in substance, but have admitted many complicated +variations by inferior, though ingenious, musicians.” + +“Are there no political societies among the Ana which are animated +by those passions, subjected to those crimes, and admitting those +disparities in condition, in intellect, and in morality, which the state +of your tribe, or indeed of the Vril-ya generally, has left behind in +its progress to perfection? If so, among such societies perhaps Poetry +and her sister arts still continue to be honoured and to improve?” + +“There are such societies in remote regions, but we do not admit them +within the pale of civilised communities; we scarcely even give them the +name of Ana, and certainly not that of Vril-ya. They are savages, living +chiefly in that low stage of being, Koom-Posh, tending necessarily to +its own hideous dissolution in Glek-Nas. Their wretched existence is +passed in perpetual contest and perpetual change. When they do not fight +with their neighbours, they fight among themselves. They are divided +into sections, which abuse, plunder, and sometimes murder each +other, and on the most frivolous points of difference that would be +unintelligible to us if we had not read history, and seen that we too +have passed through the same early state of ignorance and barbarism. Any +trifle is sufficient to set them together by the ears. They pretend to +be all equals, and the more they have struggled to be so, by removing +old distinctions, and starting afresh, the more glaring and intolerable +the disparity becomes, because nothing in hereditary affections and +associations is left to soften the one naked distinction between the +many who have nothing and the few who have much. Of course the many hate +the few, but without the few they could not live. The many are always +assailing the few; sometimes they exterminate the few; but as soon as +they have done so, a new few starts out of the many, and is harder +to deal with than the old few. For where societies are large, and +competition to have something is the predominant fever, there must be +always many losers and few gainers. In short, they are savages groping +their way in the dark towards some gleam of light, and would demand our +commiseration for their infirmities, if, like all savages, they did not +provoke their own destruction by their arrogance and cruelty. Can you +imagine that creatures of this kind, armed only with such miserable +weapons as you may see in our museum of antiquities, clumsy iron tubes +charged with saltpetre, have more than once threatened with destruction +a tribe of the Vril-ya, which dwells nearest to them, because they say +they have thirty millions of population--and that tribe may have fifty +thousand--if the latter do not accept their notions of Soc-Sec (money +getting) on some trading principles which they have the impudence to +call ‘a law of civilisation’?” + +“But thirty millions of population are formidable odds against fifty +thousand!” + +My host stared at me astonished. “Stranger,” said he, “you could not +have heard me say that this threatened tribe belongs to the Vril-ya; and +it only waits for these savages to declare war, in order to commission +some half-a-dozen small children to sweep away their whole population.” + +At these words I felt a thrill of horror, recognising much more affinity +with “the savages” than I did with the Vril-ya, and remembering all I +had said in praise of the glorious American institutions, which Aph-Lin +stigmatised as Koom-Posh. Recovering my self-possession, I asked +if there were modes of transit by which I could safely visit this +temerarious and remote people. + +“You can travel with safety, by vril agency, either along the ground or +amid the air, throughout all the range of the communities with which +we are allied and akin; but I cannot vouch for your safety in barbarous +nations governed by different laws from ours; nations, indeed, so +benighted, that there are among them large numbers who actually live by +stealing from each other, and one could not with safety in the Silent +Hours even leave the doors of one’s own house open.” + +Here our conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Taee, who came +to inform us that he, having been deputed to discover and destroy the +enormous reptile which I had seen on my first arrival, had been on the +watch for it ever since his visit to me, and had began to suspect that +my eyes had deceived me, or that the creature had made its way through +the cavities within the rocks to the wild regions in which dwelt its +kindred race,--when it gave evidences of its whereabouts by a great +devastation of the herbage bordering one of the lakes. “And,” said Taee, +“I feel sure that within that lake it is now hiding. So,” (turning to +me) “I thought it might amuse you to accompany me to see the way we +destroy such unpleasant visitors.” As I looked at the face of the young +child, and called to mind the enormous size of the creature he proposed +to exterminate, I felt myself shudder with fear for him, and perhaps +fear for myself, if I accompanied him in such a chase. But my curiosity +to witness the destructive effects of the boasted vril, and my +unwillingness to lower myself in the eyes of an infant by betraying +apprehensions of personal safety, prevailed over my first impulse. +Accordingly, I thanked Taee for his courteous consideration for my +amusement, and professed my willingness to set out with him on so +diverting an enterprise. + + + +Chapter XVIII. + + +As Taee and myself, on quitting the town, and leaving to the left the +main road which led to it, struck into the fields, the strange and +solemn beauty of the landscape, lighted up, by numberless lamps, to the +verge of the horizon, fascinated my eyes, and rendered me for some time +an inattentive listener to the talk of my companion. + +Along our way various operations of agriculture were being carried on by +machinery, the forms of which were new to me, and for the most part very +graceful; for among these people art being so cultivated for the sake +of mere utility, exhibits itself in adorning or refining the shapes of +useful objects. Precious metals and gems are so profuse among them, that +they are lavished on things devoted to purposes the most commonplace; +and their love of utility leads them to beautify its tools, and quickens +their imagination in a way unknown to themselves. + +In all service, whether in or out of doors, they make great use +of automaton figures, which are so ingenious, and so pliant to the +operations of vril, that they actually seem gifted with reason. It +was scarcely possible to distinguish the figures I beheld, apparently +guiding or superintending the rapid movements of vast engines, from +human forms endowed with thought. + +By degrees, as we continued to walk on, my attention became roused by +the lively and acute remarks of my companion. The intelligence of the +children among this race is marvellously precocious, perhaps from the +habit of having intrusted to them, at so early an age, the toils and +responsibilities of middle age. Indeed, in conversing with Taee, I felt +as if talking with some superior and observant man of my own years. I +asked him if he could form any estimate of the number of communities +into which the race of the Vril-ya is subdivided. + +“Not exactly,” he said, “because they multiply, of course, every year as +the surplus of each community is drafted off. But I heard my father say +that, according to the last report, there were a million and a half of +communities speaking our language, and adopting our institutions and +forms of life and government; but, I believe, with some differences, +about which you had better ask Zee. She knows more than most of the Ana +do. An An cares less for things that do not concern him than a Gy does; +the Gy-ei are inquisitive creatures.” + +“Does each community restrict itself to the same number of families or +amount of population that you do?” + +“No; some have much smaller populations, some have larger--varying +according to the extent of the country they appropriate, or to the +degree of excellence to which they have brought their machinery. Each +community sets its own limit according to circumstances, taking care +always that there shall never arise any class of poor by the pressure of +population upon the productive powers of the domain; and that no +state shall be too large for a government resembling that of a +single well-ordered family. I imagine that no vril community exceeds +thirty-thousand households. But, as a general rule, the smaller +the community, provided there be hands enough to do justice to the +capacities of the territory it occupies, the richer each individual is, +and the larger the sum contributed to the general treasury,--above all, +the happier and the more tranquil is the whole political body, and the +more perfect the products of its industry. The state which all tribes of +the Vril-ya acknowledge to be the highest in civilisation, and which +has brought the vril force to its fullest development, is perhaps the +smallest. It limits itself to four thousand families; but every inch of +its territory is cultivated to the utmost perfection of garden ground; +its machinery excels that of every other tribe, and there is no +product of its industry in any department which is not sought for, at +extraordinary prices, by each community of our race. All our tribes make +this state their model, considering that we should reach the highest +state of civilisation allowed to mortals if we could unite the greatest +degree of happiness with the highest degree of intellectual achievement; +and it is clear that the smaller the society the less difficult that +will be. Ours is too large for it.” + +This reply set me thinking. I reminded myself of that little state of +Athens, with only twenty thousand free citizens, and which to this +day our mightiest nations regard as the supreme guide and model in all +departments of intellect. But then Athens permitted fierce rivalry and +perpetual change, and was certainly not happy. Rousing myself from the +reverie into which these reflections had plunged me, I brought back our +talk to the subjects connected with emigration. + +“But,” said I, “when, I suppose yearly, a certain number among you agree +to quit home and found a new community elsewhere, they must necessarily +be very few, and scarcely sufficient, even with the help of the machines +they take with them, to clear the ground, and build towns, and form a +civilised state with the comforts and luxuries in which they had been +reared.” + +“You mistake. All the tribes of the Vril-ya are in constant +communication with each other, and settle amongst themselves each +year what proportion of one community will unite with the emigrants of +another, so as to form a state of sufficient size; and the place for +emigration is agreed upon at least a year before, and pioneers sent from +each state to level rocks, and embank waters, and construct houses; so +that when the emigrants at last go, they find a city already made, and a +country around it at least partially cleared. Our hardy life as children +make us take cheerfully to travel and adventure. I mean to emigrate +myself when of age.” + +“Do the emigrants always select places hitherto uninhabited and barren?” + +“As yet generally, because it is our rule never to destroy except +when necessary to our well-being. Of course, we cannot settle in lands +already occupied by the Vril-ya; and if we take the cultivated lands +of the other races of Ana, we must utterly destroy the previous +inhabitants. Sometimes, as it is, we take waste spots, and find that +a troublesome, quarrelsome race of Ana, especially if under the +administration of Koom-Posh or Glek-Nas, resents our vicinity, and picks +a quarrel with us; then, of course, as menacing our welfare, we destroy +it: there is no coming to terms of peace with a race so idiotic that +it is always changing the form of government which represents it. +Koom-Posh,” said the child, emphatically, “is bad enough, still it has +brains, though at the back of its head, and is not without a heart; but +in Glek-Nas the brain and heart of the creatures disappear, and they +become all jaws, claws, and belly.” “You express yourself strongly. +Allow me to inform you that I myself, and I am proud to say it, am the +citizen of a Koom-Posh.” + +“I no longer,” answered Taee, “wonder to see you here so far from your +home. What was the condition of your native community before it became a +Koom-Posh?” + +“A settlement of emigrants--like those settlements which your tribe +sends forth--but so far unlike your settlements, that it was dependent +on the state from which it came. It shook off that yoke, and, crowned +with eternal glory, became a Koom-Posh.” + +“Eternal glory! How long has the Koom-Posh lasted?” + +“About 100 years.” + +“The length of an An’s life--a very young community. In much less than +another 100 years your Koom-Posh will be a Glek-Nas.” + +“Nay, the oldest states in the world I come from, have such faith in its +duration, that they are all gradually shaping their institutions so +as to melt into ours, and their most thoughtful politicians say that, +whether they like it or not, the inevitable tendency of these old states +is towards Koom-Posh-erie.” + +“The old states?” + +“Yes, the old states.” + +“With populations very small in proportion to the area of productive +land?” + +“On the contrary, with populations very large in proportion to that +area.” + +“I see! old states indeed!--so old as to become drivelling if they don’t +pack off that surplus population as we do ours--very old states!--very, +very old! Pray, Tish, do you think it wise for very old men to try to +turn head-over-heels as very young children do? And if you ask them why +they attempted such antics, should you not laugh if they answered that +by imitating very young children they could become very young children +themselves? Ancient history abounds with instances of this sort a great +many thousand years ago--and in every instance a very old state that +played at Koom-Posh soon tumbled into Glek-Nas. Then, in horror of its +own self, it cried out for a master, as an old man in his dotage cries +out for a nurse; and after a succession of masters or nurses, more or +less long, that very old state died out of history. A very old state +attempting Koom-Posh-erie is like a very old man who pulls down the +house to which he has been accustomed, but he has so exhausted his +vigour in pulling down, that all he can do in the way of rebuilding is +to run up a crazy hut, in which himself and his successors whine out, +‘How the wind blows! How the walls shake!’” + +“My dear Taee, I make all excuse for your unenlightened prejudices, +which every schoolboy educated in a Koom-Posh could easily controvert, +though he might not be so precociously learned in ancient history as you +appear to be.” + +“I learned! not a bit of it. But would a schoolboy, educated in your +Koom-Posh, ask his great-great-grandfather or great-great-grandmother +to stand on his or her head with the feet uppermost? And if the poor old +folks hesitated--say, ‘What do you fear?--see how I do it!’” + +“Taee, I disdain to argue with a child of your age. I repeat, I make +allowances for your want of that culture which a Koom-Posh alone can +bestow.” + +“I, in my turn,” answered Taee, with an air of the suave but lofty good +breeding which characterises his race, “not only make allowances for +you as not educated among the Vril-ya, but I entreat you to vouchsafe me +your pardon for the insufficient respect to the habits and opinions of +so amiable a Tish!” + +I ought before to have observed that I was commonly called Tish by my +host and his family, as being a polite and indeed a pet name, literally +signifying a small barbarian; the children apply it endearingly to the +tame species of Frog which they keep in their gardens. + +We had now reached the banks of a lake, and Taee here paused to point +out to me the ravages made in fields skirting it. “The enemy certainly +lies within these waters,” said Taee. “Observe what shoals of fish are +crowded together at the margin. Even the great fishes with the small +ones, who are their habitual prey and who generally shun them, all +forget their instincts in the presence of a common destroyer. This +reptile certainly must belong to the class of Krek-a, which are more +devouring than any other, and are said to be among the few surviving +species of the world’s dreadest inhabitants before the Ana were created. +The appetite of a Krek is insatiable--it feeds alike upon vegetable and +animal life; but for the swift-footed creatures of the elk species it +is too slow in its movements. Its favourite dainty is an An when it can +catch him unawares; and hence the Ana destroy it relentlessly whenever +it enters their dominion. I have heard that when our forefathers first +cleared this country, these monsters, and others like them, abounded, +and, vril being then undiscovered, many of our race were devoured. It +was impossible to exterminate them wholly till that discovery which +constitutes the power and sustains the civilisation of our race. But +after the uses of vril became familiar to us, all creatures inimical +to us were soon annihilated. Still, once a-year or so, one of these +enormous creatures wanders from the unreclaimed and savage districts +beyond, and within my memory one has seized upon a young Gy who was +bathing in this very lake. Had she been on land and armed with her +staff, it would not have dared even to show itself; for, like all savage +creatures, the reptile has a marvellous instinct, which warns it against +the bearer of the vril wand. How they teach their young to avoid him, +though seen for the first time, is one of those mysteries which you may +ask Zee to explain, for I cannot. The reptile in this instinct does but +resemble our wild birds and animals, which will not come in reach of a +man armed with a gun. When the electric wires were first put up, +partridges struck against them in their flight, and fell down wounded. +No younger generations of partridges meet with a similar accident. So +long as I stand here, the monster will not stir from its lurking-place; +but we must now decoy it forth.” + +“Will that not be difficult?” + +“Not at all. Seat yourself yonder on that crag (about one hundred +yards from the bank), while I retire to a distance. In a short time the +reptile will catch sight or scent of you, and perceiving that you are no +vril-bearer, will come forth to devour you. As soon as it is fairly out +of the water, it becomes my prey.” + +“Do you mean to tell me that I am to be the decoy to that horrible +monster which could engulf me within its jaws in a second! I beg to +decline.” + +The child laughed. “Fear nothing,” said he; “only sit still.” + +Instead of obeying the command, I made a bound, and was about to take +fairly to my heels, when Taee touched me slightly on the shoulder, and, +fixing his eyes steadily on mine, I was rooted to the spot. All power of +volition left me. Submissive to the infant’s gesture, I followed him +to the crag he had indicated, and seated myself there in silence. Most +readers have seen something of the effects of electro-biology, whether +genuine or spurious. No professor of that doubtful craft had ever been +able to influence a thought or a movement of mine, but I was a mere +machine at the will of this terrible child. Meanwhile he expanded his +wings, soared aloft, and alighted amidst a copse at the brow of a hill +at some distance. + +I was alone; and turning my eyes with an indescribable sensation of +horror towards the lake, I kept them fixed on its water, spell-bound. It +might be ten or fifteen minutes, to me it seemed ages, before the still +surface, gleaming under the lamplight, began to be agitated towards +the centre. At the same time the shoals of fish near the margin evinced +their sense of the enemy’s approach by splash and leap and bubbling +circle. I could detect their hurried flight hither and thither, some +even casting themselves ashore. A long, dark, undulous furrow came +moving along the waters, nearer and nearer, till the vast head of the +reptile emerged--its jaws bristling with fangs, and its dull eyes fixing +themselves hungrily on the spot where I sat motionless. And now its fore +feet were on the strand--now its enormous breast, scaled on either +side as in armour, in the centre showing its corrugated skin of a dull +venomous yellow; and now its whole length was on the land, a hundred +feet or more from the jaw to the tail. Another stride of those ghastly +feet would have brought it to the spot where I sat. There was but a +moment between me and this grim form of death, when what seemed a flash +of lightning shot through the air, smote, and, for a space of time +briefer than that in which a man can draw his breath, enveloped +the monster; and then, as the flash vanished, there lay before me a +blackened, charred, smouldering mass, a something gigantic, but of which +even the outlines of form were burned away, and rapidly crumbling into +dust and ashes. I remained still seated, still speechless, ice-cold with +a new sensation of dread; what had been horror was now awe. + +I felt the child’s hand on my head--fear left me--the spell was +broken--I rose up. “You see with what ease the Vril-ya destroy their +enemies,” said Taee; and then, moving towards the bank, he contemplated +the smouldering relics of the monster, and said quietly, “I have +destroyed larger creatures, but none with so much pleasure. Yes, it IS +a Krek; what suffering it must have inflicted while it lived!” Then he +took up the poor fishes that had flung themselves ashore, and restored +them mercifully to their native element. + + + +Chapter XIX. + + +As we walked back to the town, Taee took a new and circuitous way, +in order to show me what, to use a familiar term, I will call the +‘Station,’ from which emigrants or travellers to other communities +commence their journeys. I had, on a former occasion, expressed a wish +to see their vehicles. These I found to be of two kinds, one for land +journeys, one for aerial voyages: the former were of all sizes and +forms, some not larger than an ordinary carriage, some movable houses of +one story and containing several rooms, furnished according to the ideas +of comfort or luxury which are entertained by the Vril-ya. The aerial +vehicles were of light substances, not the least resembling our +balloons, but rather our boats and pleasure-vessels, with helm and +rudder, with large wings or paddles, and a central machine worked by +vril. All the vehicles both for land or air were indeed worked by that +potent and mysterious agency. + +I saw a convoy set out on its journey, but it had few passengers, +containing chiefly articles of merchandise, and was bound to a +neighbouring community; for among all the tribes of the Vril-ya there +is considerable commercial interchange. I may here observe, that their +money currency does not consist of the precious metals, which are too +common among them for that purpose. The smaller coins in ordinary use +are manufactured from a peculiar fossil shell, the comparatively scarce +remnant of some very early deluge, or other convulsion of nature, by +which a species has become extinct. It is minute, and flat as an oyster, +and takes a jewel-like polish. This coinage circulates among all the +tribes of the Vril-ya. Their larger transactions are carried on much +like ours, by bills of exchange, and thin metallic plates which answer +the purpose of our bank-notes. + +Let me take this occasion of adding that the taxation among the tribe I +became acquainted with was very considerable, compared with the amount +of population. But I never heard that any one grumbled at it, for it was +devoted to purposes of universal utility, and indeed necessary to the +civilisation of the tribe. The cost of lighting so large a range +of country, of providing for emigration, of maintaining the public +buildings at which the various operations of national intellect were +carried on, from the first education of an infant to the departments in +which the College of Sages were perpetually trying new experiments in +mechanical science; all these involved the necessity for considerable +state funds. To these I must add an item that struck me as very +singular. I have said that all the human labour required by the state is +carried on by children up to the marriageable age. For this labour the +state pays, and at a rate immeasurably higher than our own remuneration +to labour even in the United States. According to their theory, every +child, male or female, on attaining the marriageable age, and there +terminating the period of labour, should have acquired enough for an +independent competence during life. As, no matter what the disparity of +fortune in the parents, all the children must equally serve, so all +are equally paid according to their several ages or the nature of their +work. Where the parents or friends choose to retain a child in their +own service, they must pay into the public fund in the same ratio as the +state pays to the children it employs; and this sum is handed over to +the child when the period of service expires. This practice serves, no +doubt, to render the notion of social equality familiar and agreeable; +and if it may be said that all the children form a democracy, no less +truly it may be said that all the adults form an aristocracy. The +exquisite politeness and refinement of manners among the Vril-ya, the +generosity of their sentiments, the absolute leisure they enjoy for +following out their own private pursuits, the amenities of their +domestic intercourse, in which they seem as members of one noble order +that can have no distrust of each other’s word or deed, all combine to +make the Vril-ya the most perfect nobility which a political disciple +of Plato or Sidney could conceive for the ideal of an aristocratic +republic. + + + +Chapter XX. + + +From the date of the expedition with Taee which I have just narrated, +the child paid me frequent visits. He had taken a liking to me, which I +cordially returned. Indeed, as he was not yet twelve years old, and +had not commenced the course of scientific studies with which childhood +closes in that country, my intellect was less inferior to his than to +that of the elder members of his race, especially of the Gy-ei, and most +especially of the accomplished Zee. The children of the Vril-ya, +having upon their minds the weight of so many active duties and grave +responsibilities, are not generally mirthful; but Taee, with all +his wisdom, had much of the playful good-humour one often finds the +characteristic of elderly men of genius. He felt that sort of pleasure +in my society which a boy of a similar age in the upper world has in the +company of a pet dog or monkey. It amused him to try and teach me the +ways of his people, as it amuses a nephew of mine to make his poodle +walk on his hind legs or jump through a hoop. I willingly lent myself to +such experiments, but I never achieved the success of the poodle. I was +very much interested at first in the attempt to ply the wings which the +youngest of the Vril-ya use as nimbly and easily as ours do their legs +and arms; but my efforts were attended with contusions serious enough to +make me abandon them in despair. + +These wings, as I before said, are very large, reaching to the knee, +and in repose thrown back so as to form a very graceful mantle. They are +composed from the feathers of a gigantic bird that abounds in the rocky +heights of the country--the colour mostly white, but sometimes with +reddish streaks. They are fastened round the shoulders with light but +strong springs of steel; and, when expanded, the arms slide through +loops for that purpose, forming, as it were, a stout central membrane. +As the arms are raised, a tubular lining beneath the vest or tunic +becomes, by mechanical contrivance inflated with air, increased or +diminished at will by the movement of the arms, and serving to buoy the +whole form as on bladders. The wings and the balloon-like apparatus are +highly charged with vril; and when the body is thus wafted upward, it +seems to become singularly lightened of its weight. I found it easy +enough to soar from the ground; indeed, when the wings were spread it +was scarcely possible not to soar, but then came the difficulty and the +danger. I utterly failed in the power to use and direct the pinions, +though I am considered among my own race unusually alert and ready in +bodily exercises, and am a very practiced swimmer. I could only make the +most confused and blundering efforts at flight. I was the servant of the +wings; the wings were not my servants--they were beyond my control; +and when by a violent strain of muscle, and, I must fairly own, in that +abnormal strength which is given by excessive fright, I curbed their +gyrations and brought them near to the body, it seemed as if I lost the +sustaining power stored in them and the connecting bladders, as when the +air is let out of a balloon, and found myself precipitated again to the +earth; saved, indeed, by some spasmodic flutterings, from being dashed +to pieces, but not saved from the bruises and the stun of a heavy fall. +I would, however, have persevered in my attempts, but for the advice or +the commands of the scientific Zee, who had benevolently accompanied my +flutterings, and, indeed, on the last occasion, flying just under me, +received my form as it fell on her own expanded wings, and preserved +me from breaking my head on the roof of the pyramid from which we had +ascended. + +“I see,” she said, “that your trials are in vain, not from the fault +of the wings and their appurtenances, nor from any imperfectness and +malformation of your own corpuscular system, but from irremediable, +because organic, defect in your power of volition. Learn that the +connection between the will and the agencies of that fluid which has +been subjected to the control of the Vril-ya was never established by +the first discoverers, never achieved by a single generation; it has +gone on increasing, like other properties of race, in proportion as it +has been uniformly transmitted from parent to child, so that, at last, +it has become an instinct; and an infant An of our race wills to fly +as intuitively and unconsciously as he wills to walk. He thus plies his +invented or artificial wings with as much safety as a bird plies those +with which it is born. I did not think sufficiently of this when I +allowed you to try an experiment which allured me, for I have longed to +have in you a companion. I shall abandon the experiment now. Your life +is becoming dear to me.” Herewith the Gy’s voice and face softened, and +I felt more seriously alarmed than I had been in my previous flights. + +Now that I am on the subject of wings, I ought not to omit mention of a +custom among the Gy-ei which seems to me very pretty and tender in the +sentiment it implies. A Gy wears wings habitually when yet a virgin--she +joins the Ana in their aerial sports--she adventures alone and afar into +the wilder regions of the sunless world: in the boldness and height of +her soarings, not less than in the grace of her movements, she excels +the opposite sex. But, from the day of her marriage she wears wings +no more, she suspends them with her own willing hand over the nuptial +couch, never to be resumed unless the marriage tie be severed by divorce +or death. + +Now when Zee’s voice and eyes thus softened--and at that softening I +prophetically recoiled and shuddered--Taee, who had accompanied us in +our flights, but who, child-like, had been much more amused with my +awkwardness, than sympathising in my fears or aware of my danger, +hovered over us, poised amidst spread wings, and hearing the endearing +words of the young Gy, laughed aloud. Said he, “If the Tish cannot +learn the use of wings, you may still be his companion, Zee, for you can +suspend your own.” + + + +Chapter XXI. + + +I had for some time observed in my host’s highly informed and powerfully +proportioned daughter that kindly and protective sentiment which, +whether above the earth or below it, an all-wise Providence has bestowed +upon the feminine division of the human race. But until very lately I +had ascribed it to that affection for ‘pets’ which a human female at +every age shares with a human child. I now became painfully aware that +the feeling with which Zee deigned to regard me was different from that +which I had inspired in Taee. But this conviction gave me none of that +complacent gratification which the vanity of man ordinarily conceives +from a flattering appreciation of his personal merits on the part of +the fair sex; on the contrary, it inspired me with fear. Yet of all +the Gy-ei in the community, if Zee were perhaps the wisest and the +strongest, she was, by common repute, the gentlest, and she was +certainly the most popularly beloved. The desire to aid, to succour, to +protect, to comfort, to bless, seemed to pervade her whole being. Though +the complicated miseries that originate in penury and guilt are unknown +to the social system of the Vril-ya, still, no sage had yet discovered +in vril an agency which could banish sorrow from life; and wherever +amongst her people sorrow found its way, there Zee followed in the +mission of comforter. Did some sister Gy fail to secure the love she +sighed for? Zee sought her out, and brought all the resources of her +lore, and all the consolations of her sympathy, to bear upon a grief +that so needs the solace of a confidant. In the rare cases, when grave +illness seized upon childhood or youth, and the cases, less rare, +when, in the hardy and adventurous probation of infants, some accident, +attended with pain and injury occurred, Zee forsook her studies and +her sports, and became the healer and nurse. Her favourite flights +were towards the extreme boundaries of the domain where children were +stationed on guard against outbreaks of warring forces in nature, or the +invasions of devouring animals, so that she might warn them of any peril +which her knowledge detected or foresaw, or be at hand if any harm had +befallen. Nay, even in the exercise of her scientific acquirements there +was a concurrent benevolence of purpose and will. Did she learn any +novelty in invention that would be useful to the practitioner of some +special art or craft? she hastened to communicate and explain it. Was +some veteran sage of the College perplexed and wearied with the toil of +an abstruse study? she would patiently devote herself to his aid, work +out details for him, sustain his spirits with her hopeful smile, quicken +his wit with her luminous suggestion, be to him, as it were, his own +good genius made visible as the strengthener and inspirer. The same +tenderness she exhibited to the inferior creatures. I have often known +her bring home some sick and wounded animal, and tend and cherish it as +a mother would tend and cherish her stricken child. Many a time when I +sat in the balcony, or hanging garden, on which my window opened, I have +watched her rising in the air on her radiant wings, and in a few moments +groups of infants below, catching sight of her, would soar upward with +joyous sounds of greeting; clustering and sporting around her, so that +she seemed a very centre of innocent delight. When I have walked with +her amidst the rocks and valleys without the city, the elk-deer would +scent or see her from afar, come bounding up, eager for the caress +of her hand, or follow her footsteps, till dismissed by some musical +whisper that the creature had learned to comprehend. It is the fashion +among the virgin Gy-ei to wear on their foreheads a circlet, or coronet, +with gems resembling opals, arranged in four points or rays like stars. +These are lustreless in ordinary use, but if touched by the vril wand +they take a clear lambent flame, which illuminates, yet not burns. This +serves as an ornament in their festivities, and as a lamp, if, in their +wanderings beyond their artificial lights, they have to traverse the +dark. There are times, when I have seen Zee’s thoughtful majesty of face +lighted up by this crowning halo, that I could scarcely believe her to +be a creature of mortal birth, and bent my head before her as the vision +of a being among the celestial orders. But never once did my heart feel +for this lofty type of the noblest womanhood a sentiment of human love. +Is it that, among the race I belong to, man’s pride so far influences +his passions that woman loses to him her special charm of woman if he +feels her to be in all things eminently superior to himself? But by what +strange infatuation could this peerless daughter of a race which, in the +supremacy of its powers and the felicity of its conditions, ranked all +other races in the category of barbarians, have deigned to honour me +with her preference? In personal qualifications, though I passed for +good-looking amongst the people I came from, the handsomest of my +countrymen might have seemed insignificant and homely beside the grand +and serene type of beauty which characterised the aspect of the Vril-ya. + +That novelty, the very difference between myself and those to whom Zee +was accustomed, might serve to bias her fancy was probable enough, and +as the reader will see later, such a cause might suffice to account for +the predilection with which I was distinguished by a young Gy scarcely +out of her childhood, and very inferior in all respects to Zee. But +whoever will consider those tender characteristics which I have just +ascribed to the daughter of Aph-Lin, may readily conceive that the main +cause of my attraction to her was in her instinctive desire to cherish, +to comfort, to protect, and, in protecting, to sustain and to exalt. +Thus, when I look back, I account for the only weakness unworthy of +her lofty nature, which bowed the daughter of the Vril-ya to a woman’s +affection for one so inferior to herself as was her father’s guest. But +be the cause what it may, the consciousness that I had inspired such +affection thrilled me with awe--a moral awe of her very imperfections, +of her mysterious powers, of the inseparable distinctions between her +race and my own; and with that awe, I must confess to my shame, there +combined the more material and ignoble dread of the perils to which her +preference would expose me. + +Under these anxious circumstances, fortunately, my conscience and sense +of honour were free from reproach. It became clearly my duty, if Zee’s +preference continued manifest, to intimate it to my host, with, of +course, all the delicacy which is ever to be preserved by a well-bred +man in confiding to another any degree of favour by which one of the +fair sex may condescend to distinguish him. Thus, at all events, +I should be freed from responsibility or suspicion of voluntary +participation in the sentiments of Zee; and the superior wisdom of +my host might probably suggest some sage extrication from my perilous +dilemma. In this resolve I obeyed the ordinary instinct of civilised and +moral man, who, erring though he be, still generally prefers the right +course in those cases where it is obviously against his inclinations, +his interests, and his safety to elect the wrong one. + + + +Chapter XXII. + + +As the reader has seen, Aph-Lin had not favoured my general and +unrestricted intercourse with his countrywomen. Though relying on my +promise to abstain from giving any information as to the world I had +left, and still more on the promise of those to whom had been put the +same request, not to question me, which Zee had exacted from Taee, yet +he did not feel sure that, if I were allowed to mix with the strangers +whose curiosity the sight of me had aroused, I could sufficiently guard +myself against their inquiries. When I went out, therefore, it was never +alone; I was always accompanied either by one of my host’s family, or +my child-friend Taee. Bra, Aph-Lin’s wife, seldom stirred beyond the +gardens which surrounded the house, and was fond of reading the ancient +literature, which contained something of romance and adventure not to be +found in the writings of recent ages, and presented pictures of a +life unfamiliar to her experience and interesting to her imagination; +pictures, indeed, of a life more resembling that which we lead every day +above ground, coloured by our sorrows, sins, passions, and much to her +what the tales of the Genii or the Arabian Nights are to us. But her +love of reading did not prevent Bra from the discharge of her duties as +mistress of the largest household in the city. She went daily the +round of the chambers, and saw that the automata and other mechanical +contrivances were in order, that the numerous children employed by +Aph-Lin, whether in his private or public capacity, were carefully +tended. Bra also inspected the accounts of the whole estate, and it was +her great delight to assist her husband in the business connected with +his office as chief administrator of the Lighting Department, so that +her avocations necessarily kept her much within doors. The two sons were +both completing their education at the College of Sages; and the +elder, who had a strong passion for mechanics, and especially for works +connected with the machinery of timepieces and automata, had decided on +devoting himself to these pursuits, and was now occupied in constructing +a shop or warehouse, at which his inventions could be exhibited and +sold. The younger son preferred farming and rural occupations; and when +not attending the College, at which he chiefly studied the theories +of agriculture, was much absorbed by his practical application of that +science to his father’s lands. It will be seen by this how completely +equality of ranks is established among this people--a shopkeeper being +of exactly the same grade in estimation as the large landed proprietor. +Aph-Lin was the wealthiest member of the community, and his eldest son +preferred keeping a shop to any other avocation; nor was this choice +thought to show any want of elevated notions on his part. + +This young man had been much interested in examining my watch, the works +of which were new to him, and was greatly pleased when I made him a +present of it. Shortly after, he returned the gift with interest, by a +watch of his own construction, marking both the time as in my watch and +the time as kept among the Vril-ya. I have that watch still, and it has +been much admired by many among the most eminent watchmakers of London +and Paris. It is of gold, with diamond hands and figures, and it plays a +favorite tune among the Vril-ya in striking the hours: it only requires +to be wound up once in ten months, and has never gone wrong since I had +it. These young brothers being thus occupied, my usual companions in +that family, when I went abroad, were my host or his daughter. Now, +agreeably with the honourable conclusions I had come to, I began to +excuse myself from Zee’s invitations to go out alone with her, and +seized an occasion when that learned Gy was delivering a lecture at the +College of Sages to ask Aph-Lin to show me his country-seat. As this was +at some little distance, and as Aph-Lin was not fond of walking, while I +had discreetly relinquished all attempts at flying, we proceeded to our +destination in one of the aerial boats belonging to my host. A child of +eight years old, in his employ, was our conductor. My host and myself +reclined on cushions, and I found the movement very easy and luxurious. +“Aph-Lin,” said I, “you will not, I trust, be displeased with me, if I +ask your permission to travel for a short time, and visit other tribes +or communities of your illustrious race. I have also a strong desire to +see those nations which do not adopt your institutions, and which you +consider as savages. It would interest me greatly to notice what are the +distinctions between them and the races whom we consider civilised in +the world I have left.” + +“It is utterly impossible that you should go hence alone,” said Aph-Lin. +“Even among the Vril-ya you would be exposed to great dangers. Certain +peculiarities of formation and colour, and the extraordinary phenomenon +of hirsute bushes upon your cheeks and chin, denoting in you a species +of An distinct alike from our own race and any known race of barbarians +yet extant, would attract, of course, the special attention of the +College of Sages in whatever community of Vril-ya you visited, and it +would depend upon the individual temper of some individual sage whether +you would be received, as you have been here, hospitably, or whether you +would not be at once dissected for scientific purposes. Know that when +the Tur first took you to his house, and while you were there put to +sleep by Taee in order to recover from your previous pain or fatigue, +the sages summoned by the Tur were divided in opinion whether you were +a harmless or an obnoxious animal. During your unconscious state your +teeth were examined, and they clearly showed that you were not only +graminivorous but carnivorous. Carnivorous animals of your size are +always destroyed, as being of savage and dangerous nature. Our teeth, as +you have doubtless observed,* are not those of the creatures who devour +flesh.” + +* I never had observed it; and, if I had, am not physiologist enough to +have distinguished the difference. + +“It is, indeed, maintained by Zee and other philosophers, that as, in +remote ages, the Ana did prey upon living beings of the brute species, +their teeth must have been fitted for that purpose. But, even if so, +they have been modified by hereditary transmission, and suited to the +food on which we now exist; nor are even the barbarians, who adopt the +turbulent and ferocious institutions of Glek-Nas, devourers of flesh +like beasts of prey. + +“In the course of this dispute it was proposed to dissect you; but +Taee begged you off, and the Tur being, by office, averse to all novel +experiments at variance with our custom of sparing life, except where it +is clearly proved to be for the good of the community to take it, sent +to me, whose business it is, as the richest man of the state, to afford +hospitality to strangers from a distance. It was at my option to decide +whether or not you were a stranger whom I could safely admit. Had I +declined to receive you, you would have been handed over to the College +of Sages, and what might there have befallen you I do not like to +conjecture. Apart from this danger, you might chance to encounter some +child of four years old, just put in possession of his vril staff; and +who, in alarm at your strange appearance, and in the impulse of the +moment, might reduce you to a cinder. Taee himself was about to do so +when he first saw you, had his father not checked his hand. Therefore I +say you cannot travel alone, but with Zee you would be safe; and I have +no doubt that she would accompany you on a tour round the neighbouring +communities of Vril-ya (to the savage states, No!): I will ask her.” + +Now, as my main object in proposing to travel was to escape from Zee, I +hastily exclaimed, “Nay, pray do not! I relinquish my design. You have +said enough as to its dangers to deter me from it; and I can scarcely +think it right that a young Gy of the personal attractions of your +lovely daughter should travel into other regions without a better +protector than a Tish of my insignificant strength and stature.” + +Aph-Lin emitted the soft sibilant sound which is the nearest approach +to laughter that a full-grown An permits to himself, ere he replied: +“Pardon my discourteous but momentary indulgence of mirth at any +observation seriously made by my guest. I could not but be amused at the +idea of Zee, who is so fond of protecting others that children call her +‘THE GUARDIAN,’ needing a protector herself against any dangers arising +from the audacious admiration of males. Know that our Gy-ei, while +unmarried, are accustomed to travel alone among other tribes, to see if +they find there some An who may please them more than the Ana they find +at home. Zee has already made three such journeys, but hitherto her +heart has been untouched.” + +Here the opportunity which I sought was afforded to me, and I said, +looking down, and with faltering voice, “Will you, my kind host, promise +to pardon me, if what I am about to say gives offence?” + +“Say only the truth, and I cannot be offended; or, could I be so, it +would not be for me, but for you to pardon.” + +“Well, then, assist me to quit you, and, much as I should have like +to witness more of the wonders, and enjoy more of the felicity, which +belong to your people, let me return to my own.” + +“I fear there are reasons why I cannot do that; at all events, not +without permission of the Tur, and he, probably, would not grant it. You +are not destitute of intelligence; you may (though I do not think +so) have concealed the degree of destructive powers possessed by your +people; you might, in short, bring upon us some danger; and if the Tur +entertains that idea, it would clearly be his duty, either to put an end +to you, or enclose you in a cage for the rest of your existence. But why +should you wish to leave a state of society which you so politely allow +to be more felicitous than your own?” + +“Oh, Aph-Lin! My answer is plain. Lest in naught, and unwittingly, I +should betray your hospitality; lest, in the caprice of will which in +our world is proverbial among the other sex, and from which even a Gy +is not free, your adorable daughter should deign to regard me, though a +Tish, as if I were a civilised An, and--and--and---” “Court you as +her spouse,” put in Aph-Lin, gravely, and without any visible sign of +surprise or displeasure. + +“You have said it.” + +“That would be a misfortune,” resumed my host, after a pause, “and I +feel you have acted as you ought in warning me. It is, as you imply, +not uncommon for an unwedded Gy to conceive tastes as to the object she +covets which appear whimsical to others; but there is no power to compel +a young Gy to any course opposed to that which she chooses to pursue. +All we can to is to reason with her, and experience tells us that the +whole College of Sages would find it vain to reason with a Gy in a +matter that concerns her choice in love. I grieve for you, because such +a marriage would be against the A-glauran, or good of the community, for +the children of such a marriage would adulterate the race: they might +even come into the world with the teeth of carnivorous animals; this +could not be allowed: Zee, as a Gy, cannot be controlled; but you, as a +Tish, can be destroyed. I advise you, then, to resist her addresses; +to tell her plainly that you can never return her love. This happens +constantly. Many an An, however, ardently wooed by one Gy, rejects her, +and puts an end to her persecution by wedding another. The same course +is open to you.” + +“No; for I cannot wed another Gy without equally injuring the community, +and exposing it to the chance of rearing carnivorous children.” + +“That is true. All I can say, and I say it with the tenderness due to a +Tish, and the respect due to a guest, is frankly this--if you yield, you +will become a cinder. I must leave it to you to take the best way you +can to defend yourself. Perhaps you had better tell Zee that she is +ugly. That assurance on the lips of him she woos generally suffices to +chill the most ardent Gy. Here we are at my country-house.” + + + +Chapter XXIII. + + +I confess that my conversation with Aph-Lin, and the extreme coolness +with which he stated his inability to control the dangerous caprice of +his daughter, and treated the idea of the reduction into a cinder to +which her amorous flame might expose my too seductive person, took away +the pleasure I should otherwise have had in the contemplation of my +host’s country-seat, and the astonishing perfection of the machinery +by which his farming operations were conducted. The house differed in +appearance from the massive and sombre building which Aph-Lin inhabited +in the city, and which seemed akin to the rocks out of which the city +itself had been hewn into shape. The walls of the country-seat +were composed by trees placed a few feet apart from each other, the +interstices being filled in with the transparent metallic substance +which serves the purpose of glass among the Ana. These trees were all in +flower, and the effect was very pleasing, if not in the best taste. We +were received at the porch by life-like automata, who conducted us +into a chamber, the like to which I never saw before, but have often on +summer days dreamily imagined. It was a bower--half room, half garden. +The walls were one mass of climbing flowers. The open spaces, which +we call windows, and in which, here, the metallic surfaces were slided +back, commanded various views; some, of the wide landscape with its +lakes and rocks; some, of small limited expanses answering to our +conservatories, filled with tiers of flowers. Along the sides of the +room were flower-beds, interspersed with cushions for repose. In the +centre of the floor was a cistern and a fountain of that liquid light +which I have presumed to be naphtha. It was luminous and of a roseate +hue; it sufficed without lamps to light up the room with a subdued +radiance. All around the fountain was carpeted with a soft deep lichen, +not green (I have never seen that colour in the vegetation of this +country), but a quiet brown, on which the eye reposes with the same +sense of relief as that with which in the upper world it reposes +on green. In the outlets upon flowers (which I have compared to our +conservatories) there were singing birds innumerable, which, while we +remained in the room, sang in those harmonies of tune to which they are, +in these parts, so wonderfully trained. The roof was open. The whole +scene had charms for every sense--music form the birds, fragrance from +the flowers, and varied beauty to the eye at every aspect. About all was +a voluptuous repose. What a place, methought, for a honeymoon, if a Gy +bride were a little less formidably armed not only with the rights +of woman, but with the powers of man! But when one thinks of a Gy, so +learned, so tall, so stately, so much above the standard of the creature +we call woman as was Zee, no! even if I had felt no fear of being +reduced to a cinder, it is not of her I should have dreamed in that +bower so constructed for dreams of poetic love. + +The automata reappeared, serving one of those delicious liquids which +form the innocent wines of the Vril-ya. + +“Truly,” said I, “this is a charming residence, and I can scarcely +conceive why you do not settle yourself here instead of amid the +gloomier abodes of the city.” + +“As responsible to the community for the administration of light, I am +compelled to reside chiefly in the city, and can only come hither for +short intervals.” + +“But since I understand from you that no honours are attached to your +office, and it involves some trouble, why do you accept it?” + +“Each of us obeys without question the command of the Tur. He said, ‘Be +it requested that Aph-Lin shall be the Commissioner of Light,’ so I had +no choice; but having held the office now for a long time, the cares, +which were at first unwelcome, have become, if not pleasing, at least +endurable. We are all formed by custom--even the difference of our race +from the savage is but the transmitted continuance of custom, which +becomes, through hereditary descent, part and parcel of our nature. You +see there are Ana who even reconcile themselves to the responsibilities +of chief magistrate, but no one would do so if his duties had not been +rendered so light, or if there were any questions as to compliance with +his requests.” + +“Not even if you thought the requests unwise or unjust?” + +“We do not allow ourselves to think so, and, indeed, everything goes on +as if each and all governed themselves according to immemorial custom.” + +“When the chief magistrate dies or retires, how do you provide for his +successor?” + +“The An who has discharged the duties of chief magistrate for many years +is the best person to choose one by whom those duties may be understood, +and he generally names his successor.” + +“His son, perhaps?” + +“Seldom that; for it is not an office any one desires or seeks, and a +father naturally hesitates to constrain his son. But if the Tur himself +decline to make a choice, for fear it might be supposed that he owed +some grudge to the person on whom his choice would settle, then there +are three of the College of Sages who draw lots among themselves which +shall have the power to elect the chief. We consider that the judgment +of one An of ordinary capacity is better than the judgment of three or +more, however wise they may be; for among three there would probably +be disputes, and where there are disputes, passion clouds judgment. The +worst choice made by one who has no motive in choosing wrong, is better +than the best choice made by many who have many motives for not choosing +right.” + +“You reverse in your policy the maxims adopted in my country.” + +“Are you all, in your country, satisfied with your governors?” + +“All! Certainly not; the governors that most please some are sure to be +those most displeasing to others.” + +“Then our system is better than yours.” “For you it may be; but +according to our system a Tish could not be reduced to a cinder if a +female compelled him to marry her; and as a Tish I sigh to return to my +native world.” + +“Take courage, my dear little guest; Zee can’t compel you to marry her. +She can only entice you to do so. Don’t be enticed. Come and look round +my domain.” + +We went forth into a close, bordered with sheds; for though the Ana keep +no stock for food, there are some animals which they rear for milking +and others for shearing. The former have no resemblance to our cows, +nor the latter to our sheep, nor do I believe such species exist amongst +them. They use the milk of three varieties of animal: one resembles the +antelope, but is much larger, being as tall as a camel; the other two +are smaller, and, though differing somewhat from each other, resemble +no creature I ever saw on earth. They are very sleek and of rounded +proportions; their colour that of the dappled deer, with very mild +countenances and beautiful dark eyes. The milk of these three creatures +differs in richness and taste. It is usually diluted with water, and +flavoured with the juice of a peculiar and perfumed fruit, and in itself +is very nutritious and palatable. The animal whose fleece serves them +for clothing and many other purposes, is more like the Italian she-goat +than any other creature, but is considerably larger, has no horns, +and is free from the displeasing odour of our goats. Its fleece is not +thick, but very long and fine; it varies in colour, but is never white, +more generally of a slate-like or lavender hue. For clothing it is +usually worn dyed to suit the taste of the wearer. These animals were +exceedingly tame, and were treated with extraordinary care and affection +by the children (chiefly female) who tended them. + +We then went through vast storehouses filled with grains and fruits. +I may here observe that the main staple of food among these people +consists--firstly, of a kind of corn much larger in ear than our wheat, +and which by culture is perpetually being brought into new varieties of +flavour; and, secondly, of a fruit of about the size of a small orange, +which, when gathered, is hard and bitter. It is stowed away for many +months in their warehouses, and then becomes succulent and tender. Its +juice, which is of dark-red colour, enters into most of their sauces. +They have many kinds of fruit of the nature of the olive, from which +delicious oils are extracted. They have a plant somewhat resembling the +sugar-cane, but its juices are less sweet and of a delicate perfume. +They have no bees nor honey-making insects, but they make much use of a +sweet gum that oozes from a coniferous plant, not unlike the araucaria. +Their soil teems also with esculent roots and vegetables, which it is +the aim of their culture to improve and vary to the utmost. And I never +remember any meal among this people, however it might be confined to +the family household, in which some delicate novelty in such articles of +food was not introduced. In fine, as I before observed, their cookery is +exquisite, so diversified and nutritious that one does not miss animal +food; and their own physical forms suffice to show that with them, at +least, meat is not required for superior production of muscular fibre. +They have no grapes--the drinks extracted from their fruits are innocent +and refreshing. Their staple beverage, however, is water, in the choice +of which they are very fastidious, distinguishing at once the slightest +impurity. + +“My younger son takes great pleasure in augmenting our produce,” said +Aph-Lin as we passed through the storehouses, “and therefore will +inherit these lands, which constitute the chief part of my wealth. To my +elder son such inheritance would be a great trouble and affliction.” + +“Are there many sons among you who think the inheritance of vast wealth +would be a great trouble and affliction?” + +“Certainly; there are indeed very few of the Vril-ya who do not consider +that a fortune much above the average is a heavy burden. We are rather a +lazy people after the age of childhood, and do not like undergoing more +cares than we can help, and great wealth does give its owner many cares. +For instance, it marks us out for public offices, which none of us +like and none of us can refuse. It necessitates our taking a continued +interest in the affairs of any of our poorer countrymen, so that we may +anticipate their wants and see that none fall into poverty. There is +an old proverb amongst us which says, ‘The poor man’s need is the rich +man’s shame---’” + +“Pardon me, if I interrupt you for a moment. You allow that some, even +of the Vril-ya, know want, and need relief.” + +“If by want you mean the destitution that prevails in a Koom-Posh, THAT +is impossible with us, unless an An has, by some extraordinary process, +got rid of all his means, cannot or will not emigrate, and has either +tired out the affectionate aid of this relations or personal friends, or +refuses to accept it.” + +“Well, then, does he not supply the place of an infant or automaton, and +become a labourer--a servant?” + +“No; then we regard him as an unfortunate person of unsound reason, +and place him, at the expense of the State, in a public building, where +every comfort and every luxury that can mitigate his affliction are +lavished upon him. But an An does not like to be considered out of his +mind, and therefore such cases occur so seldom that the public building +I speak of is now a deserted ruin, and the last inmate of it was an An +whom I recollect to have seen in my childhood. He did not seem conscious +of loss of reason, and wrote glaubs (poetry). When I spoke of wants, I +meant such wants as an An with desires larger than his means sometimes +entertains--for expensive singing-birds, or bigger houses, or +country-gardens; and the obvious way to satisfy such wants is to buy of +him something that he sells. Hence Ana like myself, who are very rich, +are obliged to buy a great many things they do not require, and live on +a very large scale where they might prefer to live on a small one. For +instance, the great size of my house in the town is a source of much +trouble to my wife, and even to myself; but I am compelled to have it +thus incommodiously large, because, as the richest An of the community, +I am appointed to entertain the strangers from the other communities +when they visit us, which they do in great crowds twice-a-year, when +certain periodical entertainments are held, and when relations scattered +throughout all the realms of the Vril-ya joyfully reunite for a time. +This hospitality, on a scale so extensive, is not to my taste, and +therefore I should have been happier had I been less rich. But we must +all bear the lot assigned to us in this short passage through time that +we call life. After all, what are a hundred years, more or less, to the +ages through which we must pass hereafter? Luckily, I have one son who +likes great wealth. It is a rare exception to the general rule, and I +own I cannot myself understand it.” + +After this conversation I sought to return to the subject which +continued to weigh on my heart--viz., the chances of escape from Zee. +But my host politely declined to renew that topic, and summoned our +air-boat. On our way back we were met by Zee, who, having found us gone, +on her return from the College of Sages, had unfurled her wings and +flown in search of us. + +Her grand, but to me unalluring, countenance brightened as she beheld +me, and, poising herself beside the boat on her large outspread plumes, +she said reproachfully to Aph-Lin--“Oh, father, was it right in you +to hazard the life of your guest in a vehicle to which he is so +unaccustomed? He might, by an incautious movement, fall over the side; +and alas; he is not like us, he has no wings. It were death to him to +fall. Dear one!” (she added, accosting my shrinking self in a softer +voice), “have you no thought of me, that you should thus hazard a life +which has become almost a part of mine? Never again be thus rash, unless +I am thy companion. What terror thou hast stricken into me!” + +I glanced furtively at Aph-Lin, expecting, at least, that he would +indignantly reprove his daughter for expressions of anxiety and +affection, which, under all the circumstances, would, in the world above +ground, be considered immodest in the lips of a young female, addressed +to a male not affianced to her, even if of the same rank as herself. + +But so confirmed are the rights of females in that region, and so +absolutely foremost among those rights do females claim the privilege +of courtship, that Aph-Lin would no more have thought of reproving his +virgin daughter than he would have thought of disobeying the orders of +the Tur. In that country, custom, as he implied, is all in all. + +He answered mildly, “Zee, the Tish is in no danger and it is my belief +the he can take very good care of himself.” + +“I would rather that he let me charge myself with his care. Oh, heart of +my heart, it was in the thought of thy danger that I first felt how much +I loved thee!” + +Never did man feel in such a false position as I did. These words were +spoken loud in the hearing of Zee’s father--in the hearing of the child +who steered. I blushed with shame for them, and for her, and could not +help replying angrily: “Zee, either you mock me, which, as your father’s +guest, misbecomes you, or the words you utter are improper for a maiden +Gy to address even to an An of her own race, if he has not wooed her +with the consent of her parents. How much more improper to address them +to a Tish, who has never presumed to solicit your affections, and who +can never regard you with other sentiments than those of reverence and +awe!” + +Aph-Lin made me a covert sing of approbation, but said nothing. “Be not +so cruel!” exclaimed Zee, still in sonorous accents. “Can love command +itself where it is truly felt? Do you suppose that a maiden Gy will +conceal a sentiment that it elevates her to feel? What a country you +must have come from!” + +Here Aph-Lin gently interposed, saying, “Among the Tish-a the rights of +your sex do not appear to be established, and at all events my guest may +converse with you more freely if unchecked by the presence of others.” + +To this remark Zee made no reply, but, darting on me a tender +reproachful glance, agitated her wings and fled homeward. + +“I had counted, at least, on some aid from my host,” I said bitterly, +“in the perils to which his own daughter exposes me.” + +“I gave you the best aid I could. To contradict a Gy in her love affairs +is to confirm her purpose. She allows no counsel to come between her and +her affections.” + + + +Chapter XXIV. + + +On alighting from the air-boat, a child accosted Aph-Lin in the hall +with a request that he would be present at the funeral obsequies of a +relation who had recently departed from that nether world. + +Now, I had never seen a burial-place or cemetery amongst this people, +and, glad to seize even so melancholy an occasion to defer an encounter +with Zee, I asked Aph-Lin if I might be permitted to witness with him +the interment of his relation; unless, indeed, it were regarded as one +of those sacred ceremonies to which a stranger to their race might not +be admitted. + +“The departure of an An to a happier world,” answered my host, “when, as +in the case of my kinsman, he has lived so long in this as to have lost +pleasure in it, is rather a cheerful though quiet festival than a sacred +ceremony, and you may accompany me if you will.” + +Preceded by the child-messenger, we walked up the main street to a house +at some little distance, and, entering the hall, were conducted to a +room on the ground floor, where we found several persons assembled round +a couch on which was laid the deceased. It was an old man, who had, as I +was told, lived beyond his 130th year. To judge by the calm smile on his +countenance, he had passed away without suffering. One of the sons, who +was now the head of the family, and who seemed in vigorous middle life, +though he was considerably more than seventy, stepped forward with a +cheerful face and told Aph-Lin “that the day before he died his father +had seen in a dream his departed Gy, and was eager to be reunited to +her, and restored to youth beneath the nearer smile of the All-Good.” + +While these two were talking, my attention was drawn to a dark metallic +substance at the farther end of the room. It was about twenty feet in +length, narrow in proportion, and all closed round, save, near the roof, +there were small round holes through which might be seen a red light. +From the interior emanated a rich and sweet perfume; and while I was +conjecturing what purpose this machine was to serve, all the time-pieces +in the town struck the hour with their solemn musical chime; and as +that sound ceased, music of a more joyous character, but still of a joy +subdued and tranquil, rang throughout the chamber, and from the walls +beyond, in a choral peal. Symphonious with the melody, those in the room +lifted their voices in chant. The words of this hymn were simple. They +expressed no regret, no farewell, but rather a greeting to the new world +whither the deceased had preceded the living. Indeed, in their language, +the funeral hymn is called the ‘Birth Song.’ Then the corpse, covered +by a long cerement, was tenderly lifted up by six of the nearest kinfolk +and borne towards the dark thing I have described. I pressed forward to +see what happened. A sliding door or panel at one end was lifted up--the +body deposited within, on a shelf--the door reclosed--a spring a the +side touched--a sudden ‘whishing,’ sighing sound heard from within; +and lo! at the other end of the machine the lid fell down, and a small +handful of smouldering dust dropped into a ‘patera’ placed to receive +it. The son took up the ‘patera’ and said (in what I understood +afterwards was the usual form of words), “Behold how great is the Maker! +To this little dust He gave form and life and soul. It needs not this +little dust for Him to renew form and life and soul to the beloved one +we shall soon see again.” + +Each present bowed his head and pressed his hand to his heart. Then a +young female child opened a small door within the wall, and I perceived, +in the recess, shelves on which were placed many ‘paterae’ like that +which the son held, save that they all had covers. With such a cover +a Gy now approached the son, and placed it over the cup, on which it +closed with a spring. On the lid were engraven the name of the deceased, +and these words:--“Lent to us” (here the date of birth). “Recalled from +us” (here the date of death). + +The closed door shut with a musical sound, and all was over. + + + +Chapter XXV. + + +“And this,” said I, with my mind full of what I had witnessed--“this, I +presume, is your usual form of burial?” + +“Our invariable form,” answered Aph-Lin. “What is it amongst your +people?” + +“We inter the body whole within the earth.” + +“What! To degrade the form you have loved and honoured, the wife on +whose breast you have slept, to the loathsomeness of corruption?” “But +if the soul lives again, can it matter whether the body waste within +the earth or is reduced by that awful mechanism, worked, no doubt by the +agency of vril, into a pinch of dust?” + +“You answer well,” said my host, “and there is no arguing on a matter +of feeling; but to me your custom is horrible and repulsive, and would +serve to invest death with gloomy and hideous associations. It is +something, too, to my mind, to be able to preserve the token of what has +been our kinsman or friend within the abode in which we live. We thus +feel more sensibly that he still lives, though not visibly so to us. But +our sentiments in this, as in all things, are created by custom. Custom +is not to be changed by a wise An, any more than it is changed by a +wise Community, without the greatest deliberation, followed by the +most earnest conviction. It is only thus that change ceases to be +changeability, and once made is made for good.” + +When we regained the house, Aph-Lin summoned some of the children in his +service and sent them round to several of his friends, requesting their +attendance that day, during the Easy Hours, to a festival in honour of +his kinsman’s recall to the All-Good. This was the largest and gayest +assembly I ever witnessed during my stay among the Ana, and was +prolonged far into the Silent Hours. + +The banquet was spread in a vast chamber reserved especially for grand +occasions. This differed from our entertainments, and was not without +a certain resemblance to those we read of in the luxurious age of the +Roman empire. There was not one great table set out, but numerous small +tables, each appropriated to eight guests. It is considered that beyond +that number conversation languishes and friendship cools. The Ana never +laugh loud, as I have before observed, but the cheerful ring of their +voices at the various tables betokened gaiety of intercourse. As they +have no stimulant drinks, and are temperate in food, though so choice +and dainty, the banquet itself did not last long. The tables sank +through the floor, and then came musical entertainments for those who +liked them. Many, however, wandered away:--some of the younger ascended +in their wings, for the hall was roofless, forming aerial dances; others +strolled through the various apartments, examining the curiosities with +which they were stored, or formed themselves into groups for various +games, the favourite of which is a complicated kind of chess played by +eight persons. I mixed with the crowd, but was prevented joining in the +conversation by the constant companionship of one or the other of my +host’s sons, appointed to keep me from obtrusive questionings. The +guests, however, noticed me but slightly; they had grown accustomed to +my appearance, seeing me so often in the streets, and I had ceased to +excite much curiosity. + +To my great delight Zee avoided me, and evidently sought to excite my +jealousy by marked attentions to a very handsome young An, who (though, +as is the modest custom of the males when addressed by females, he +answered with downcast eyes and blushing cheeks, and was demure and shy +as young ladies new to the world are in most civilised countries, except +England and America) was evidently much charmed by the tall Gy, and +ready to falter a bashful “Yes” if she had actually proposed. Fervently +hoping that she would, and more and more averse to the idea of reduction +to a cinder after I had seen the rapidity with which a human body can be +hurried into a pinch of dust, I amused myself by watching the manners of +the other young people. I had the satisfaction of observing that Zee was +no singular assertor of a female’s most valued rights. Wherever I turned +my eyes, or lent my ears, it seemed to me that the Gy was the wooing +party, and the An the coy and reluctant one. The pretty innocent airs +which an An gave himself on being thus courted, the dexterity with which +he evaded direct answers to professions of attachment, or turned into +jest the flattering compliments addressed to him, would have done honour +to the most accomplished coquette. Both my male chaperons were subjected +greatly to these seductive influences, and both acquitted themselves +with wonderful honour to their tact and self-control. + +I said to the elder son, who preferred mechanical employments to +the management of a great property, and who was of an eminently +philosophical temperament,--“I find it difficult to conceive how at your +age, and with all the intoxicating effects on the senses, of music and +lights and perfumes, you can be so cold to that impassioned young Gy who +has just left you with tears in her eyes at your cruelty.” + +The young An replied with a sigh, “Gentle Tish, the greatest misfortune +in life is to marry one Gy if you are in love with another.” + +“Oh! You are in love with another?” + +“Alas! Yes.” + +“And she does not return your love?” + +“I don’t know. Sometimes a look, a tone, makes me hope so; but she has +never plainly told me that she loves me.” + +“Have you not whispered in her own ear that you love her?” + +“Fie! What are you thinking of? What world do you come from? Could I so +betray the dignity of my sex? Could I be so un-Anly--so lost to shame, +as to own love to a Gy who has not first owned hers to me?” + +“Pardon: I was not quite aware that you pushed the modesty of your sex +so far. But does no An ever say to a Gy, ‘I love you,’ till she says it +first to him?” + +“I can’t say that no An has ever done so, but if he ever does, he is +disgraced in the eyes of the Ana, and secretly despised by the Gy-ei. +No Gy, well brought up, would listen to him; she would consider that +he audaciously infringed on the rights of her sex, while outraging the +modesty which dignifies his own. It is very provoking,” continued the +An, “for she whom I love has certainly courted no one else, and I cannot +but think she likes me. Sometimes I suspect that she does not court me +because she fears I would ask some unreasonable settlement as to the +surrender of her rights. But if so, she cannot really love me, for where +a Gy really loves she forgoes all rights.” + +“Is this young Gy present?” + +“Oh yes. She sits yonder talking to my mother.” + +I looked in the direction to which my eyes were thus guided, and saw +a Gy dressed in robes of bright red, which among this people is a sign +that a Gy as yet prefers a single state. She wears gray, a neutral tint, +to indicate that she is looking about for a spouse; dark purple if she +wishes to intimate that she has made a choice; purple and orange when +she is betrothed or married; light blue when she is divorced or a widow, +and would marry again. Light blue is of course seldom seen. + +Among a people where all are of so high a type of beauty, it is +difficult to single out one as peculiarly handsome. My young friend’s +choice seemed to me to possess the average of good looks; but there was +an expression in her face that pleased me more than did the faces of the +young Gy-ei generally, because it looked less bold--less conscious of +female rights. I observed that, while she talked to Bra, she glanced, +from time to time, sidelong at my young friend. + +“Courage,” said I, “that young Gy loves you.” + +“Ay, but if she shall not say so, how am I the better for her love?” + +“Your mother is aware of your attachment?” + +“Perhaps so. I never owned it to her. It would be un-Anly to confide +such weakness to a mother. I have told my father; he may have told it +again to his wife.” + +“Will you permit me to quit you for a moment and glide behind your +mother and your beloved? I am sure they are talking about you. Do not +hesitate. I promise that I will not allow myself to be questioned till I +rejoin you.” + +The young An pressed his hand on his heart, touched me lightly on the +head, and allowed me to quit his side. I stole unobserved behind his +mother and his beloved. I overheard their talk. Bra was speaking; +said she, “There can be no doubt of this: either my son, who is of +marriageable age, will be decoyed into marriage with one of his many +suitors, or he will join those who emigrate to a distance and we shall +see him no more. If you really care for him, my dear Lo, you should +propose.” + +“I do care for him, Bra; but I doubt if I could really ever win his +affections. He is fond of his inventions and timepieces; and I am not +like Zee, but so dull that I fear I could not enter into his favourite +pursuits, and then he would get tired of me, and at the end of three +years divorce me, and I could never marry another--never.” + +“It is not necessary to know about timepieces to know how to be so +necessary to the happiness of an An, who cares for timepieces, that he +would rather give up the timepieces than divorce his Gy. You see, my +dear Lo,” continued Bra, “that precisely because we are the stronger +sex, we rule the other provided we never show our strength. If you were +superior to my son in making timepieces and automata, you should, as +his wife, always let him suppose you thought him superior in that art to +yourself. The An tacitly allows the pre-eminence of the Gy in all +except his own special pursuit. But if she either excels him in that, +or affects not to admire him for his proficiency in it, he will not love +her very long; perhaps he may even divorce her. But where a Gy really +loves, she soon learns to love all that the An does.” + +The young Gy made no answer to this address. She looked down musingly, +then a smile crept over her lips, and she rose, still silent, and went +through the crowd till she paused by the young An who loved her. I +followed her steps, but discreetly stood at a little distance while +I watched them. Somewhat to my surprise, till I recollected the coy +tactics among the Ana, the lover seemed to receive her advances with an +air of indifference. He even moved away, but she pursued his steps, +and, a little time after, both spread their wings and vanished amid the +luminous space above. + +Just then I was accosted by the chief magistrate, who mingled with the +crowd distinguished by no signs of deference or homage. It so happened +that I had not seen this great dignitary since the day I had entered +his dominions, and recalling Aph-Lin’s words as to his terrible doubt +whether or not I should be dissected, a shudder crept over me at the +sight of his tranquil countenance. + +“I hear much of you, stranger, from my son Taee,” said the Tur, laying +his hand politely on my bended head. “He is very fond of your society, +and I trust you are not displeased with the customs of our people.” + +I muttered some unintelligible answer, which I intended to be an +assurance of my gratitude for the kindness I had received from the Tur, +and my admiration of his countrymen, but the dissecting-knife gleamed +before my mind’s eye and choked my utterance. A softer voice said, “My +brother’s friend must be dear to me.” And looking up I saw a young +Gy, who might be sixteen years old, standing beside the magistrate and +gazing at me with a very benignant countenance. She had not come to her +full growth, and was scarcely taller than myself (viz., about feet 10 +inches), and, thanks to that comparatively diminutive stature, I thought +her the loveliest Gy I had hitherto seen. I suppose something in my eyes +revealed that impression, for her countenance grew yet more benignant. +“Taee tells me,” she said, “that you have not yet learned to accustom +yourself to wings. That grieves me, for I should have liked to fly with +you.” + +“Alas!” I replied, “I can never hope to enjoy that happiness. I am +assured by Zee that the safe use of wings is a hereditary gift, and it +would take generations before one of my race could poise himself in the +air like a bird.” “Let not that thought vex you too much,” replied this +amiable Princess, “for, after all, there must come a day when Zee and +myself must resign our wings forever. Perhaps when that day comes we +might be glad if the An we chose was also without wings.” + +The Tur had left us, and was lost amongst the crowd. I began to feel +at ease with Taee’s charming sister, and rather startled her by the +boldness of my compliment in replying, “that no An she could choose +would ever use his wings to fly away from her.” It is so against custom +for an An to say such civil things to a Gy till she has declared her +passion for him, and been accepted as his betrothed, that the young +maiden stood quite dumbfounded for a few moments. Nevertheless she +did not seem displeased. At last recovering herself, she invited me to +accompany her into one of the less crowded rooms and listen to the songs +of the birds. I followed her steps as she glided before me, and she led +me into a chamber almost deserted. A fountain of naphtha was playing in +the centre of the room; round it were ranged soft divans, and the walls +of the room were open on one side to an aviary in which the birds +were chanting their artful chorus. The Gy seated herself on one of the +divans, and I placed myself at her side. “Taee tells me,” she said, +“that Aph-Lin has made it the law* of his house that you are not to be +questioned as to the country you come from or the reason why you visit +us. Is it so?” + +* Literally “has said, In this house be it requested.” Words synonymous +with law, as implying forcible obligation, are avoided by this singular +people. Even had it been decreed by the Tur that his College of Sages +should dissect me, the decree would have ran blandly thus,--“Be it +requested that, for the good of the community, the carnivorous Tish be +requested to submit himself to dissection.” + +“It is.” + +“May I, at least, without sinning against that law, ask at least if the +Gy-ei in your country are of the same pale colour as yourself, and no +taller?” + +“I do not think, O beautiful Gy, that I infringe the law of Aph-Lin, +which is more binding on myself than any one, if I answer questions so +innocent. The Gy-ei in my country are much fairer of hue than I am, and +their average height is at least a head shorter than mine.” + +“They cannot then be so strong as the Ana amongst you? But I suppose +their superior vril force makes up for such extraordinary disadvantage +of size?” + +“They do not profess the vril force as you know it. But still they are +very powerful in my country, and an An has small chance of a happy life +if he be not more or less governed by his Gy.” + +“You speak feelingly,” said Taee’s sister, in a tone of voice half sad, +half petulant. “You are married, of course.” + +“No--certainly not.” + +“Nor betrothed?” + +“Nor betrothed.” + +“Is it possible that no Gy has proposed to you?” + +“In my country the Gy does not propose; the An speaks first.” + +“What a strange reversal of the laws of nature!” said the maiden, “and +what want of modesty in your sex! But have you never proposed, never +loved one Gy more than another?” + +I felt embarrassed by these ingenious questionings, and said, “Pardon +me, but I think we are beginning to infringe upon Aph-Lin’s injunction. +This much only will I answer, and then, I implore you, ask no more. I +did once feel the preference you speak of; I did propose, and the +Gy would willingly have accepted me, but her parents refused their +consent.” + +“Parents! Do you mean seriously to tell me that parents can interfere +with the choice of their daughters?” + +“Indeed they can, and do very often.” + +“I should not like to live in that country,” said the Gy simply; “but I +hope you will never go back to it.” + +I bowed my head in silence. The Gy gently raised my face with her right +hand, and looked into it tenderly. “Stay with us,” she said; “stay with +us, and be loved.” What I might have answered, what dangers of becoming +a cinder I might have encountered, I still trouble to think, when the +light of the naphtha fountain was obscured by the shadow of wings; and +Zee, flying though the open roof, alighted beside us. She said not a +word, but, taking my arm with her mighty hand, she drew me away, as a +mother draws a naughty child, and led me through the apartments to one +of the corridors, on which, by the mechanism they generally prefer to +stairs, we ascended to my own room. This gained, Zee breathed on my +forehead, touched my breast with her staff, and I was instantly plunged +into a profound sleep. + +When I awoke some hours later, and heard the songs of the birds in the +adjoining aviary, the remembrance of Taee’s sister, her gentle looks and +caressing words, vividly returned to me; and so impossible is it for one +born and reared in our upper world’s state of society to divest +himself of ideas dictated by vanity and ambition, that I found myself +instinctively building proud castles in the air. + +“Tish though I be,” thus ran my meditations--“Tish though I be, it is +then clear that Zee is not the only Gy whom my appearance can captivate. +Evidently I am loved by A PRINCESS, the first maiden of this land, the +daughter of the absolute Monarch whose autocracy they so idly seek to +disguise by the republican title of chief magistrate. But for the sudden +swoop of that horrible Zee, this Royal Lady would have formally proposed +to me; and though it may be very well for Aph-Lin, who is only a +subordinate minister, a mere Commissioner of Light, to threaten me with +destruction if I accept his daughter’s hand, yet a Sovereign, whose word +is law, could compel the community to abrogate any custom that forbids +intermarriage with one of a strange race, and which in itself is a +contradiction to their boasted equality of ranks. + +“It is not to be supposed that his daughter, who spoke with such +incredulous scorn of the interference of parents, would not have +sufficient influence with her Royal Father to save me from the +combustion to which Aph-Lin would condemn my form. And if I were exalted +by such an alliance, who knows but what the Monarch might elect me as +his successor? Why not? Few among this indolent race of philosophers +like the burden of such greatness. All might be pleased to see the +supreme power lodged in the hands of an accomplished stranger who has +experience of other and livelier forms of existence; and once chosen, +what reforms I would institute! What additions to the really pleasant +but too monotonous life of this realm my familiarity with the civilised +nations above ground would effect! I am fond of the sports of the field. +Next to war, is not the chase a king’s pastime? In what varieties of +strange game does this nether world abound? How interesting to strike +down creatures that were known above ground before the Deluge! But how? +By that terrible vril, in which, from want of hereditary transmission, I +could never be a proficient? No, but by a civilised handy breech-loader, +which these ingenious mechanicians could not only make, but no doubt +improve; nay, surely I saw one in the Museum. Indeed, as absolute king, +I should discountenance vril altogether, except in cases of war. Apropos +of war, it is perfectly absurd to stint a people so intelligent, so +rich, so well armed, to a petty limit of territory sufficing for +10,000 or 12,000 families. Is not this restriction a mere philosophical +crotchet, at variance with the aspiring element in human nature, such as +has been partially, and with complete failure, tried in the upper world +by the late Mr. Robert Owen? Of course one would not go to war with the +neighbouring nations as well armed as one’s own subjects; but then, +what of those regions inhabited by races unacquainted with vril, and +apparently resembling, in their democratic institutions, my American +countrymen? One might invade them without offence to the vril nations, +our allies, appropriate their territories, extending, perhaps, to the +most distant regions of the nether earth, and thus rule over an empire +in which the sun never sets. (I forgot, in my enthusiasm, that over +those regions there was no sun to set). As for the fantastical notion +against conceding fame or renown to an eminent individual, because, +forsooth, bestowal of honours insures contest in the pursuit of them, +stimulates angry passions, and mars the felicity of peace--it is opposed +to the very elements, not only of the human, but of the brute creation, +which are all, if tamable, participators in the sentiment of praise and +emulation. What renown would be given to a king who thus extended his +empire! I should be deemed a demigod.” Thinking of that, the other +fanatical notion of regulating this life by reference to one which, +no doubt, we Christians firmly believe in, but never take into +consideration, I resolved that enlightened philosophy compelled me to +abolish a heathen religion so superstitiously at variance with modern +thought and practical action. Musing over these various projects, I felt +how much I should have liked at that moment to brighten my wits by +a good glass of whiskey-and-water. Not that I am habitually a +spirit-drinker, but certainly there are times when a little stimulant +of alcoholic nature, taken with a cigar, enlivens the imagination. Yes; +certainly among these herbs and fruits there would be a liquid from +which one could extract a pleasant vinous alcohol; and with a steak cut +off one of those elks (ah! what offence to science to reject the animal +food which our first medical men agree in recommending to the gastric +juices of mankind!) one would certainly pass a more exhilarating hour +of repast. Then, too, instead of those antiquated dramas performed +by childish amateurs, certainly, when I am king, I will introduce our +modern opera and a ‘corps de ballet,’ for which one might find, among +the nations I shall conquer, young females of less formidable height and +thews than the Gy-ei--not armed with vril, and not insisting upon one’s +marrying them. + +I was so completely rapt in these and similar reforms, political, +social, and moral, calculated to bestow on the people of the nether +world the blessings of a civilisation known to the races of the upper, +that I did not perceive that Zee had entered the chamber till I heard a +deep sigh, and, raising my eyes, beheld her standing by my couch. + +I need not say that, according to the manners of this people, a Gy can, +without indecorum, visit an An in his chamber, although an An would be +considered forward and immodest to the last degree if he entered the +chamber of a Gy without previously obtaining her permission to do +so. Fortunately I was in the full habiliments I had worn when Zee had +deposited me on the couch. Nevertheless I felt much irritated, as well +as shocked, by her visit, and asked in a rude tone what she wanted. + +“Speak gently, beloved one, I entreat you,” said she, “for I am very +unhappy. I have not slept since we parted.” + +“A due sense of your shameful conduct to me as your father’s guest might +well suffice to banish sleep from your eyelids. Where was the affection +you pretend to have for me, where was even that politeness on which the +Vril-ya pride themselves, when, taking advantage alike of that physical +strength in which your sex, in this extraordinary region, excels our +own, and of those detestable and unhallowed powers which the agencies of +vril invest in your eyes and finger-ends, you exposed me to humiliation +before your assembled visitors, before Her Royal Highness--I mean, the +daughter of your own chief magistrate,--carrying me off to bed like a +naughty infant, and plunging me into sleep, without asking my consent?” + +“Ungrateful! Do you reproach me for the evidences of my love? Can you +think that, even if unstung by the jealousy which attends upon love +till it fades away in blissful trust when we know that the heart we +have wooed is won, I could be indifferent to the perils to which the +audacious overtures of that silly little child might expose you?” “Hold! +Since you introduce the subject of perils, it perhaps does not misbecome +me to say that my most imminent perils come from yourself, or at least +would come if I believed in your love and accepted your addresses. Your +father has told me plainly that in that case I should be consumed into +a cinder with as little compunction as if I were the reptile whom Taee +blasted into ashes with the flash of his wand.” + +“Do not let that fear chill your heart to me,” exclaimed Zee, dropping +on her knees and absorbing my right hand in the space of her ample palm. +“It is true, indeed, that we two cannot wed as those of the same race +wed; true that the love between us must be pure as that which, in our +belief, exists between lovers who reunite in the new life beyond that +boundary at which the old life ends. But is it not happiness enough to +be together, wedded in mind and in heart? Listen: I have just left +my father. He consents to our union on those terms. I have sufficient +influence with the College of Sages to insure their request to the Tur +not to interfere with the free choice of a Gy; provided that her wedding +with one of another race be but the wedding of souls. Oh, think you that +true love needs ignoble union? It is not that I yearn only to be by your +side in this life, to be part and parcel of your joys and sorrows here: +I ask here for a tie which will bind us for ever and for ever in the +world of immortals. Do you reject me?” + +As she spoke, she knelt, and the whole character of her face was +changed; nothing of sternness left to its grandeur; a divine light, as +that of an immortal, shining out from its human beauty. But she rather +awed me as an angel than moved me as a woman, and after an embarrassed +pause, I faltered forth evasive expressions of gratitude, and sought, as +delicately as I could, to point out how humiliating would be my position +amongst her race in the light of a husband who might never be permitted +the name of father. + +“But,” said Zee, “this community does not constitute the whole world. +No; nor do all the populations comprised in the league of the Vril-ya. +For thy sake I will renounce my country and my people. We will fly +together to some region where thou shalt be safe. I am strong enough to +bear thee on my wings across the deserts that intervene. I am skilled +enough to cleave open, amidst the rocks, valleys in which to build +our home. Solitude and a hut with thee would be to me society and the +universe. Or wouldst thou return to thine own world, above the surface +of this, exposed to the uncertain seasons, and lit but by the changeful +orbs which constitute by thy description the fickle character of those +savage regions? I so, speak the word, and I will force the way for thy +return, so that I am thy companion there, though, there as here, but +partner of thy soul, and fellow traveller with thee to the world in +which there is no parting and no death.” + +I could not but be deeply affected by the tenderness, at once so pure +and so impassioned, with which these words were uttered, and in a voice +that would have rendered musical the roughest sounds in the rudest +tongue. And for a moment it did occur to me that I might avail myself of +Zee’s agency to effect a safe and speedy return to the upper world. But +a very brief space for reflection sufficed to show me how dishonourable +and base a return for such devotion it would be to allure thus away, +from her own people and a home in which I had been so hospitably +treated, a creature to whom our world would be so abhorrent, and +for whose barren, if spiritual love, I could not reconcile myself to +renounce the more human affection of mates less exalted above my erring +self. With this sentiment of duty towards the Gy combined another of +duty towards the whole race I belonged to. Could I venture to introduce +into the upper world a being so formidably gifted--a being that with a +movement of her staff could in less than an hour reduce New York and its +glorious Koom-Posh into a pinch of snuff? Rob her of her staff, with +her science she could easily construct another; and with the deadly +lightnings that armed the slender engine her whole frame was charged. If +thus dangerous to the cities and populations of the whole upper earth, +could she be a safe companion to myself in case her affection should be +subjected to change or embittered by jealousy? These thoughts, which +it takes so many words to express, passed rapidly through my brain and +decided my answer. + +“Zee,” I said, in the softest tones I could command and pressing +respectful lips on the hand into whose clasp mine vanished--“Zee, I +can find no words to say how deeply I am touched, and how highly I am +honoured, by a love so disinterested and self-immolating. My best return +to it is perfect frankness. Each nation has its customs. The customs +of yours do not allow you to wed me; the customs of mine are equally +opposed to such a union between those of races so widely differing. On +the other hand, though not deficient in courage among my own people, or +amid dangers with which I am familiar, I cannot, without a shudder of +horror, think of constructing a bridal home in the heart of some dismal +chaos, with all the elements of nature, fire and water, and mephitic +gases, at war with each other, and with the probability that at some +moment, while you were busied in cleaving rocks or conveying vril into +lamps, I should be devoured by a krek which your operations disturbed +from its hiding-place. I, a mere Tish, do not deserve the love of a Gy, +so brilliant, so learned, so potent as yourself. Yes, I do not deserve +that love, for I cannot return it.” + +Zee released my hand, rose to her feet, and turned her face away to hide +her emotions; then she glided noiselessly along the room, and paused at +the threshold. Suddenly, impelled as by a new thought, she returned to +my side and said, in a whispered tone,-- + +“You told me you would speak with perfect frankness. With perfect +frankness, then, answer me this question. If you cannot love me, do you +love another?” + +“Certainly, I do not.” + +“You do not love Taee’s sister?” + +“I never saw her before last night.” “That is no answer. Love is swifter +than vril. You hesitate to tell me. Do not think it is only jealousy +that prompts me to caution you. If the Tur’s daughter should declare +love to you--if in her ignorance she confides to her father any +preference that may justify his belief that she will woo you, he will +have no option but to request your immediate destruction, as he is +specially charged with the duty of consulting the good of the community, +which could not allow the daughter of the Vril-ya to wed a son of the +Tish-a, in that sense of marriage which does not confine itself to union +of the souls. Alas! there would then be for you no escape. She has +no strength of wing to uphold you through the air; she has no science +wherewith to make a home in the wilderness. Believe that here my +friendship speaks, and that my jealousy is silent.” + +With these words Zee left me. And recalling those words, I thought no +more of succeeding to the throne of the Vril-ya, or of the political, +social, and moral reforms I should institute in the capacity of Absolute +Sovereign. + + + +Chapter XXVI. + + +After the conversation with Zee just recorded, I fell into a profound +melancholy. The curious interest with which I had hitherto examined the +life and habits of this marvellous community was at an end. I could not +banish from my mind the consciousness that I was among a people who, +however kind and courteous, could destroy me at any moment without +scruple or compunction. The virtuous and peaceful life of the +people which, while new to me, had seemed so holy a contrast to the +contentions, the passions, the vices of the upper world, now began +to oppress me with a sense of dulness and monotony. Even the serene +tranquility of the lustrous air preyed on my spirits. I longed for a +change, even to winter, or storm, or darkness. I began to feel that, +whatever our dreams of perfectibility, our restless aspirations towards +a better, and higher, and calmer, sphere of being, we, the mortals of +the upper world, are not trained or fitted to enjoy for long the very +happiness of which we dream or to which we aspire. + +Now, in this social state of the Vril-ya, it was singular to mark how +it contrived to unite and to harmonise into one system nearly all the +objects which the various philosophers of the upper world have placed +before human hopes as the ideals of a Utopian future. It was a state in +which war, with all its calamities, was deemed impossible,--a state in +which the freedom of all and each was secured to the uttermost degree, +without one of those animosities which make freedom in the upper world +depend on the perpetual strife of hostile parties. Here the corruption +which debases democracies was as unknown as the discontents which +undermine the thrones of monarchies. Equality here was not a name; it +was a reality. Riches were not persecuted, because they were not envied. +Here those problems connected with the labours of a working class, +hitherto insoluble above ground, and above ground conducing to such +bitterness between classes, were solved by a process the simplest,--a +distinct and separate working class was dispensed with altogether. +Mechanical inventions, constructed on the principles that baffled my +research to ascertain, worked by an agency infinitely more powerful and +infinitely more easy of management than aught we have yet extracted from +electricity or steam, with the aid of children whose strength was +never overtasked, but who loved their employment as sport and pastime, +sufficed to create a Public-wealth so devoted to the general use that +not a grumbler was ever heard of. The vices that rot our cities here +had no footing. Amusements abounded, but they were all innocent. No +merry-makings conduced to intoxication, to riot, to disease. Love +existed, and was ardent in pursuit, but its object, once secured, was +faithful. The adulterer, the profligate, the harlot, were phenomena so +unknown in this commonwealth, that even to find the words by which they +were designated one would have had to search throughout an obsolete +literature composed thousands of years before. They who have been +students of theoretical philosophies above ground, know that all these +strange departures from civilised life do but realise ideas which have +been broached, canvassed, ridiculed, contested for; sometimes partially +tried, and still put forth in fantastic books, but have never come +to practical result. Nor were these all the steps towards theoretical +perfectibility which this community had made. It had been the sober +belief of Descartes that the life of man could be prolonged, not, +indeed, on this earth, to eternal duration, but to what he called the +age of the patriarchs, and modestly defined to be from 100 to 150 years +average length. Well, even this dream of sages was here fulfilled--nay, +more than fulfilled; for the vigour of middle life was preserved even +after the term of a century was passed. With this longevity was combined +a greater blessing than itself--that of continuous health. Such diseases +as befell the race were removed with ease by scientific applications of +that agency--life-giving as life-destroying--which is inherent in vril. +Even this idea is not unknown above ground, though it has generally +been confined to enthusiasts or charlatans, and emanates from confused +notions about mesmerism, odic force, &c. Passing by such trivial +contrivances as wings, which every schoolboy knows has been tried and +found wanting, from the mythical or pre-historical period, I proceed to +that very delicate question, urged of late as essential to the perfect +happiness of our human species by the two most disturbing and potential +influences on upper-ground society,--Womankind and Philosophy. I mean, +the Rights of Women. + +Now, it is allowed by jurisprudists that it is idle to talk of rights +where there are not corresponding powers to enforce them; and above +ground, for some reason or other, man, in his physical force, in the use +of weapons offensive and defensive, when it come to positive personal +contest, can, as a rule of general application, master women. But among +this people there can be no doubt about the rights of women, because, as +I have before said, the Gy, physically speaking, is bigger and stronger +than the An; and her will being also more resolute than his, and will +being essential to the direction of the vril force, she can bring to +bear upon him, more potently than he on herself, the mystical agency +which art can extract from the occult properties of nature. Therefore +all that our female philosophers above ground contend for as to rights +of women, is conceded as a matter of course in this happy commonwealth. +Besides such physical powers, the Gy-ei have (at least in youth) a keen +desire for accomplishments and learning which exceeds that of the male; +and thus they are the scholars, the professors--the learned portion, in +short, of the community. + +Of course, in this state of society the female establishes, as I have +shown, her most valued privilege, that of choosing and courting her +wedding partner. Without that privilege she would despise all the +others. Now, above ground, we should not unreasonably apprehend that a +female, thus potent and thus privileged, when she had fairly hunted us +down and married us, would be very imperious and tyrannical. Not so with +the Gy-ei: once married, the wings once suspended, and more amiable, +complacent, docile mates, more sympathetic, more sinking their loftier +capacities into the study of their husbands’ comparatively frivolous +tastes and whims, no poet could conceive in his visions of conjugal +bliss. Lastly, among the more important characteristics of the Vril-ya, +as distinguished from our mankind--lastly, and most important on the +bearings of their life and the peace of their commonwealths, is their +universal agreement in the existence of a merciful beneficent Diety, and +of a future world to the duration of which a century or two are moments +too brief to waste upon thoughts of fame and power and avarice; while +with that agreement is combined another--viz., since they can know +nothing as to the nature of that Diety beyond the fact of His supreme +goodness, nor of that future world beyond the fact of its felicitous +existence, so their reason forbids all angry disputes on insoluble +questions. Thus they secure for that state in the bowels of the earth +what no community ever secured under the light of the stars--all the +blessings and consolations of a religion without any of the evils and +calamities which are engendered by strife between one religion and +another. + +It would be, then, utterly impossible to deny that the state of +existence among the Vril-ya is thus, as a whole, immeasurably more +felicitous than that of super-terrestrial races, and, realising the +dreams of our most sanguine philanthropists, almost approaches to a +poet’s conception of some angelical order. And yet, if you would take +a thousand of the best and most philosophical of human beings you could +find in London, Paris, Berlin, New York, or even Boston, and place them +as citizens in the beatified community, my belief is, that in less than +a year they would either die of ennui, or attempt some revolution by +which they would militate against the good of the community, and be +burnt into cinders at the request of the Tur. + +Certainly I have no desire to insinuate, through the medium of this +narrative, any ignorant disparagement of the race to which I belong. I +have, on the contrary, endeavoured to make it clear that the principles +which regulate the social system of the Vril-ya forbid them to produce +those individual examples of human greatness which adorn the annals of +the upper world. Where there are no wars there can be no Hannibal, no +Washington, no Jackson, no Sheridan;--where states are so happy that +they fear no danger and desire no change, they cannot give birth to a +Demosthenes, a Webster, a Sumner, a Wendell Holmes, or a Butler; and +where a society attains to a moral standard, in which there are no +crimes and no sorrows from which tragedy can extract its aliment of pity +and sorrow, no salient vices or follies on which comedy can lavish its +mirthful satire, it has lost the chance of producing a Shakespeare, or +a Moliere, or a Mrs. Beecher-Stowe. But if I have no desire to disparage +my fellow-men above ground in showing how much the motives that impel +the energies and ambition of individuals in a society of contest and +struggle--become dormant or annulled in a society which aims at securing +for the aggregate the calm and innocent felicity which we presume to be +the lot of beatified immortals; neither, on the other hand, have I the +wish to represent the commonwealths of the Vril-ya as an ideal form of +political society, to the attainment of which our own efforts of reform +should be directed. On the contrary, it is because we have so combined, +throughout the series of ages, the elements which compose human +character, that it would be utterly impossible for us to adopt the modes +of life, or to reconcile our passions to the modes of thought among +the Vril-ya,--that I arrived at the conviction that this people--though +originally not only of our human race, but, as seems to me clear by the +roots of their language, descended from the same ancestors as the Great +Aryan family, from which in varied streams has flowed the dominant +civilisation of the world; and having, according to their myths +and their history, passed through phases of society familiar to +ourselves,--had yet now developed into a distinct species with which it +was impossible that any community in the upper world could amalgamate: +and that if they ever emerged from these nether recesses into the light +of day, they would, according to their own traditional persuasions of +their ultimate destiny, destroy and replace our existent varieties of +man. + +It may, indeed, be said, since more than one Gy could be found to +conceive a partiality for so ordinary a type of our super-terrestrial +race as myself, that even if the Vril-ya did appear above ground, we +might be saved from extermination by intermixture of race. But this is +too sanguine a belief. Instances of such ‘mesalliance’ would be as rare +as those of intermarriage between the Anglo-Saxon emigrants and the +Red Indians. Nor would time be allowed for the operation of familiar +intercourse. The Vril-ya, on emerging, induced by the charm of a sunlit +heaven to form their settlements above ground, would commence at once +the work of destruction, seize upon the territories already cultivated, +and clear off, without scruple, all the inhabitants who resisted +that invasion. And considering their contempt for the institutions of +Koom-Posh or Popular Government, and the pugnacious valour of my +beloved countrymen, I believe that if the Vril-ya first appeared in free +America--as, being the choicest portion of the habitable earth, they +would doubtless be induced to do--and said, “This quarter of the globe +we take; Citizens of a Koom-Posh, make way for the development of +species in the Vril-ya,” my brave compatriots would show fight, and not +a soul of them would be left in this life, to rally round the Stars and +Stripes, at the end of a week. + +I now saw but little of Zee, save at meals, when the family assembled, +and she was then reserved and silent. My apprehensions of danger from an +affection I had so little encouraged or deserved, therefore, now faded +away, but my dejection continued to increase. I pined for escape to the +upper world, but I racked my brains in vain for any means to effect it. +I was never permitted to wander forth alone, so that I could not even +visit the spot on which I had alighted, and see if it were possible to +reascend to the mine. Nor even in the Silent Hours, when the household +was locked in sleep, could I have let myself down from the lofty floor +in which my apartment was placed. I knew not how to command the automata +who stood mockingly at my beck beside the wall, nor could I ascertain +the springs by which were set in movement the platforms that supplied +the place of stairs. The knowledge how to avail myself of these +contrivances had been purposely withheld from me. Oh, that I could but +have learned the use of wings, so freely here at the service of every +infant, then I might have escaped from the casement, regained the rocks, +and buoyed myself aloft through the chasm of which the perpendicular +sides forbade place for human footing! + + + +Chapter XXVII. + + +One day, as I sat alone and brooding in my chamber, Taee flew in at the +open window and alighted on the couch beside me. I was always pleased +with the visits of a child, in whose society, if humbled, I was less +eclipsed than in that of Ana who had completed their education and +matured their understanding. And as I was permitted to wander forth with +him for my companion, and as I longed to revisit the spot in which I +had descended into the nether world, I hastened to ask him if he were +at leisure for a stroll beyond the streets of the city. His countenance +seemed to me graver than usual as he replied, “I came hither on purpose +to invite you forth.” + +We soon found ourselves in the street, and had not got far from the +house when we encountered five or six young Gy-ei, who were returning +from the fields with baskets full of flowers, and chanting a song in +chorus as they walked. A young Gy sings more often than she talks. They +stopped on seeing us, accosting Taee with familiar kindness, and me with +the courteous gallantry which distinguishes the Gy-ei in their manner +towards our weaker sex. + +And here I may observe that, though a virgin Gy is so frank in +her courtship to the individual she favours, there is nothing that +approaches to that general breadth and loudness of manner which those +young ladies of the Anglo-Saxon race, to whom the distinguished epithet +of ‘fast’ is accorded, exhibit towards young gentlemen whom they do not +profess to love. No; the bearing of the Gy-ei towards males in ordinary +is very much that of high-bred men in the gallant societies of the upper +world towards ladies whom they respect but do not woo; deferential, +complimentary, exquisitely polished--what we should call ‘chivalrous.’ + +Certainly I was a little put out by the number of civil things addressed +to my ‘amour propre,’ which were said to me by those courteous young +Gy-ei. In the world I came from, a man would have thought himself +aggrieved, treated with irony, ‘chaffed’ (if so vulgar a slang word +may be allowed on the authority of the popular novelists who use it +so freely), when one fair Gy complimented me on the freshness of my +complexion, another on the choice of colours in my dress, a third, with +a sly smile, on the conquests I had made at Aph-Lin’s entertainment. But +I knew already that all such language was what the French call ‘banal,’ +and did but express in the female mouth, below earth, that sort of +desire to pass for amiable with the opposite sex which, above earth, +arbitrary custom and hereditary transmission demonstrate by the mouth of +the male. And just as a high-bred young lady, above earth, habituated +to such compliments, feels that she cannot, without impropriety, return +them, nor evince any great satisfaction at receiving them; so I who +had learned polite manners at the house of so wealthy and dignified +a Minister of that nation, could but smile and try to look pretty in +bashfully disclaiming the compliments showered upon me. While we were +thus talking, Taee’s sister, it seems, had seen us from the upper rooms +of the Royal Palace at the entrance of the town, and, precipitating +herself on her wings, alighted in the midst of the group. + +Singling me out, she said, though still with the inimitable deference +of manner which I have called ‘chivalrous,’ yet not without a certain +abruptness of tone which, as addressed to the weaker sex, Sir Philip +Sydney might have termed ‘rustic,’ “Why do you never come to see +us?” While I was deliberating on the right answer to give to this +unlooked-for question, Taee said quickly and sternly, “Sister, you +forget--the stranger is of my sex. It is not for persons of my sex, +having due regard for reputation and modesty, to lower themselves by +running after the society of yours.” + +This speech was received with evident approval by the young Gy-ei in +general; but Taee’s sister looked greatly abashed. Poor thing!--and a +PRINCESS too! + +Just at this moment a shadow fell on the space between me and the group; +and, turning round, I beheld the chief magistrate coming close upon us, +with the silent and stately pace peculiar to the Vril-ya. At the sight +of his countenance, the same terror which had seized me when I first +beheld it returned. On that brow, in those eyes, there was that same +indefinable something which marked the being of a race fatal to our +own--that strange expression of serene exemption from our common cares +and passions, of conscious superior power, compassionate and inflexible +as that of a judge who pronounces doom. I shivered, and, inclining low, +pressed the arm of my child-friend, and drew him onward silently. The +Tur placed himself before our path, regarded me for a moment without +speaking, then turned his eye quietly on his daughter’s face, and, with +a grave salutation to her and the other Gy-ei, went through the midst of +the group,--still without a word. + + + +Chapter XXVIII. + + +When Taee and I found ourselves alone on the broad road that lay between +the city and the chasm through which I had descended into this region +beneath the light of the stars and sun, I said under my breath, “Child +and friend, there is a look in your father’s face which appals me. I +feel as if, in its awful tranquillity, I gazed upon death.” + +Taee did not immediately reply. He seemed agitated, and as if debating +with himself by what words to soften some unwelcome intelligence. At +last he said, “None of the Vril-ya fear death: do you?” + +“The dread of death is implanted in the breasts of the race to which I +belong. We can conquer it at the call of duty, of honour, of love. We +can die for a truth, for a native land, for those who are dearer to us +than ourselves. But if death do really threaten me now and here, where +are such counteractions to the natural instinct which invests with awe +and terror the contemplation of severance between soul and body?” + +Taee looked surprised, but there was great tenderness in his voice as +he replied, “I will tell my father what you say. I will entreat him to +spare your life.” + +“He has, then, already decreed to destroy it?” + +“‘Tis my sister’s fault or folly,” said Taee, with some petulance. +“But she spoke this morning to my father; and, after she had spoken, +he summoned me, as a chief among the children who are commissioned to +destroy such lives as threaten the community, and he said to me, ‘Take +thy vril staff, and seek the stranger who has made himself dear to thee. +Be his end painless and prompt.’” + +“And,” I faltered, recoiling from the child--“and it is, then, for my +murder that thus treacherously thou hast invited me forth? No, I cannot +believe it. I cannot think thee guilty of such a crime.” + +“It is no crime to slay those who threaten the good of the community; it +would be a crime to slay the smallest insect that cannot harm us.” + +“If you mean that I threaten the good of the community because your +sister honours me with the sort of preference which a child may feel for +a strange plaything, it is not necessary to kill me. Let me return to +the people I have left, and by the chasm through which I descended. With +a slight help from you I might do so now. You, by the aid of your wings, +could fasten to the rocky ledge within the chasm the cord that you +found, and have no doubt preserved. Do but that; assist me but to the +spot from which I alighted, and I vanish from your world for ever, and +as surely as if I were among the dead.” + +“The chasm through which you descended! Look round; we stand now on the +very place where it yawned. What see you? Only solid rock. The chasm was +closed, by the orders of Aph-Lin, as soon as communication between him +and yourself was established in your trance, and he learned from +your own lips the nature of the world from which you came. Do you not +remember when Zee bade me not question you as to yourself or your +race? On quitting you that day, Aph-Lin accosted me, and said, ‘No path +between the stranger’s home and ours should be left unclosed, or the +sorrow and evil of his home may descend to ours. Take with thee the +children of thy band, smite the sides of the cavern with your vril +staves till the fall of their fragments fills up every chink through +which a gleam of our lamps could force its way.’” + +As the child spoke, I stared aghast at the blind rocks before me. Huge +and irregular, the granite masses, showing by charred discolouration +where they had been shattered, rose from footing to roof-top; not a +cranny! + +“All hope, then, is gone,” I murmured, sinking down on the craggy +wayside, “and I shall nevermore see the sun.” I covered my face with my +hands, and prayed to Him whose presence I had so often forgotten when +the heavens had declared His handiwork. I felt His presence in the +depths of the nether earth, and amidst the world of the grave. I looked +up, taking comfort and courage from my prayers, and, gazing with a quiet +smile into the face of the child, said, “Now, if thou must slay me, +strike.” + +Taee shook his head gently. “Nay,” he said, “my father’s request is not +so formally made as to leave me no choice. I will speak with him, and +may prevail to save thee. Strange that thou shouldst have that fear of +death which we thought was only the instinct of the inferior creatures, +to whom the convictions of another life has not been vouchsafed. +With us, not an infant knows such a fear. Tell me, my dear Tish,” + he continued after a little pause, “would it reconcile thee more to +departure from this form of life to that form which lies on the other +side of the moment called ‘death,’ did I share thy journey? If so, I +will ask my father whether it be allowable for me to go with thee. I am +one of our generation destined to emigrate, when of age for it, to some +regions unknown within this world. I would just as soon emigrate now to +regions unknown, in another world. The All-Good is no less there than +here. Where is he not?” + +“Child,” said I, seeing by Taee’s countenance that he spoke in serious +earnest, “it is crime in thee to slay me; it were a crime not less in +me to say, ‘Slay thyself.’ The All-Good chooses His own time to give us +life, and his own time to take it away. Let us go back. If, on speaking +with thy father, he decides on my death, give me the longest warning in +thy power, so that I may pass the interval in self-preparation.” + + + +Chapter XXIX. + + +In the midst of those hours set apart for sleep and constituting the +night of the Vril-ya, I was awakened from the disturbed slumber into +which I had not long fallen, by a hand on my shoulder. I started and +beheld Zee standing beside me. “Hush,” she said in a whisper; “let no +one hear us. Dost thou think that I have ceased to watch over thy safety +because I could not win thy love? I have seen Taee. He has not prevailed +with his father, who had meanwhile conferred with the three sages who, +in doubtful matters, he takes into council, and by their advice he has +ordained thee to perish when the world re-awakens to life. I will save +thee. Rise and dress.” + +Zee pointed to a table by the couch on which I saw the clothes I had +worn on quitting the upper world, and which I had exchanged subsequently +for the more picturesque garments of the Vril-ya. The young Gy then +moved towards the casement and stepped into the balcony, while hastily +and wonderingly I donned my own habiliments. When I joined her on the +balcony, her face was pale and rigid. Taking me by the hand, she said +softly, “See how brightly the art of the Vril-ya has lighted up the +world in which they dwell. To-morrow the world will be dark to me.” She +drew me back into the room without waiting for my answer, thence into +the corridor, from which we descended into the hall. We passed into the +deserted streets and along the broad upward road which wound beneath the +rocks. Here, where there is neither day nor night, the Silent Hours +are unutterably solemn--the vast space illumined by mortal skill is +so wholly without the sight and stir of mortal life. Soft as were +our footsteps, their sounds vexed the ear, as out of harmony with the +universal repose. I was aware in my own mind, though Zee said it not, +that she had decided to assist my return to the upper world, and that +we were bound towards the place from which I had descended. Her silence +infected me and commanded mine. And now we approached the chasm. It had +been re-opened; not presenting, indeed, the same aspect as when I had +emerged from it, but through that closed wall of rock before which I +had last stood with Taee, a new clift had been riven, and along its +blackened sides still glimmered sparks and smouldered embers. My +upward gaze could not, however, penetrate more than a few feet into the +darkness of the hollow void, and I stood dismayed, and wondering how +that grim ascent was to be made. + +Zee divined my doubt. “Fear not,” said she, with a faint smile; “your +return is assured. I began this work when the Silent Hours commenced, +and all else were asleep; believe that I did not paused till the path +back into thy world was clear. I shall be with thee a little while yet. +We do not part until thou sayest, ‘Go, for I need thee no more.’” + +My heart smote me with remorse at these words. “Ah!” I exclaimed, “would +that thou wert of my race or I of thine, then I should never say, ‘I +need thee no more.’” + +“I bless thee for those words, and I shall remember them when thou art +gone,” answered the Gy, tenderly. + +During this brief interchange of words, Zee had turned away from me, her +form bent and her head bowed over her breast. Now, she rose to the full +height of her grand stature, and stood fronting me. While she had been +thus averted from my gaze, she had lighted up the circlet that she wore +round her brow, so that it blazed as if it were a crown of stars. Not +only her face and her form, but the atmosphere around, were illumined by +the effulgence of the diadem. + +“Now,” said she, “put thine arm around me for the first and last time. +Nay, thus; courage, and cling firm.” + +As she spoke her form dilated, the vast wings expanded. Clinging to her, +I was borne aloft through the terrible chasm. The starry light from her +forehead shot around and before us through the darkness. Brightly and +steadfastly, and swiftly as an angel may soar heavenward with the soul +it rescues from the grave, went the flight of the Gy, till I heard +in the distance the hum of human voices, the sounds of human toil. We +halted on the flooring of one of the galleries of the mine, and beyond, +in the vista, burned the dim, feeble lamps of the miners. Then I +released my hold. The Gy kissed me on my forehead, passionately, but as +with a mother’s passion, and said, as the tears gushed from her eyes, +“Farewell for ever. Thou wilt not let me go into thy world--thou canst +never return to mine. Ere our household shake off slumber, the rocks +will have again closed over the chasm not to be re-opened by me, nor +perhaps by others, for ages yet unguessed. Think of me sometimes, and +with kindness. When I reach the life that lies beyond this speck in +time, I shall look round for thee. Even there, the world consigned to +thyself and thy people may have rocks and gulfs which divide it from +that in which I rejoin those of my race that have gone before, and I may +be powerless to cleave way to regain thee as I have cloven way to lose.” + +Her voice ceased. I heard the swan-like sough of her wings, and saw the +rays of her starry diadem receding far and farther through the gloom. + +I sate myself down for some time, musing sorrowfully; then I rose and +took my way with slow footsteps towards the place in which I heard the +sounds of men. The miners I encountered were strange to me, of another +nation than my own. They turned to look at me with some surprise, but +finding that I could not answer their brief questions in their own +language, they returned to their work and suffered me to pass on +unmolested. In fine, I regained the mouth of the mine, little troubled +by other interrogatories;--save those of a friendly official to whom I +was known, and luckily he was too busy to talk much with me. I took care +not to return to my former lodging, but hastened that very day to quit +a neighbourhood where I could not long have escaped inquiries to which +I could have given no satisfactory answers. I regained in safety my own +country, in which I have been long peacefully settled, and engaged in +practical business, till I retired on a competent fortune, three years +ago. I have been little invited and little tempted to talk of the +rovings and adventures of my youth. Somewhat disappointed, as most men +are, in matters connected with household love and domestic life, I often +think of the young Gy as I sit alone at night, and wonder how I could +have rejected such a love, no matter what dangers attended it, or by +what conditions it was restricted. Only, the more I think of a people +calmly developing, in regions excluded from our sight and deemed +uninhabitable by our sages, powers surpassing our most disciplined modes +of force, and virtues to which our life, social and political, becomes +antagonistic in proportion as our civilisation advances,--the more +devoutly I pray that ages may yet elapse before there emerge into +sunlight our inevitable destroyers. Being, however, frankly told by +my physician that I am afflicted by a complaint which, though it gives +little pain and no perceptible notice of its encroachments, may at any +moment be fatal, I have thought it my duty to my fellow-men to place on +record these forewarnings of The Coming Race. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Coming Race, by Edward Bulwer Lytton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COMING RACE *** + +***** This file should be named 1951-0.txt or 1951-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/5/1951/ + +Produced by Fred Ihde and David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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