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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Monikins, by J. Fenimore Cooper
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: The Monikins
+
+Author: J. Fenimore Cooper
+
+Release Date: November 24, 2001 [eBook #4092]
+[Most recently updated: November 17, 2022]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Charles Franks, David Widger and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MONIKINS ***
+
+
+
+
+The Monikins
+
+By J. Fenimore Cooper
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+ INTRODUCTION.
+ THE MONIKINS.
+ CHAPTER I. THE AUTHOR’S PEDIGREE,—ALSO THAT OF HIS FATHER
+ CHAPTER II. TOUCHING MYSELF AND TEN THOUSAND POUNDS
+ CHAPTER III. OPINIONS OF OUR AUTHOR’S ANCESTOR, TOGETHER WITH SOME OF HIS OWN, AND SOME OF OTHER PEOPLE’S
+ CHAPTER IV. SHOWING THE UPS AND DOWNS, THE HOPES AND FEARS, AND THE VAGARIES OF LOVE, SOME VIEWS OF DEATH, AND AN ACCOUNT OF AN INHERITANCE
+ CHAPTER V. ABOUT THE SOCIAL-STAKE SYSTEM, THE DANGERS OF CONCENTRATION, AND OTHER MORAL AND IMMORAL CURIOSITIES
+ CHAPTER VI. A THEORY OF PALPABLE SUBLIMITY—SOME PRACTICAL IDEAS, AND THE COMMENCEMENT OF ADVENTURES
+ CHAPTER VII. TOUCHING AN AMPHIBIOUS ANIMAL, A SPECIAL INTRODUCTION, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
+ CHAPTER VIII. AN INTRODUCTION TO FOUR NEW CHARACTERS, SOME TOUCHES OF PHILOSOPHY, AND A FEW CAPITAL THOUGHTS ON POLITICAL ECONOMY
+ CHAPTER IX. THE COMMENCEMENT OF WONDERS, WHICH ARE THE MORE EXTRAORDINARY ON ACCOUNT OF THEIR TRUTH
+ CHAPTER X. A GREAT DEAL OF NEGOTIATION, IN WHICH HUMAN SHREWDNESS IS COMPLETELY SHAMED, AND HUMAN INGENUITY IS SHOWN TO BE OF A VERY SECONDARY QUALITY
+ CHAPTER XI. A PHILOSOPHY THAT IS BOTTOMED ON SOMETHING SUBSTANTIAL—SOME REASONS PLAINLY PRESENTED, AND CAVILLING OBJECTIONS PUT TO FLIGHT BY A CHARGE OF LOGICAL BAYONETS.
+ CHAPTER XII. BETTER AND BETTER—A HIGHER FLIGHT OF REASON—MORE OBVIOUS TRUTHS, DEEPER PHILOSOPHY, AND FACTS THAT EVEN AN OSTRICH MIGHT DIGEST
+ CHAPTER XIII. A CHAPTER OF PREPARATIONS—DISCRIMINATION IN CHARACTER—A TIGHT FIT, AND OTHER CONVENIENCES, WITH SOME JUDGMENT
+ CHAPTER XIV. HOW TO STEER SMALL—HOW TO RUN THE GAUNTLET WITH A SHIP—HOW TO GO CLEAR—A NEW-FASHIONED SCREW—DOCK, AND CERTAIN MILE-STONES
+ CHAPTER XV. AN ARRIVAL—FORMS OF RECEPTION—SEVERAL NEW CHRISTENINGS—AN OFFICIAL DOCUMENT, AND TERRA FIRMA
+ CHAPTER XVI. AN INN—DEBTS PAID IN ADVANCE, AND A SINGULAR TOUCH OF HUMAN NATURE FOUND CLOSELY INCORPORATED WITH MONIKIN NATURE
+ CHAPTER XVII. NEW LORDS, NEW LAWS—GYRATION, ROTATION, AND ANOTHER NATION; ALSO AN INVITATION
+ CHAPTER XVIII. A COURT, A COURT-DRESS, AND A COURTIER—JUSTICE IN VARIOUS ASPECTS, AS WELL AS HONOR
+ CHAPTER XIX. ABOUT THE HUMILITY OF PROFESSIONAL SAINTS, A SUCCESSION OF TAILS, A BRIDE AND BRIDEGROOM, AND OTHER HEAVENLY MATTERS, DIPLOMACY INCLUDED
+ CHAPTER XX. A VERY COMMON CASE: OR A GREAT DEAL OF LAW, AND VERY LITTLE JUSTICE—HEADS AND TAILS, WITH THE DANGERS OF EACH
+ CHAPTER XXI. BETTER AND BETTER—MORE LAW AND MORE JUSTICE—TAILS AND HEADS: THE IMPORTANCE OF KEEPING EACH IN ITS PROPER PLACE
+ CHAPTER XXII. A NEOPHYTE IN DIPLOMACY—DIPLOMATIC INTRODUCTION—A CALCULATION—A SHIPMENT OF OPINIONS—HOW TO CHOOSE AN INVOICE, WITH AN ASSORTMENT
+ CHAPTER XXIII. POLITICAL BOUNDARIES—POLITICAL RIGHTS—POLITICAL SELECTIONS, AND POLITICAL DISQUISITIONS; WITH POLITICAL RESULTS
+ CHAPTER XXIV. AN ARRIVAL—AN ELECTION—ARCHITECTURE—A ROLLING-PIN, AND PATRIOTISM OF THE MOST APPROVED WATER
+ CHAPTER XXV. A FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE, A FUNDAMENTAL LAW, AND A FUNDAMENTAL ERROR
+ CHAPTER XXVI. HOW TO ENACT LAWS—ORATORY, LOGIC, AND ELOQUENCE; ALL CONSIDERED IN THEIR EVERY-DAY ASPECTS
+ CHAPTER XXVII. AN EFFECT OF LOGARITHMS ON MORALS—AN OBSCURATION, A DISSERTATION, AND A CALCULATION
+ CHAPTER XXVIII. THE IMPORTANCE OF MOTIVES TO A LEGISLATOR—MORAL CONSECUTIVENESS, COMETS, KITES, AND A CONVOY; WITH SOME EVERY-DAY LEGISLATION; TOGETHER WITH CAUSE AND EFFECT.
+ CHAPTER XXIX. SOME EXPLANATIONS—A HUMAN APPETITE—A DINNER AND A BONNE BOUCHE
+ CHAPTER XXX. EXPLANATIONS—A LEAVE-TAKING—LOVE—CONFESSIONS, BUT NO PENITENCE
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+It is not improbable that some of those who read this book, may feel a
+wish to know in what manner I became possessed of the manuscript. Such
+a desire is too just and natural to be thwarted, and the tale shall be
+told as briefly as possible.
+
+During the summer of 1828, while travelling among those valleys of
+Switzerland which lie between the two great ranges of the Alps, and in
+which both the Rhone and the Rhine take their rise, I had passed from
+the sources of the latter to those of the former river, and had reached
+that basin in the mountains that is so celebrated for containing the
+glacier of the Rhone, when chance gave me one of those rare moments of
+sublimity and solitude, which are the more precious in the other
+hemisphere from their infrequency. On every side the view was bounded
+by high and ragged mountains, their peaks glittering near the sun,
+while directly before me, and on a level with the eye, lay that
+miraculous frozen sea, out of whose drippings the Rhone starts a
+foaming river, to glance away to the distant Mediterranean. For the
+first time, during a pilgrimage of years, I felt alone with nature in
+Europe. Alas! the enjoyment, as all such enjoyments necessarily are
+amid the throngs of the old world, was short and treacherous. A party
+came round the angle of a rock, along the narrow bridle-path, in single
+file; two ladies on horseback, followed by as many gentlemen on foot,
+and preceded by the usual guide. It was but small courtesy to rise and
+salute the dove-like eyes and blooming cheeks of the former, as they
+passed. They were English, and the gentlemen appeared to recognize me
+as a countryman. One of the latter stopped, and politely inquired if
+the passage of the Furca was obstructed by snow. He was told not, and
+in return for the information said that I would find the Grimsel a
+little ticklish; “but,” he added, smiling, “the ladies succeeded in
+crossing, and you will scarcely hesitate.” I thought I might get over a
+difficulty that his fair companions had conquered. He then told me Sir
+Herbert Taylor was made adjutant-general, and wished me good morning.
+
+I sat reflecting on the character, hopes, pursuits, and interests of
+man, for an hour, concluding that the stranger was a soldier, who let
+some of the ordinary workings of his thoughts overflow in this brief
+and casual interview. To resume my solitary journey, cross the Rhone,
+and toil my way up the rugged side of the Grimsel, consumed two more
+hours, and glad was I to come in view of the little chill-looking sheet
+of water on its summit, which is called the Lake of the Dead. The path
+was filled with snow, at a most critical point, where, indeed, a
+misplaced footstep might betray the incautious to their destruction. A
+large party on the other side appeared fully aware of the difficulty,
+for it had halted, and was in earnest discussion with the guide,
+touching the practicability of passing. It was decided to attempt the
+enterprise. First came a female of one of the sweetest, serenest
+countenances I had ever seen. She, too, was English; and though she
+trembled, and blushed, and laughed at herself, she came on with spirit,
+and would have reached my side in safety, had not an unlucky stone
+turned beneath a foot that was much too pretty for those wild hills. I
+sprang forward, and was so happy as to save her from destruction. She
+felt the extent of the obligation, and expressed her thanks modestly
+but with fervor. In a minute we were joined by her husband, who grasped
+my hand with warm feeling, or rather with the emotion one ought to feel
+who had witnessed the risk he had just run of losing an angel. The lady
+seemed satisfied at leaving us together.
+
+“You are an Englishman?” said the stranger.
+
+“An American.”
+
+“An American! This is singular—will you pardon a question?—You have
+more than saved my life—you have probably saved my reason—will you
+pardon a question?—Can money serve you?”
+
+I smiled, and told him, odd as it might appear to him, that though an
+American, I was a gentleman. He appeared embarrassed, and his fine face
+worked, until I began to pity him, for it was evident he wished to show
+me in some way, how much he felt he was my debtor, and yet he did not
+know exactly what to propose.
+
+“We may meet again,” I said, squeezing his hand.
+
+“Will you receive my card?”
+
+“Most willingly.”
+
+He put “Viscount Householder” into my hand, and in return I gave him my
+own humble appellation.
+
+He looked from the card to me, and from me to the card, and some
+agreeable idea appeared to flash upon his mind.
+
+“Shall you visit Geneva this summer?” he asked, earnestly.
+
+“Within a month.”
+
+“Your address—”
+
+“Hotel de l’Ecu.”
+
+“You shall hear from me. Adieu.”
+
+We parted, he, his lovely wife, and his guides descending to the Rhone,
+while I pursued my way to the Hospice of the Grimsel. Within the month
+I received a large packet at l’Ecu. It contained a valuable diamond
+ring, with a request that I would wear it, as a memorial of Lady
+Householder, and a fairly written manuscript. The following short note
+explained the wishes of the writer:
+
+“Providence brought us together for more purposes than were at first
+apparent. I have long hesitated about publishing the accompanying
+narrative, for in England there is a disposition to cavil at
+extraordinary facts, but the distance of America from my place of
+residence will completely save me from ridicule. The world must have
+the truth, and I see no better means than by resorting to your agency.
+All I ask is, that you will have the book fairly printed, and that you
+will send one copy to my address, Householder Hall, Dorsetshire, Eng.,
+and another to Captain Noah Poke, Stonington, Conn., in your own
+country. My Anna prays for you, and is ever your friend. Do not forget
+us.
+
+“Yours, most faithfully,”
+
+“HOUSEHOLDER.”
+
+I have rigidly complied with this request, and having sent the two
+copies according to direction, the rest of the edition is at the
+disposal of any one who may feel an inclination to pay for it. In
+return for the copy sent to Stonington, I received the following
+letter:
+
+“ON BOARD THE DERBY AND DOLLY, “STONNIN’TUN, April 1st, 1835.
+
+“AUTHOR OF THE SPY, ESQUIRE:
+
+“Dear Sir:—Your favor is come to hand, and found me in good health, as
+I hope these few lines will have the same advantage with you. I have
+read the book, and must say there is some truth in it, which, I
+suppose, is as much as befalls any book, the Bible, the Almanac, and
+the State Laws excepted. I remember Sir John well, and shall gainsay
+nothing he testifies to, for the reason that friends should not
+contradict each other. I was also acquainted with the four Monikins he
+speaks of, though I knew them by different names. Miss Poke says she
+wonders if it’s all true, which I wunt tell her, seeing that a little
+unsartainty makes a woman rational. As to my navigating without
+geometry, thats a matter that wasn’t worth booking, for it’s no
+curiosity in these parts, bating a look at the compass once or twice a
+day, and so I take my leave of you, with offers to do any commission
+for you among the Sealing Islands, for which I sail to-morrow, wind and
+weather permitting.
+
+“Yours to sarve, NOAH POKE.”
+
+“To the Author of THE SPY, Esquire, ——— town, ——— county, York state.
+
+“P. S.—I always told Sir John to steer clear of too much journalizing,
+but he did nothing but write, night and day, for a week; and as you
+brew, so you must bake. The wind has chopped, and we shall take our
+anchor this tide; so no more at present.
+
+“N. B.—Sir John is a little out about my eating the monkey, which I
+did, four years before I fell in with him, down on the Spanish Main. It
+was not bad food to the taste, but was wonderful narvous to the eye. I
+r’ally thought I had got hold of Miss Poke’s youngest born.”
+
+
+
+
+THE MONIKINS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+THE AUTHOR’S PEDIGREE,—ALSO THAT OF HIS FATHER.
+
+
+The philosopher who broaches a new theory is bound to furnish, at
+least, some elementary proofs of the reasonableness of his positions,
+and the historian who ventures to record marvels that have hitherto
+been hid from human knowledge, owes it to a decent regard to the
+opinions of others, to produce some credible testimony in favor of his
+veracity. I am peculiarly placed in regard to these two great
+essentials having little more than its plausibility to offer in favor
+of my philosophy, and no other witness than myself to establish the
+important facts that are now about to be laid before the reading world
+for the first time. In this dilemma, I fully feel the weight of
+responsibility under which I stand; for there are truths of so little
+apparent probability as to appear fictitious, and fictions so like the
+truth that the ordinary observer is very apt to affirm that he was an
+eye-witness to their existence: two facts that all our historians would
+do well to bear in mind, since a knowledge of the circumstances might
+spare them the mortification of having testimony that cost a deal of
+trouble, discredited in the one case, and save a vast deal of painful
+and unnecessary labor, in the other. Thrown upon myself, therefore, for
+what the French call les pieces justificatives of my theories, as well
+as of my facts, I see no better way to prepare the reader to believe
+me, than by giving an unvarnished the result of the orange-woman’s
+application; for had my worthy ancestor been subjected to the happy
+accidents and generous caprices of voluntary charity, it is more than
+probable I should be driven to throw a veil over those important years
+of his life that were notoriously passed in the work-house, but which,
+in consequence of that occurrence, are now easily authenticated by
+valid minutes and documentary evidence. Thus it is that there exists no
+void in the annals of our family, even that period which is usually
+remembered through gossiping and idle tales in the lives of most men,
+being matter of legal record in that of my progenitor, and so continued
+to be down to the day of his presumed majority, since he was indebted
+to a careful master the moment the parish could with any legality,
+putting decency quite out of the question, get rid of him. I ought to
+have said, that the orange-woman, taking a hint from the sign of a
+butcher opposite to whose door my ancestor was found, had very cleverly
+given him the name of Thomas Goldencalf.
+
+This second important transition in the affairs of my father, might be
+deemed a presage of his future fortunes. He was bound apprentice to a
+trader in fancy articles, or a shopkeeper who dealt in such objects as
+are usually purchased by those who do not well know what to do with
+their money. This trade was of immense advantage to the future
+prosperity of the young adventurer; for, in addition to the known fact
+that they who amuse are much better paid than they who instruct their
+fellow-creatures, his situation enabled him to study those caprices of
+men, which, properly improved, are of themselves a mine of wealth, as
+well as to gain a knowledge of the important truth that the greatest
+events of this life are much oftener the result of impulse than of
+calculation.
+
+I have it by a direct tradition, orally conveyed from the lips of my
+ancestor, that no one could be more lucky than himself in the character
+of his master. This personage, who came, in time, to be my maternal
+grandfather, was one of those wary traders who encourage others in
+their follies, with a view to his own advantage, and the experience of
+fifty years had rendered him so expert in the practices of his calling,
+that it was seldom he struck out a new vein in his mine, without
+finding himself rewarded for the enterprise, by a success that was
+fully equal to his expectations.
+
+“Tom,” he said one day to his apprentice, when time had produced
+confidence and awakened sympathies between them, “thou art a lucky
+youth, or the parish officer would never have brought thee to my door.
+Thou little knowest the wealth that is in store for thee, or the
+treasures that are at thy command, if thou provest diligent, and in
+particular faithful to my interests.” My provident grandfather never
+missed an occasion to throw in a useful moral, notwithstanding the
+general character of veracity that distinguished his commerce. “Now,
+what dost think, lad, may be the amount of my capital?”
+
+My ancestor in the male line hesitated to reply, for, hitherto, his
+ideas had been confined to the profits; never having dared to lift his
+thoughts as high as that source from which he could not but see they
+flowed in a very ample stream; but thrown upon himself by so unexpected
+a question, and being quick at figures, after adding ten per cent. to
+the sum which he knew the last year had given as the net avail of their
+joint ingenuity, he named the amount, in answered to the interrogatory.
+
+My maternal grandfather laughed in the face of my direct lineal
+ancestor.
+
+“Thou judgest, Tom,” he said, when his mirth was a little abated, “by
+what thou thinkest is the cost of the actual stock before thine eyes,
+when thou shouldst take into the account that which I term our floating
+capital.”
+
+Tom pondered a moment, for while he knew that his master had money in
+the funds, he did not account that as any portion of the available
+means connected with his ordinary business; and as for a floating
+capital, he did not well see how it could be of much account, since the
+disproportion between the cost and the selling prices of the different
+articles in which they dealt was so great, that there was no particular
+use in such an investment. As his master, however, rarely paid for
+anything until he was in possession of returns from it that exceeded
+the debt some seven-fold, he began to think the old man was alluding to
+the advantages he obtained in the way of credit, and after a little
+more cogitation, he ventured to say as much.
+
+Again my maternal grandfather indulged in a hearty fit of laughter.
+
+“Thou art clever in thy way, Tom,” he said, “and I like the minuteness
+of thy calculations, for they show an aptitude for trade; but there is
+genius in our calling as well as cleverness. Come hither, boy,” he
+added, drawing Tom to a window whence they could see the neighbors on
+their way to church, for it was on a Sunday that my two provident
+progenitors indulged in this moral view of humanity, as best fitted the
+day, “come hither, boy, and thou shalt see some small portion of that
+capital which thou seemest to think hid, stalking abroad by daylight,
+and in the open streets. Here, thou seest the wife of our neighbor, the
+pastry-cook; with what an air she tosses her head and displays the
+bauble thou sold’st her yesterday: well, even that slattern, idle and
+vain, and little worthy of trust as she is, carries about with her a
+portion of my capital!”
+
+My worthy ancestor stared, for he never knew the other to be guilty of
+so great an indiscretion as to trust a woman whom they both knew bought
+more than her husband was willing to pay for.
+
+“She gave me a guinea, master, for that which did not cost a
+seven-shilling piece!”
+
+“She did, indeed, Tom, and it was her vanity that urged her to it. I
+trade upon her folly, younker, and upon that of all mankind; now dost
+thou see with what a capital I carry on affairs? There—there is the
+maid, carrying the idle hussy’s patterns in the rear; I drew upon my
+stock in that wench’s possession, no later than the last week, for
+half-a-crown!”
+
+Tom reflected a long time on these allusions of his provident master,
+and although he understood them about as well as they will be
+understood by the owners of half the soft humid eyes and sprouting
+whiskers among my readers, by dint of cogitation he came at last to a
+practical understanding of the subject, which before he was thirty he
+had, to use a French term, pretty well exploite.
+
+I learn by unquestionable tradition, received also from the mouths of
+his contemporaries, that the opinions of my ancestor underwent some
+material changes between the ages of ten and forty, a circumstance that
+has often led me to reflect that people might do well not to be too
+confident of the principles, during the pliable period of life, when
+the mind, like the tender shoot, is easily bent aside and subjected to
+the action of surrounding causes.
+
+During the earlier years of the plastic age, my ancestor was observed
+to betray strong feelings of compassion at the sight of
+charity-children, nor was he ever known to pass a child, especially a
+boy that was still in petticoats, who was crying with hunger in the
+streets, without sharing his own crust with him. Indeed, his practice
+on this head was said to be steady and uniform, whenever the rencontre
+took place after my worthy father had had his own sympathies quickened
+by a good dinner; a fact that maybe imputed to a keener sense of the
+pleasure he was about to confer.
+
+After sixteen, he was known to converse occasionally on the subject of
+politics, a topic on which he came to be both expert and eloquent
+before twenty. His usual theme was justice and the sacred rights of
+man, concerning which he sometimes uttered very pretty sentiments, and
+such as were altogether becoming in one who was at the bottom of the
+great social pot that was then, as now, actively boiling, and where he
+was made to feel most, the heat that kept it in ebullition. I am
+assured that on the subject of taxation, and on that of the wrongs of
+America and Ireland, there were few youths in the parish who could
+discourse with more zeal and unction. About this time, too, he was
+heard shouting “Wilkes and liberty!” in the public streets.
+
+But, as is the case with all men of rare capacities, there was a
+concentration of powers in the mind of my ancestor, which soon brought
+all his errant sympathies, the mere exuberance of acute and overflowing
+feelings, into a proper and useful subjection, centring all in the one
+absorbing and capacious receptacle of self. I do not claim for my
+father any peculiar quality in this respect, for I have often observed
+that many of those who (like giddy-headed horsemen that raise a great
+dust, and scamper as if the highway were too narrow for their eccentric
+courses, before they are fairly seated in the saddle, but who afterward
+drive as directly at their goals as the arrow parting from the bow),
+most indulge their sympathies at the commencement of their careers, are
+the most apt toward the close to get a proper command of their
+feelings, and to reduce them within the bounds of common sense and
+prudence. Before five-and-twenty, my father was as exemplary and as
+constant a devotee of Plutus as was then to be found between Ratcliffe
+Highway and Bridge Street:—I name these places in particular, as all
+the rest of the great capital in which he was born is known to be more
+indifferent to the subject of money.
+
+My ancestor was just thirty, when his master, who like himself was a
+bachelor, very unexpectedly, and a good deal to the scandal of the
+neighborhood, introduced a new inmate into his frugal abode, in the
+person of an infant female child. It would seem that some one had been
+speculating on his stock of weakness too, for this poor, little,
+defenceless, and dependent being was thrown upon his care, like Tom
+himself, through the vigilance of the parish officers. There were many
+good-natured jokes practised on the prosperous fancy-dealer, by the
+more witty of his neighbors, at this sudden turn of good fortune, and
+not a few ill-natured sneers were given behind his back; most of the
+knowing ones of the vicinity finding a stronger likeness between the
+little girl and all the other unmarried men of the eight or ten
+adjoining streets, than to the worthy housekeeper who had been selected
+to pay for her support. I have been much disposed to admit the opinions
+of these amiable observers as authority in my own pedigree, since it
+would be reaching the obscurity in which all ancient lines take root, a
+generation earlier, than by allowing the presumption that little Betsey
+was my direct male ancestor’s master’s daughter; but, on reflection, I
+have determined to adhere to the less popular but more simple version
+of the affair, because it is connected with the transmission of no
+small part of our estate, a circumstance of itself that at once gives
+dignity and importance to a genealogy.
+
+Whatever may have been the real opinion of the reputed father touching
+his rights to the honors of that respectable title, he soon became as
+strongly attached to the child, as if it really owed its existence to
+himself. The little girl was carefully nursed, abundantly fed, and
+throve accordingly. She had reached her third year, when the
+fancy-dealer took the smallpox from his little pet, who was just
+recovering from the same disease, and died at the expiration of the
+tenth day.
+
+This was an unlooked-for and stunning blow to my ancestor, who was then
+in his thirty-fifth year and the head shopman of the establishment,
+which had continued to grow with the growing follies and vanities of
+the age. On examining his master’s will, it was found that my father,
+who had certainly aided materially of late in the acquisition of the
+money, was left the good-will of the shop, the command of all the stock
+at cost, and the sole executorship of the estate. He was also intrusted
+with the exclusive guardianship of little Betsey, to whom his master
+had affectionately devised every farthing of his property. An ordinary
+reader may be surprised that a man who had so long practised on the
+foibles of his species, should have so much confidence in a mere
+shopman, as to leave his whole estate so completely in his power; but,
+it must be remembered, that human ingenuity has not yet devised any
+means by which we can carry our personal effects into the other world;
+that “what cannot be cured must be endured”; that he must of necessity
+have confided this important trust to some fellow-creature, and that it
+was better to commit the keeping of his money to one who, knowing the
+secret by which it had been accumulated, had less inducement to be
+dishonest, than one who was exposed to the temptation of covetousness,
+without having a knowledge of any direct and legal means of gratifying
+his longings. It has been conjectured, therefore, that the testator
+thought, by giving up his trade to a man who was as keenly alive as my
+ancestor to all its perfections, moral and pecuniary, he provided a
+sufficient protection against his falling into the sin of peculation,
+by so amply supplying him with simpler means of enriching himself.
+Besides, it is fair to presume that the long acquaintance had begotten
+sufficient confidence to weaken the effect of that saying which some
+wit has put into the mouth of a wag, “Make me your executor, father; I
+care not to whom you leave the estate.” Let all this be as it might,
+nothing can be more certain than that my worthy ancestor executed his
+trust with the scrupulous fidelity of a man whose integrity had been
+severely schooled in the ethics of trade. Little Betsey was properly
+educated for one in her condition of life; her health was as carefully
+watched over as if she had been the only daughter of the sovereign
+instead of the only daughter of a fancy-dealer; her morals were
+superintended by a superannuated old maid; her mind left to its
+original purity; her person jealously protected against the designs of
+greedy fortune-hunters; and, to complete the catalogue of his paternal
+attentions and solicitudes, my vigilant and faithful ancestor, to
+prevent accidents, and to counteract the chances of life, so far as it
+might be done by human foresight, saw that she was legally married, the
+day she reached her nineteenth year, to the person whom, there is every
+reason to think, he believed to be the most unexceptionable man of his
+acquaintance—in other words, to himself. Settlements were unnecessary
+between parties who had so long been known to each other, and, thanks
+to the liberality of his late master’s will in more ways than one, a
+long minority, and the industry of the ci-devant head shopman, the
+nuptial benediction was no sooner pronounced, than our family stepped
+into the undisputed possession of four hundred thousand pounds. One
+less scrupulous on the subject of religion and the law, might not have
+thought it necessary to give the orphan heiress a settlement so
+satisfactory, at the termination of her wardship.
+
+I was the fifth of the children who were the fruits of this union, and
+the only one of them all that passed the first year of its life. My
+poor mother did not survive my birth, and I can only record her
+qualities through the medium of that great agent in the archives of the
+family, tradition. By all that I have heard, she must have been a meek,
+quiet, domestic woman; who, by temperament and attainments, was
+admirably qualified to second the prudent plans of my father for her
+welfare. If she had causes of complaint, (and that she had, there is
+too much reason to think, for who has ever escaped them?) they were
+concealed, with female fidelity, in the sacred repository of her own
+heart; and if truant imagination sometimes dimly drew an outline of
+married happiness different from the fact that stood in dull reality
+before her eyes, the picture was merely commented on by a sigh, and
+consigned to a cabinet whose key none ever touched but herself, and she
+seldom.
+
+Of this subdued and unobtrusive sorrow, for I fear it sometimes reached
+that intensity of feeling, my excellent and indefatigable ancestor
+appeared to have no suspicion. He pursued his ordinary occupations with
+his ordinary single-minded devotion, and the last thing that would have
+crossed his brain was the suspicion that he had not punctiliously done
+his duty by his ward. Had he acted otherwise, none surely would have
+suffered more by his delinquency than her husband, and none would have
+a better right to complain. Now, as her husband never dreamt of making
+such an accusation, it is not at all surprising that my ancestor
+remained in ignorance of his wife’s feelings at the hour of his death.
+
+It has been said that the opinions of the successor of the fancy-dealer
+underwent some essential changes between the ages of ten and forty.
+After he had reached his twenty-second year, or, in other words, the
+moment he began to earn money for himself, as well as for his master,
+he ceased to cry “Wilkes and liberty!” He was not heard to breathe a
+syllable concerning the obligations of society toward the weak and
+unfortunate, for the five years that succeeded his majority; he touched
+lightly on Christian duties in general, after he got to be worth fifty
+pounds of his own; and as for railing at human follies, it would have
+been rank ingratitude in one who so very unequivocally got his bread by
+them. About this time, his remarks on the subject of taxation, however,
+were singularly caustic, and well applied. He railed at the public
+debt, as a public curse, and ominously predicted the dissolution of
+society, in consequence of the burdens and incumbrances it was hourly
+accumulating on the already overloaded shoulders of the trader.
+
+The period of his marriage and his succession to the hoardings of his
+former master, may be dated as the second epocha in the opinions of my
+ancestor. From this moment his ambition expanded, his views enlarged in
+proportion to his means, and his contemplations on the subject of his
+great floating capital became more profound and philosophical. A man of
+my ancestor’s native sagacity, whose whole soul was absorbed in the
+pursuit of gain, who had so long been forming his mind, by dealing as
+it were with the elements of human weaknesses, and who already
+possessed four hundred thousand pounds, was very likely to strike out
+for himself some higher road to eminence, than that in which he had
+been laboriously journeying, during the years of painful probation. The
+property of my mother had been chiefly invested in good bonds and
+mortgages; her protector, patron, benefactor, and legalized father,
+having an unconquerable repugnance to confiding in that soulless,
+conventional, nondescript body corporate, the public. The first
+indication that was given by my ancestor of a change of purpose in the
+direction of his energies, was by calling in the whole of his
+outstanding debts, and adopting the Napoleon plan of operations, by
+concentrating his forces on a particular point, in order that he might
+operate in masses. About this time, too, he suddenly ceased railing at
+taxation. This change may be likened to that which occurs in the
+language of the ministerial journals, when they cease abusing any
+foreign state with whom the nation has been carrying on a war, that it
+is, at length, believed politic to terminate; and for much the same
+reason, as it was the intention of my thrifty ancestor to make an ally
+of a power that he had hitherto always treated as an enemy. The whole
+of the four hundred thousand pounds were liberally intrusted to the
+country, the former fancy-dealer’s apprentice entering the arena of
+virtuous and patriotic speculation, as a bull; and, if with more
+caution, with at least some portion of the energy and obstinacy of the
+desperate animal that gives title to this class of adventurers. Success
+crowned his laudable efforts; gold rolled in upon him like water on a
+flood, buoying him up, soul and body, to that enviable height, where,
+as it would seem, just views can alone be taken of society in its
+innumerable phases. All his former views of life, which, in common with
+others of a similar origin and similar political sentiments, he had
+imbibed in early years, and which might with propriety be called near
+views, were now completely obscured by the sublimer and broader
+prospect that was spread before him.
+
+I am afraid the truth will compel me to admit, that my ancestor was
+never charitable in the vulgar acceptation of the term; but then, he
+always maintained that his interest in his fellow-creatures was of a
+more elevated cast, taking a comprehensive glance at all the bearings
+of good and evil—being of the sort of love which induces the parent to
+correct the child, that the lesson of present suffering may produce the
+blessings of future respectability and usefulness. Acting on these
+principles, he gradually grew more estranged from his species in
+appearance, a sacrifice that was probably exacted by the severity of
+his practical reproofs for their growing wickedness, and the austere
+policy that was necessary to enforce them. By this time, my ancestor
+was also thoroughly impressed with what is called the value of money; a
+sentiment which, I believe, gives its possessor a livelier perception
+than common of the dangers of the precious metals, as well as of their
+privileges and uses. He expatiated occasionally on the guaranties that
+it was necessary to give to society, for its own security; never even
+voted for a parish officer unless he were a warm substantial citizen;
+and began to be a subscriber to the patriotic fund, and to the other
+similar little moral and pecuniary buttresses of the government, whose
+common and commendable object was, to protect our country, our altars,
+and our firesides.
+
+The death-bed of my mother has been described to me as a touching and
+melancholy scene. It appears that as this meek and retired woman was
+extricated from the coil of mortality, her intellect grew brighter, her
+powers of discernment stronger, and her character in every respect more
+elevated and commanding. Although she had said much less about our
+firesides and altars than her husband, I see no reason to doubt that
+she had ever been quite as faithful as he could be to the one, and as
+much devoted to the other. I shall describe the important event of her
+passage from this to a better world, as I have often had it repeated
+from the lips of one who was present, and who has had an important
+agency in since making me the man I am. This person was the clergyman
+of the parish, a pious divine, a learned man, and a gentleman in
+feeling as well as by extraction.
+
+My mother, though long conscious that she was drawing near to her last
+great account, had steadily refused to draw her husband from his
+absorbing pursuits, by permitting him to be made acquainted with her
+situation. He knew that she was ill; very ill, as he had reason to
+think; but, as he not only allowed her, but even volunteered to order
+her all the advice and relief that money could command (my ancestor was
+not a miser in the vulgar meaning of the word), he thought that he had
+done all that man could do, in a case of life and death—interests over
+which he professed to have no control. He saw Dr. Etherington, the
+rector, come and go daily, for a month, without uneasiness or
+apprehension, for he thought his discourse had a tendency to
+tranquillize my mother, and he had a strong affection for all that left
+him undisturbed, to the enjoyment of the occupation in which his whole
+energies were now completely centred. The physician got his guinea at
+each visit, with scrupulous punctuality; the nurses were well received
+and were well satisfied, for no one interfered with their acts but the
+doctor; and every ordinary duty of commission was as regularly
+discharged by my ancestor, as if the sinking and resigned creature from
+whom he was about to be forever separated had been the spontaneous
+choice of his young and fresh affections.
+
+When, therefore, a servant entered to say that Dr. Etherington desired
+a private interview, my worthy ancestor, who had no consciousness of
+having neglected any obligation that became a friend of church and
+state, was in no small measure surprised.
+
+“I come, Mr. Goldencalf, on a melancholy duty,” said the pious rector,
+entering the private cabinet to which his application had for the first
+time obtained his admission; “the fatal secret can no longer be
+concealed from you, and your wife at length consents that I shall be
+the instrument of revealing it.”
+
+The Doctor paused; for on such occasions it is perhaps as well to let
+the party that is about to be shocked receive a little of the blow
+through his own imagination; and busily enough was that of my poor
+father said to be exercised on this painful occasion. He grew pale,
+opened his eyes until they again filled the sockets into which they had
+gradually been sinking for twenty years, and looked a hundred questions
+that his tongue refused to put.
+
+“It cannot be, Doctor,” he at length querulously said, “that a woman
+like Betsey has got an inkling into any of the events connected with
+the last great secret expedition, and which have escaped my jealousy
+and experience?”
+
+“I am afraid, dear sir, that Mrs. Goldencalf has obtained glimpses of
+the last great and secret expedition on which we must all, sooner or
+later, embark, that have entirely escaped your vigilance. But of this I
+will speak some other time. At present it is my painful duty to inform
+you it is the opinion of the physician that your excellent wife cannot
+outlive the day, if, indeed, she do the hour.”
+
+My father was struck with this intelligence, and for more than a minute
+he remained silent and without motion. Casting his eyes toward the
+papers on which he had lately been employed, and which contained some
+very important calculations connected with the next settling day, he at
+length resumed:
+
+“If this be really so, Doctor, it may be well for me to go to her,
+since one in the situation of the poor woman may indeed have something
+of importance to communicate.”
+
+“It is with this object that I have now come to tell you the truth,”
+quietly answered the divine, who knew that nothing was to be gained by
+contending with the besetting weakness of such a man, at such a moment.
+
+My father bent his head in assent, and, first carefully enclosing the
+open papers in a secretary, he followed his companion to the bedside of
+his dying wife.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+TOUCHING MYSELF AND TEN THOUSAND POUNDS.
+
+
+Although my ancestor was much too wise to refuse to look back upon his
+origin in a worldly point of view, he never threw his retrospective
+glances so far as to reach the sublime mystery of his moral existence;
+and while his thoughts might be said to be ever on the stretch to
+attain glimpses into the future, they were by far too earthly to extend
+beyond any other settling day than those which were regulated by the
+ordinances of the stock exchange. With him, to be born was but the
+commencement of a speculation, and to die was to determine the general
+balance of profit and loss. A man who had so rarely meditated on the
+grave changes of mortality, therefore, was consequently so much the
+less prepared to gaze upon the visible solemnities of a death-bed.
+Although he had never truly loved my mother, for love was a sentiment
+much too pure and elevated for one whose imagination dwelt habitually
+on the beauties of the stock-books, he had ever been kind to her, and
+of late he was even much disposed, as has already been stated, to
+contribute as much to her temporal comforts as comported with his
+pursuits and habits. On the other hand, the quiet temperament of my
+mother required some more exciting cause than the affections of her
+husband, to quicken those germs of deep, placid, womanly love, that
+certainly lay dormant in her heart, like seed withering with the
+ungenial cold of winter. The last meeting of such a pair was not likely
+to be attended with any violent outpourings of grief.
+
+My ancestor, notwithstanding, was deeply struck with the physical
+changes in the appearance of his wife.
+
+“Thou art much emaciated, Betsey,” he said, taking her hand kindly,
+after a long and solemn pause; “much more so than I had thought, or
+could have believed! Dost nurse give thee comforting soups and generous
+nourishment?”
+
+My mother smiled the ghastly smile of death; but waved her hand, with
+loathing, at his suggestion.
+
+“All this is now too late, Mr. Goldencalf,” she answered, speaking with
+a distinctness and an energy for which she had long been reserving her
+strength. “Food and raiment are no longer among my wants.”
+
+“Well, well, Betsey, one that is in want of neither food nor raiment,
+cannot be said to be in great suffering, after all; and I am glad that
+thou art so much at ease. Dr. Etherington tells me thou art far from
+being well bodily, however, and I am come expressly to see if I can
+order anything that will help to make thee more easy.”
+
+“Mr. Goldencalf, you can. My wants for this life are nearly over; a
+short hour or two will remove me beyond the world, its cares, its
+vanities, its—” My poor mother probably meant to add, its heartlessness
+or its selfishness; but she rebuked herself, and paused: “By the mercy
+of our blessed Redeemer, and through the benevolent agency of this
+excellent man,” she resumed, glancing her eye upwards at first with
+holy reverence, and then at the divine with meek gratitude, “I quit you
+without alarm, and were it not for one thing, I might say without
+care.”
+
+“And what is there to distress thee, in particular, Betsey?” asked my
+father, blowing his nose, and speaking with unusual tenderness; “if it
+be in my power to set thy heart at ease on this, or on any other point,
+name it, and I will give orders to have it immediately performed. Thou
+hast been a good pious woman, and canst have little to reproach thyself
+with.”
+
+My mother looked earnestly and wistfully at her husband. Never before
+had he betrayed so strong an interest in her happiness, and had it not,
+alas! been too late, this glimmering of kindness might have lighted the
+matrimonial torch into a brighter flame than had ever yet glowed upon
+the past.
+
+“Mr. Goldencalf, we have an only son—”
+
+“We have, Betsey, and it may gladden thee to hear that the physician
+thinks the boy more likely to live than either of his poor brothers and
+sisters.”
+
+I cannot explain the holy and mysterious principle of maternal nature
+that caused my mother to clasp her hands, to raise her eyes to heaven,
+and, while a gleam flitted athwart her glassy eyes and wan cheeks, to
+murmur her thanks to God for the boon. She was herself hastening away
+to the eternal bliss of the pure of mind and the redeemed, and her
+imagination, quiet and simple as it was, had drawn pictures in which
+she and her departed babes were standing before the throne of the Most
+High, chanting his glory, and shining amid the stars—and yet was she
+now rejoicing that the last and the most cherished of all her
+offsprings was likely to be left exposed to the evils, the vices, nay,
+to the enormities, of the state of being that she herself so willingly
+resigned.
+
+“It is of our boy that I wish now to speak, Mr. Goldencalf,” replied my
+mother, when her secret devotion was ended. “The child will have need
+of instruction and care; in short, of both mother and father.”
+
+“Betsey, thou forgettest that he will still have the latter.”
+
+“You are much wrapped up in your business, Mr. Goldencalf, and are not,
+in other respects, qualified to educate a boy born to the curse and to
+the temptations of immense riches.”
+
+My excellent ancestor looked as if he thought his dying consort had in
+sooth finally taken leave of her senses.
+
+“There are public schools, Betsey; I promise thee the child shall not
+be forgotten: I will have him well taught, though it cost me a thousand
+a year!”
+
+His wife reached forth her emaciated hand to that of my father, and
+pressed the latter with as much force as a dying mother could use. For
+a fleet moment she even appeared to have gotten rid of her latest care.
+But the knowledge of character that had been acquired by the hard
+experience of thirty years, was not to be unsettled by the gratitude of
+a moment.
+
+“I wish, Mr. Goldencalf,” she anxiously resumed, “to receive your
+solemn promise to commit the education of our boy to Dr.
+Etherington—you know his worth, and must have full confidence in such a
+man.”
+
+“Nothing would give me greater satisfaction, my dear Betsey; and if Dr.
+Etherington will consent to receive him, I will send Jack to his house
+this very evening; for, to own the truth, I am but little qualified to
+take charge of a child under a year old. A hundred a year, more or
+less, shall not spoil so good a bargain.”
+
+The divine was a gentleman, and he looked grave at this speech, though,
+meeting the anxious eyes of my mother, his own lost their displeasure
+in a glance of reassurance and pity.
+
+“The charges of his education will be easily settled, Mr. Goldencalf,”
+added my mother; “but the Doctor has consented with difficulty to take
+the responsibility of my poor babe, and that only under two
+conditions.”
+
+The stock-dealer required an explanation with his eyes.
+
+“One is, that the child shall be left solely to his own care, after he
+has reached his fourth year; and the other is, that you make an
+endowment for the support of two poor scholars, at one of the principal
+schools.”
+
+As my mother got out the last words, she fell back on her pillow,
+whence her interest in the subject had enabled her to lift her head a
+little, and she fairly gasped for breath, in the intensity of her
+anxiety to hear the answer. My ancestor contracted his brow, like one
+who saw it was a subject that required reflection.
+
+“Thou dost not know perhaps, Betsey, that these endowments swallow up a
+great deal of money—a great deal—and often very uselessly.”
+
+“Ten thousand pounds is the sum that has been agreed upon between Mrs.
+Goldencalf and me,” steadily remarked the Doctor, who, in my soul, I
+believe had hoped that his condition would be rejected, having yielded
+to the importunities of a dying woman, rather than to his own sense of
+that which might be either very desirable or very useful.
+
+“Ten thousand pounds!”
+
+My mother could not speak, though she succeeded in making an imploring
+sign of assent.
+
+“Ten thousand pounds is a great deal of money, my dear Betsey—a very
+great deal!”
+
+The color of my mother changed to the hue of death, and by her
+breathing she appeared to be in the agony.
+
+“Well, well, Betsey,” said my father a little hastily, for he was
+frightened at her pallid countenance and extreme distress, “have it
+thine own way—the money, yes, yes—it shall be given as thou wishest—now
+set thy kind heart at rest.”
+
+The revulsion of feeling was too great for one whose system had been
+wound up to a state of excitement like that which had sustained my
+mother, who, an hour before, had seemed scarcely able to speak. She
+extended her hand toward her husband, smiled benignantly in his face,
+whispered the word “Thanks,” and then, losing all her powers of body,
+sank into the last sleep, as tranquilly as the infant drops its head on
+the bosom of the nurse. This was, after all, a sudden, and, in one
+sense, an unexpected death: all who witnessed it were struck with awe.
+My father gazed for a whole minute intently on the placid features of
+his wife, and left the room in silence. He was followed by Dr.
+Etherington, who accompanied him to the private apartment where they
+had first met that night, neither uttering a syllable until both were
+seated.
+
+“She was a good woman, Dr. Etherington!” said the widowed man, shaking
+his foot with agitation.
+
+“She was a good woman, Mr. Goldencalf.”
+
+“And a good wife, Dr. Etherington.”
+
+“I have always believed her to be a good wife, sir.”
+
+“Faithful, obedient, and frugal.”
+
+“Three qualities that are of much practical use in the affairs of this
+world.”
+
+“I shall never marry again, sir.”
+
+The divine bowed.
+
+“Nay, I never could find such another match!”
+
+Again the divine inclined his head, though the assent was accompanied
+by slight smile.
+
+“Well, she has left me an heir.”
+
+“And brought something that he might inherit,” observed the Doctor,
+dryly.
+
+My ancestor looked up inquiringly at his companion, but apparently most
+of the sarcasm was thrown away,
+
+“I resign the child to your care, Dr. Etherington, conformably to the
+dying request of my beloved Betsey.”
+
+“I accept the charge, Mr. Goldencalf, comformably to my promise to the
+deceased; but you will remember that there was a condition coupled with
+that promise which must be faithfully and promptly fulfilled.”
+
+My ancestor was too much accustomed to respect the punctilios of trade,
+whose code admits of frauds only in certain categories, which are
+sufficiently explained in its conventional rules of honor; a sort of
+specified morality, that is bottomed more on the convenience of its
+votaries than on the general law of right. He respected the letter of
+his promise while his soul yearned to avoid its spirit; and his wits
+were already actively seeking the means of doing that which he so much
+desired.
+
+“I did make a promise to poor Betsey, certainly,” he answered, in the
+way of one who pondered, “and it was a promise, too, made under very
+solemn circumstances.”
+
+“The promises made to the dead are doubly binding; since, by their
+departure to the world of spirits, it may be said they leave the
+performance to the exclusive superintendence of the Being who cannot
+lie.”
+
+My ancestor quailed; his whole frame shuddered, and his purpose was
+shaken.
+
+“Poor Betsey left you as her representative in this case, however,
+Doctor,” he observed, after the delay of more than a minute, casting
+his eyes wistfully towards the divine.
+
+“In one sense, she certainly did, sir.”
+
+“And a representative with full powers is legally a principal under a
+different name. I think this matter might be arranged to our mutual
+satisfaction, Dr. Etherington, and the intention of poor Betsey most
+completely executed; she, poor woman, knew little of business, as was
+best for her sex; and when women undertake affairs of magnitude, they
+are very apt to make awkward work of it.”
+
+“So that the intention of the deceased be completely fulfilled, you
+will not find me exacting, Mr. Goldencalf.”
+
+“I thought as much—I knew there could be no difficulty between two men
+of sense, who were met with honest views to settle a matter of this
+nature. The intention of poor Betsey, Doctor, was to place her child
+under your care, with the expectation—and I do not deny its
+justice—that the boy would receive more benefit from your knowledge
+than he possibly could from mine.”
+
+Dr. Etherington was too honest to deny these premises, and too polite
+to admit them without an inclination of acknowledgment.
+
+“As we are quite of the same mind, good sir, concerning the
+preliminaries,” continued my ancestor, “we will enter a little nearer
+into the details. It appears to me to be no more than strict justice,
+that he who does the work should receive the reward. This is a
+principle in which I have been educated, Dr. Etherington; it is one in
+which I could wish to have my son educated; and it is one on which I
+hope always to practise.”
+
+Another inclination of the body conveyed the silent assent of the
+divine.
+
+“Now, poor Betsey, Heaven bless her!—for she was a meek and tranquil
+companion, and richly deserves to be rewarded in a future state—but,
+poor Betsey had little knowledge of business. She fancied that, in
+bestowing these ten thousand pounds on a charity, she was acting well;
+whereas she was in fact committing injustice. If you are to have the
+trouble and care of bringing up little Jack, who but you should reap
+the reward?”
+
+“I shall expect, Mr. Goldencalf, that you will furnish the means to
+provide for the child’s wants.”
+
+“Of that, sir, it is unnecessary to speak,” interrupted my ancestor,
+both promptly and proudly. “I am a wary man, and a prudent man, and am
+one who knows the value of money, I trust; but I am no miser, to stint
+my own flesh and blood. Jack shall never want for anything, while it is
+in my power to give it. I am by no means as rich, sir, as the
+neighborhood supposes; but then I am no beggar. I dare say, if all my
+assets were fairly counted, it might be found that I am worth a plum.”
+
+“You are said to have received a much larger sum than that with the
+late Mrs. Goldencalf,” the divine observed, not without reproof in his
+voice.
+
+“Ah, dear sir, I need not tell you what vulgar rumor is—but I shall not
+undermine my own credit; and we will change the subject. My object, Dr.
+Etherington, was merely to do justice. Poor Betsey desired that ten
+thousand pounds might be given to found a scholarship or two: now, what
+have these scholars done, or what are they likely to do, for me or
+mine? The case is different with you, sir; you will have trouble—much
+trouble, I make no doubt; and it is proper that you should have a
+sufficient compensation. I was about to propose, therefore, that you
+should consent to receive my check for three, or four, or even for five
+thousand pounds,” continued my ancestor, raising the offer as he saw
+the frown on the brow of the Doctor deepen. “Yes, sir, I will even say
+the latter sum, which possibly will not be too much for your trouble
+and care; and we will forget the womanish plan of poor Betsey in
+relation to the two scholarships and the charity. Five thousand pounds
+down, Doctor, for yourself, and the subject of the charity forgotten
+forever.”
+
+When my father had thus distinctly put his proposition, he awaited its
+effect with the confidence of a man who had long dealt with cupidity.
+For a novelty, his calculation failed. The face of Dr. Etherington
+flushed, then paled, and finally settled into a look of melancholy
+reprehension. He arose and paced the room for several minutes in
+silence; during which time his companion believed he was debating with
+himself on the chances of obtaining a higher bid for his consent, when
+he suddenly stopped and addressed my ancestor in a mild but steady
+tone.
+
+“I feel it to be a duty, Mr. Goldencalf,” he said, “to admonish you of
+the precipice over which you hang. The love of money, which is the root
+of all evil, which caused Judas to betray even his Saviour and God, has
+taken deep root in your soul. You are no longer young, and although
+still proud in your strength and prosperity, are much nearer to your
+great account than you may be willing to believe. It is not an hour
+since you witnessed the departure of a penitent soul for the presence
+of her God; since you heard the dying request from her lips; and since,
+in such a presence and in such a scene, you gave a pledge to respect
+her wishes, and, now, with the accursed spirit of gain upper-most, you
+would trifle with these most sacred obligations, in order to keep a
+little worthless gold in a hand that is already full to overflowing.
+Fancy that the pure spirit of thy confiding and single-minded wife were
+present at this conversation; fancy it mourning over thy weakness and
+violated faith—nay, I know not that such is not the fact; for there is
+no reason to believe that the happy spirits are not permitted to watch
+near, and mourn over us, until we are released from this mass of sin
+and depravity in which we dwell—and, then, reflect what must be her
+sorrow at hearing how soon her parting request is forgotten, how
+useless has been the example of her holy end, how rooted and fearful
+are thine own infirmities!”
+
+My father was more rebuked by the manner than by the words of the
+divine. He passed his hand across his brow, as if to shut out the view
+of his wife’s spirit; turned, drew his writing materials nearer, wrote
+a check for the ten thousand pounds, and handed it to the Doctor with
+the subdued air of a corrected boy.
+
+“Jack shall be at your disposal, good sir,” he said, as the paper was
+delivered, “whenever it may be your pleasure to send for him.”
+
+They parted in silence; the divine too much displeased, and my ancestor
+too much grieved, to indulge in words of ceremony.
+
+When my father found himself alone, he gazed furtively about the room,
+to assure himself that the rebuking spirit of his wife had not taken a
+shape less questionable than air, and then, he mused for at least an
+hour, very painfully, on all the principal occurrences of the night. It
+is said that occupation is a certain solace for grief, and so it proved
+to be in the present case; for luckily my father had made up that very
+day his private account of the sum total of his fortune. Sitting down,
+therefore, to the agreeable task, he went through the simple process of
+subtracting from it the amount for which he had just drawn, and,
+finding that he was still master of seven hundred and eighty-two
+thousand three hundred and eleven pounds odd shillings and even pence,
+he found a very natural consolation for the magnitude of the sum he had
+just given away, by comparing it with the magnitude of that which was
+left.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+OPINIONS OF OUR AUTHOR’S ANCESTOR, TOGETHER WITH SOME OF HIS OWN, AND
+SOME OF OTHER PEOPLE’S.
+
+
+Dr. Etherington was both a pious man and a gentleman. The second son of
+a baronet of ancient lineage, he had been educated in most of the
+opinions of his caste, and possibly he was not entirely above its
+prejudices; but, this much admitted, few divines were more willing to
+defer to the ethics and principles of the Bible than himself. His
+humility had, of course, a decent regard to station; his charity was
+judiciously regulated by the articles of faith; and his philanthropy
+was of the discriminating character that became a warm supporter of
+church and state.
+
+In accepting the trust which he was now obliged to assume, he had
+yielded purely to a benevolent wish to smooth the dying pillow of my
+mother. Acquainted with the character of her husband, he had committed
+a sort of pious fraud, in attaching the condition of the endowment to
+his consent; for, notwithstanding the becoming language of his own
+rebuke, the promise, and all the other little attendant circumstances
+of the night, it might be questioned which felt the most surprise after
+the draft was presented and duly honored, he who found himself in
+possession, or he who found himself deprived, of the sum of ten
+thousand pounds sterling. Still Dr. Etherington acted with the most
+scrupulous integrity in the whole affair; and although I am aware that
+a writer who has so many wonders to relate, as must of necessity adorn
+the succeeding pages of this manuscript, should observe a guarded
+discretion in drawing on the credulity of his readers, truth compels me
+to add, that every farthing of the money was duly invested with a
+single eye to the wishes of the dying Christian, who, under Providence,
+had been the means of bestowing so much gold on the poor and
+unlettered. As to the manner in which the charity was finally improved,
+I shall say nothing, since no inquiry on my part has ever enabled me to
+obtain such information as would justify my speaking with authority.
+
+As for myself, I shall have little more to add touching the events of
+the succeeding twenty years. I was baptized, nursed, breeched,
+schooled, horsed, confirmed, sent to the university, and graduated,
+much as befalls all gentlemen of the established church in the united
+kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, or, in other words, of the land
+of my ancestor. During these pregnant years, Dr. Etherington acquitted
+himself of a duty that, judging by a very predominant feeling of human
+nature (which, singularly enough, renders us uniformly averse to being
+troubled with other people’s affairs), I think he must have found
+sufficiently vexatious, quite as well as my good mother had any right
+to expect. Most of my vacations were spent at his rectory; for he had
+first married, then become a father, next a widower, and had exchanged
+his town living for one in the country, between the periods of my
+mother’s death and that on my going to Eton; and, after I quitted
+Oxford, much more of my time was passed beneath his friendly roof than
+beneath that of my own parent. Indeed, I saw little of the latter. He
+paid my bills, furnished me with pocket-money, and professed an
+intention to let me travel after I should reach my majority. But,
+satisfied with these proofs of paternal care, he appeared willing to
+let me pursue my own course very much in my own way.
+
+My ancestor was an eloquent example of the truth of that political
+dogma which teaches the efficacy of the division of labor. No
+manufacturer of the head of a pin ever attained greater dexterity in
+his single-minded vocation than was reached by my father in the one
+pursuit to which he devoted, as far as human ken could reach, both soul
+and body. As any sense is known to increase in acuteness by constant
+exercise, or any passion by indulgence, so did his ardor in favor of
+the great object of his affections grow with its growth, and become
+more manifest as an ordinary observer would be apt to think the motive
+of its existence at all had nearly ceased. This is a moral phenomenon
+that I have often had occasion to observe, and which, there is some
+reason to think, depends on a principle of attraction that has hitherto
+escaped the sagacity of the philosophers, but which is as active in the
+immaterial, as is that of gravitation in the material world. Talents
+like his, so incessantly and unweariedly employed, produced the usual
+fruits. He grew richer hourly, and at the time of which I speak he was
+pretty generally known to the initiated to be the warmest man who had
+anything to do with the stock exchange.
+
+I do not think that the opinions of my ancestor underwent as many
+material changes between the ages of fifty and seventy as they had
+undergone between the ages of ten and forty. During the latter period
+the tree of life usually gets deep root, its inclination is fixed,
+whether obtained by bending to the storms, or by drawing toward the
+light; and it probably yields more in fruits of its own, than it gains
+by tillage and manuring. Still my ancestor was not exactly the same man
+the day he kept his seventieth birthday as he had been the day he kept
+his fiftieth. In the first place, he was worth thrice the money at the
+former period that he had been worth at the latter. Of course his moral
+system had undergone all the mutations that are known to be dependent
+on a change of this important character. Beyond a question, during the
+last five-and-twenty years of the life of my ancestor, his political
+bias, too, was in favor of exclusive privileges and exclusive benefits.
+I do not mean that he was an aristocrat in the vulgar acceptation. To
+him, feudality was a blank; he had probably never heard the word.
+Portcullises rose and fell, flanking towers lifted their heads, and
+embattled walls swept around their fabrics in vain, so far as his
+imagination was concerned. He cared not for the days of courts leet and
+courts baron; nor for the barons themselves; nor for the honors of a
+pedigree (why should he?—no prince in the land could more clearly trace
+his family into obscurity than himself), nor for the vanities of a
+court, nor for those of society; nor for aught else of the same nature
+that is apt to have charms for the weak-minded, the imaginative, or the
+conceited. His political prepossessions showed themselves in a very
+different manner. Throughout the whole of the five lustres I have
+named, he was never heard to whisper a censure against government, let
+its measures, or the character of its administration, be what it would.
+It was enough for him that it was government. Even taxation no longer
+excited his ire, nor aroused his eloquence. He conceived it to be
+necessary to order, and especially to the protection of property, a
+branch of political science that he had so studied as to succeed in
+protecting his own estate, in a measure, against even this great ally
+itself. After he became worth a million, it was observed that all his
+opinions grew less favorable to mankind in general, and that he was
+much disposed to exaggerate the amount and quality of the few boons
+which Providence has bestowed on the poor. The report of a meeting of
+the Whigs generally had an effect on his appetite; a resolution that
+was suspected of emanating from Brookes’s commonly robbed him of a
+dinner, and the Radicals never seriously moved that he did not spend a
+sleepless night, and pass a large portion of the next day in uttering
+words that it would be hardly moral to repeat. I may without
+impropriety add, however, that on such occasions he did not spare
+allusions to the gallows; Sir Francis Burdett, in particular, was a
+target for a good deal of billingsgate; and men as upright and as
+respectable even as my lords Grey, Landsdowne, and Holland, were
+treated as if they were no better than they should be. But on these
+little details it is unnecessary to dwell, for it must be a subject of
+common remark, that the more elevated and refined men become in their
+political ethics, the more they are accustomed to throw dirt upon their
+neighbors. I will just state, however, that most of what I have here
+related has been transmitted to me by direct oral traditions, for I
+seldom saw my ancestor, and when we did meet, it was only to settle
+accounts, to eat a leg of mutton together, and to part like those who,
+at least, have never quarrelled.
+
+Not so with Dr. Etherington. Habit (to say nothing of my own merits)
+had attached him to one who owed so much to his care, and his doors
+were always as open to me as if I had been his own son.
+
+It has been said that most of my idle time (omitting the part misspent
+in the schools) was passed at the rectory.
+
+The excellent divine had married a lovely woman, a year or two after
+the death of my mother, who had left him a widower, and the father of a
+little image of herself, before the expiration of a twelvemonth. Owing
+to the strength of his affections for the deceased, or for his
+daughter, or because he could not please himself in a second marriage
+as well as it had been his good fortune to do in the first, Dr.
+Etherington had never spoken of forming another connection. He appeared
+content to discharge his duties, as a Christian and a gentleman,
+without increasing them by creating any new relations with society.
+
+Anna Etherington was of course my constant companion during many long
+and delightful visits at the rectory. Three years my junior, the
+friendship on my part had commenced by a hundred acts of boyish
+kindness. Between the ages of seven and twelve, I dragged her about in
+a garden-chair, pushed her on the swing, and wiped her eyes and uttered
+words of friendly consolation when any transient cloud obscured the
+sunny brightness of her childhood. From twelve to fourteen, I told her
+stories; astonished her with narratives of my own exploits at Eton, and
+caused her serene blue eyes to open in admiration at the marvels of
+London. At fourteen, I began to pick up her pocket-handkerchief, hunt
+for her thimble, accompany her in duets, and to read poetry to her, as
+she occupied herself with the little lady-like employments of the
+needle. About the age of seventeen I began to compare cousin Anna, as I
+was permitted to call her, with the other young girls of my
+acquaintance, and the comparison was generally much in her favor. It
+was also about this time that, as my admiration grew more warm and
+manifest, she became less confiding and less frank; I perceived too
+that, for a novelty, she now had some secrets that she did not choose
+to communicate to me, that she was more with her governess, and less in
+my society than formerly, and on one occasion (bitterly did I feel the
+slight) she actually recounted to her father the amusing incidents of a
+little birthday fete at which she had been present, and which was given
+by a gentleman of the vicinity, before she even dropped a hint to me,
+touching the delight she had experienced on the occasion. I was,
+however, a good deal compensated for the slight by her saying, kindly,
+as she ended her playful and humorous account of the affair:
+
+“It would have made you laugh heartily, Jack, to see the droll manner
+in which the servants acted their parts” (there had been a sort of
+mystified masque), “more particularly the fat old butler, of whom they
+had made a Cupid, as Dick Griffin said, in order to show that love
+becomes drowsy and dull by good eating and drinking—I DO wish you COULD
+have been there, Jack.”
+
+Anna was a gentle feminine girl, with a most lovely and winning
+countenance, and I did inherently like to hear her pronounce the word
+“Jack”—it was so different from the boisterous screech of the Eton
+boys, or the swaggering call of my boon companions at Oxford!
+
+“I should have liked it excessively myself, Anna,” I answered; “more
+particularly as you seem to have so much enjoyed the fun.”
+
+“Yes, but that COULD NOT BE” interrupted Miss-Mrs. Norton, the
+governess. “For Sir Harry Griffin is very difficult about his
+associates, and you know, my dear, that Mr. Goldencalf, though a very
+respectable young man himself, could not expect one of the oldest
+baronets of the county to go out of his way to invite the son of a
+stock-jobber to be present at a fete given to his own heir.”
+
+Luckily for Miss-Mrs. Norton, Dr. Etherington had walked away the
+moment his daughter ended her recital, or she might have met with a
+disagreeable commentary on her notions concerning the fitness of
+associations. Anna herself looked earnestly at her governess, and I saw
+a flush mantle over her sweet face that reminded me of the ruddiness of
+morn. Her soft eyes then fell to the floor, and it was some time before
+she spoke.
+
+The next day I was arranging some fishing-tackle under a window of the
+library, where my person was concealed by the shrubbery, when I heard
+the melodious voice of Anna wishing the rector good morning. My heart
+beat quicker as she approached the casement, tenderly inquiring of her
+parent how he had passed the night. The answers were as affectionate as
+the questions, and then there was a little pause.
+
+“What is a stock-jobber, father?” suddenly resumed Anna, whom I heard
+rustling the leaves above my head.
+
+“A stock-jobber, my dear, is one who buys and sells in the public
+funds, with a view to profit.”
+
+“And is it thought a PARTICULARLY disgraceful employment?”
+
+“Why, that depends on circumstances. On ’Change it seems to be well
+enough—among merchants and bankers there is some odium attached to it,
+I believe.”
+
+“And can you say why, father?”
+
+“I believe,” said Dr. Etherington, laughing, “for no other reason than
+that it is an uncertain calling—one that is liable to sudden
+reverses—what is termed gambling—and whatever renders property insecure
+is sure to obtain odium among those whose principal concern is its
+accumulation; those who consider the responsibility of others of
+essential importance to themselves.”
+
+“But is it a dishonest pursuit, father?”
+
+“As the times go, not necessarily, my dear; though it may readily
+become so.”
+
+“And is it disreputable, generally, with the world?”
+
+“That depends on circumstances, Anna. When the stock-jobber loses, he
+is very apt to be condemned; but I rather think his character rises in
+proportion to his gains. But why do you ask these singular questions,
+love?”
+
+I thought I heard Anna breathe harder than usual, and it is certain
+that she leaned far out of the window to pluck a rose.
+
+“Why, Mrs. Norton said Jack was not invited to Sir Harry Griffin’s
+because his father was a stock-jobber. Do you think she was right,
+sir?”
+
+“Very likely, my dear,” returned the divine, who I fancied was smiling
+at the question. “Sir Harry has the advantages of birth, and he
+probably did not forget that our friend Jack was not so fortunate—and,
+moreover, Sir Harry, while he values himself on his wealth, is not as
+rich as Jack’s father by a million or two—in other words, as they say
+on ’Change, Jack’s father could buy ten of him. This motive was perhaps
+more likely to influence him than the first. In addition, Sir Harry is
+suspected of gambling himself in the funds through the aid of agents;
+and a gentleman who resorts to such means to increase his fortune is a
+little apt to exaggerate his social advantages by way of a set-off to
+the humiliation.”
+
+“And GENTLEMEN do really become stock-jobbers, father?”
+
+“Anna, the world has undergone great changes in my time. Ancient
+opinions have been shaken, and governments themselves are getting to be
+little better than political establishments to add facilities to the
+accumulation of money. This is a subject, however, you cannot very well
+understand, nor do I pretend to be very profound in it myself.”
+
+“But is Jack’s father really so very, very rich?” asked Anna, whose
+thoughts had been wandering from the thread of those pursued by her
+father.
+
+“He is believed to be so.”
+
+“And Jack is his heir.”
+
+“Certainly—he has no other child; though it is not easy to say what so
+singular a being may do with his money.”
+
+“I hope he will disinherit Jack!”
+
+“You surprise me, Anna! You, who are so mild and reasonable, to wish
+such a misfortune to befall our young friend John Goldencalf!” I gazed
+upward in astonishment at this extraordinary speech of Anna, and at the
+moment I would have given all my interest in the fortune in question to
+have seen her face (most of her body was out of the window, for I heard
+her again rustling the bush above my head), in order to judge of her
+motive by its expression; but an envious rose grew exactly in the only
+spot where it was possible to get a glimpse.
+
+“Why do you wish so cruel a thing?” resumed Dr. Etherington, a little
+earnestly.
+
+“Because I hate stock-jobbing and its riches, father. Were Jack poorer,
+it seems to me he would be better esteemed.”
+
+As this was uttered the dear girl drew back, and I then perceived that
+I had mistaken her cheek for one of the largest and most blooming of
+the flowers. Dr. Etherington laughed, and I distinctly heard him kiss
+the blushing face of his daughter. I think I would have given up my
+hopes in another million to have been the rector at Tenthpig at that
+instant.
+
+“If that be all, child,” he answered, “set thy heart at rest. Jack’s
+money will never bring him into contempt unless through the use he may
+make of it. Alas! Anna, we live in an age of corruption and cupidity!
+Generous motives appear to be lost sight of in the general desire of
+gain; and he who would manifest a disposition to a pure and
+disinterested philanthropy is either distrusted as a hypocrite or
+derided as a fool. The accursed revolution among our neighbors the
+French has quite unsettled opinions, and religion itself has tottered
+in the wild anarchy of theories to which it has given rise. There is no
+worldly advantage that has been more austerely denounced by the divine
+writers than riches, and yet it is fast rising to be the god of the
+ascendant. To say nothing of an hereafter, society is getting to be
+corrupted by it to the core, and even respect for birth is yielding to
+the mercenary feeling.”
+
+“And do you not think pride of birth, father, a mistaken prejudice as
+well as pride of riches?”
+
+“Pride of any sort, my love, cannot exactly be defended on evangelical
+principles; but surely some distinctions among men are necessary, even
+for quiet. Were the levelling principle acknowledged, the lettered and
+the accomplished must descend to an equality with the ignorant and
+vulgar, since all men cannot rise to the attainments of the former
+class, and the world would retrograde to barbarism. The character of a
+Christian gentleman is much too precious to trifle with in order to
+carry out an impracticable theory.”
+
+Anna was silent. Probably she was confused between the opinions which
+she most liked to cherish and the faint glimmerings of truth to which
+we are reduced by the ordinary relations of life. As for the good
+rector himself, I had no difficulty in understanding his bias, though
+neither his premises nor his conclusions possessed the logical
+clearness that used to render his sermons so delightful, more
+especially when he preached about the higher qualities of the Saviour’s
+dispensation, such as charity, love of our fellows, and, in particular,
+the imperative duty of humbling ourselves before God.
+
+A month after this accidental dialogue, chance made me auditor of what
+passed between my ancestor and Sir Joseph Job, another celebrated
+dealer in the funds, in an interview that took place in the house of
+the former in Cheapside. As the difference was so PATENT, as the French
+express it, I shall furnish the substance of what passed.
+
+“This is a serious and a most alarming movement, Mr. Goldencalf,”
+observed Sir Joseph, “and calls for union and cordiality among the
+holders of property. Should these damnable opinions get fairly abroad
+among the people, what would become of us? I ask, Mr. Goldencalf, what
+would become of us?”
+
+“I agree with you, Sir Joseph, it is very alarming!—frightfully
+alarming!”
+
+“We shall have agrarian laws, sir. Your money, sir, and mine—our hard
+earnings—will become the prey of political robbers, and our children
+will be beggared to satisfy the envious longings of some pitiful
+scoundrel without a six-pence!”
+
+“’Tis a sad state of things, Sir Joseph; and government is very
+culpable that it don’t raise at least ten new regiments.”
+
+“The worst of it is, good Mr. Goldencalf, that there are some
+jack-a-napeses of the aristocracy who lead the rascals on and lend them
+the sanction of their names. It is a great mistake, sir, that we give
+so much importance to birth in this island, by which means proud
+beggars set unwashed blackguards in motion, and the substantial
+subjects are the sufferers. Property, sir, is in danger, and property
+is the only true basis of society.”
+
+“I am sure, Sir Joseph, I never could see the smallest use in birth.”
+
+“It is of no use but to beget pensioners, Mr. Goldencalf. Now with
+property it is a different thing—money is the parent of money, and by
+money a state becomes powerful and prosperous. But this accursed
+revolution among our neighbors the French has quite unsettled opinions,
+and, alas! property is in perpetual danger!”
+
+“Sorry am I to say, I feel it to be so in every nerve of my body, Sir
+Joseph.”
+
+“We must unite and defend ourselves, Mr. Goldencalf, else both you and
+I, men warm enough and substantial enough at present, will be in the
+ditch. Do you not see that we are in actual danger of a division of
+property?”
+
+“God forbid!”
+
+“Yes, sir, our sacred property is in danger!”
+
+Here Sir Joseph shook my father cordially by the hand and withdrew. I
+find, by a memorandum among the papers of my deceased ancestor, that he
+paid the broker of Sir Joseph, that day month, sixty-two thousand seven
+hundred and twelve pounds difference (as bull and bear), owing to the
+fact of the knight having got some secret information through a clerk
+in one of the offices; an advantage that enabled him, in this instance,
+at least, to make a better bargain than one who was generally allowed
+to be among the shrewdest speculators on ’Change.
+
+My mind was of a nature to be considerably exercised (as the pious
+purists express it), by becoming the depository of sentiments so
+diametrically opposed to each other as those of Dr. Etherington and
+those of Sir Joseph Job. On the one side, I was taught the degradation
+of birth; on the other, the dangers of property. Anna was usually my
+confidant, but on this subject I was tongue-tied, for I dared not
+confess that I had overheard the discourse with her father, and I was
+compelled to digest the contradictory doctrines by myself in the best
+manner I could.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+SHOWING THE UPS AND DOWNS, THE HOPES AND FEARS, AND THE VAGARIES OF
+LOVE, SOME VIEWS OF DEATH, AND AN ACCOUNT OF AN INHERITANCE.
+
+
+From my twentieth to my twenty-third year no event occurred of any
+great moment. The day I became of age my father settled on me a regular
+allowance of a thousand a year, and I make no doubt I should have spent
+my time much as other young men had it not been for the peculiarity of
+my birth, which I now began to see was wanting in a few of the
+requisites to carry me successfully through a struggle for place with a
+certain portion of what is called the great world. While most were
+anxious to trace themselves into obscurity, there was a singular
+reluctance to effecting the object as clearly and as distinctly as it
+was in my power to do. From all which, as well as from much other
+testimony, I have been led to infer that the doses of mystification
+which appear to be necessary to the happiness of the human race require
+to be mixed with an experienced and a delicate hand. Our organs, both
+physically and morally, are so fearfully constituted that they require
+to be protected from realities. As the physical eye has need of clouded
+glass to look steadily at the sun so it would seem the mind’s eye has
+also need of something smoky to look steadily at truth. But, while I
+avoided laying open the secret of my heart to Anna, I sought various
+opportunities to converse with Dr. Etherington and my father on those
+points which gave me the most concern. From the first, I heard
+principles which went to show that society was of necessity divided
+into orders; that it was not only impolitic but wicked to weaken the
+barriers by which they were separated; that Heaven had its seraphs and
+cherubs, its archangels and angels, its saints and its merely happy,
+and that, by obvious induction, this world ought to have its kings,
+lords, and commons. The usual winding-up of all the Doctor’s essays was
+a lamentation on the confusion in classes that was visiting England as
+a judgment. My ancestor, on the other hand, cared little for social
+classification, or for any other conservatory expedient but force. On
+this topic he would talk all day, regiments and bayonets glittering in
+every sentence. When most eloquent on this theme he would cry (like Mr.
+Manners Sutton), “ORDER—order!” nor can I recall a single disquisition
+that did not end with, “Alas, Jack, property is in danger!”
+
+I shall not say that my mind entirely escaped confusion among these
+conflicting opinions, although I luckily got a glimpse of one important
+truth, for both the commentators cordially agreed in fearing and, of
+necessity, in hating the mass of their fellow-creatures. My own natural
+disposition was inclining to philanthropy, and as I was unwilling to
+admit the truth of theories that arrayed me in open hostility against
+so large a portion of mankind, I soon determined to set up one of my
+own, which, while it avoided the faults, should include the excellences
+of both the others. It was, of course, no great affair merely to form
+such a resolution; but I shall have occasion to say a word hereafter on
+the manner in which I attempted to carry it out in practice.
+
+Time moved on, and Anna became each day more beautiful. I thought that
+she had lost some of her frankness and girlish gayety, it is true,
+after the dialogue with her father; but this I attributed to the
+reserve and discretion that became the expanding reason and greater
+feeling of propriety that adorn young womanhood. With me she was always
+ingenuous and simple, and were I to live a thousand years the angelic
+serenity of countenance with which she invariably listened to the
+theories of my busy brain would not be erased from recollection.
+
+We were talking of these things one morning quite alone. Anna heard me
+when I was most sedate with manifest pleasure, and she smiled
+mournfully when the thread of my argument was entangled by a vagary of
+the imagination. I felt at my heart’s core what a blessing such a
+mentor would be, and how fortunate would be my lot could I succeed in
+securing her for life. Still I did not, could not, summon courage to
+lay bare my inmost thoughts, and to beg a boon that in these moments of
+transient humility I feared I never should be worthy to possess.
+
+“I have even thought of marrying,” I continued—so occupied with my own
+theories as not to weigh, with the accuracy that becomes the frankness
+and superior advantages which man possesses over the gentler sex, the
+full import of my words; “could I find one, Anna, as gentle, as good,
+as beautiful, and as wise as yourself who would consent to be mine, I
+should not wait a minute; but, unhappily, I fear this is not likely to
+be my blessed lot. I am not the grandson of a baronet, and your father
+expects to unite you with one who can at least show that the ‘bloody
+hand’ has once been born on his shield; and, on the other side, my
+father talks of nothing but millions.” During the first part of this
+speech the amiable girl looked kindly up at me, and with a seeming
+desire to soothe me; but at its close her eyes dropped upon her work
+and she remained silent. “Your father says that every man who has an
+interest in the state should give it pledges”—here Anna smiled, but so
+covertly that her sweet mouth scarce betrayed the impulse—“and that
+none others can ever control it to advantage. I have thought of asking
+my father to buy a borough and a baronetcy, for with the first, and the
+influence that his money gives, he need not long wish for the last; but
+I never open my lips on any matter of the sort that he does not answer
+‘Fol lol der rol, Jack, with your knighthoods, and social order, and
+bishoprics, and boroughs—property is in danger!—loans and regiments, if
+thou wilt—give us more order “ORDER—order”—bayonets are what we want,
+boy, and good wholesome taxes, to accustom the nation to contribute to
+its own wants and to maintain its credit. Why, youngster, if the
+interest on the debt were to remain unpaid twenty-four hours, your body
+corporate, as you call it, would die a natural death; and what would
+then become of your knights—barro-knights?—and barren enough some of
+them are getting to be by their wastefulness and extravagance. Get thee
+married, Jack, and settle prudently. There is neighbor Silverpenny has
+an only daughter of a suitable age; and a good hussy is she in the
+bargain. The only daughter of Oliver Silverpenny will be a suitable
+wife for the only son of Thomas Goldencalf; though I give thee notice,
+boy, that thou wilt be cut off with a competency; so keep thy head
+clear of extravagant castle-building, learn economy in season, and,
+above all, make no debts.’” Anna laughed as I humorously imitated the
+well-known intonations of Mr. Speaker Sutton, but a cloud darkened her
+bright features when I concluded.
+
+“Yesterday I mentioned the subject to your father,” I resumed, “and he
+thought with me that the idea of the borough and the baronetcy was a
+good one. ‘You would be the second of your line, Jack,’ he said, ‘and
+that is always better than being the first; for there is no security
+for a man’s being a good member of society like that of his having
+presented to his eyes the examples of those who have gone before him,
+and who have been distinguished by their services or their virtues. If
+your father would consent to come into parliament and sustain
+government at this critical moment, his origin would be overlooked, and
+you would have pride in looking back on his acts. As it is, I fear his
+whole soul is occupied with the unworthy and debasing passion of mere
+gain. Money is a necessary auxiliary to rank, and without rank there
+can be no order, and without order no liberty; but when the love of
+money gets to occupy the place of respect for descent and past actions,
+a community loses the very sentiment on which all its noble exploits
+are bottomed.’ So you see, dear Anna, that our parents hold very
+different opinions on a very grave question, and between natural
+affection and acquired veneration I scarcely know which to receive. If
+I could find one sweet, and wise, and beautiful as thou, and who could
+pity me, I would marry to-morrow, and cast all the future on the
+happiness that is to be found with such a companion.”
+
+As usual, Anna heard me in silence. That she did not, however, view
+matrimony with exactly the same eyes as myself was clearly proved the
+very next day, for young Sir Harry Griffin (the father was dead)
+offered in form and was very decidedly refused.
+
+Although I was always happy at the rectory, I could not help feeling
+rather than seeing that, as the French express it, I occupied a false
+position in society. Known to be the expectant of great wealth, it was
+not easy to be overlooked altogether in a country whose government is
+based on a representation of property, and in which boroughs are openly
+in market; and yet they who had obtained the accidental advantage of
+having their fortunes made by their grandfathers were constantly
+convincing me that mine, vast as it was thought to be, was made by my
+father. Ten thousand times did I wish (as it has since been expressed
+by the great captain of the age), that I had been my own grandson; for
+notwithstanding the probability that he who is nearest to the founder
+of a fortune is the most likely to share the largest in its
+accumulations, as he who is nearest in descent to the progenitor who
+has illustrated his race is the most likely to feel the influence of
+his character, I was not long in perceiving that in highly refined and
+intellectual communities the public sentiment, as it is connected with
+the respect and influence that are the meed of both, directly refutes
+the inferences of all reasonable conjectures on the subject. I was out
+of my place, uneasy, ashamed, proud, and resentful; in short I occupied
+a FALSE POSITION, and unluckily one from which I saw no plausible
+retreat except by falling back on Lombard street or by cutting my
+throat. Anna alone—kind, gentle, serene-eyed Anna—entered into all my
+joys, sympathized in my mortifications, and appeared to view me as I
+was; neither dazzled by my wealth nor repelled by my origin. The day
+she refused young Sir Harry Griffin I could have kneeled at her feet
+and called her blessed!
+
+It is said that no moral disease is ever benefited by its study. I was
+a living proof of the truth of the opinion that brooding over one’s
+wrongs or infirmities seldom does much more than aggravate the evil. I
+greatly fear it is in the nature of man to depreciate the advantages he
+actually enjoys and to exaggerate those which are denied him. Fifty
+times during the six months that succeeded the repulse of the young
+baronet did I resolve to take heart and to throw myself at the feet of
+Anna, and as often was I deterred by the apprehension that I had
+nothing to render me worthy of one so excellent, and especially of one
+who was the granddaughter of the seventh English baronet. I do not
+pretend to explain the connection between cause and effect, for I am
+neither physician nor metaphysician; but the tumult of spirits that
+resulted from so many doubts, hopes, fears, resolutions, and breakings
+of resolutions, began to affect my health, and I was just about to
+yield to the advice of my friends (among whom Anna was the most earnest
+and the most sorrowful), to travel, when an unexpected call to attend
+the death-bed of my ancestor was received. I tore myself from the
+rectory and hurried up to town with the diligence and assiduity of an
+only son and heir summoned on an occasion so solemn.
+
+I found my ancestor still in the possession of his senses, though given
+over by the physicians; a circumstance that proved a degree of
+disinterestedness and singleness of purpose on their part that was
+scarcely to be expected towards a patient who it was commonly believed
+was worth more than a million. My reception by the servants and by the
+two or three friends who had assembled on this melancholy occasion,
+too, was sympathizing, warm, and of a character to show their
+solicitude and forethought.
+
+My reception by the sick man was less marked. The total abstraction of
+his faculties in the one great pursuit of his life; a certain sternness
+of purpose which is apt to get the ascendant with those who are
+resolute to gain, and which usually communicates itself to the manners;
+and an absence of those kinder ties that are developed by the exercise
+of the more familiar charities of our existence had opened a breach
+between us that was not to be filled by the simple unaided fact of
+natural affinity. I say of natural affinity, for notwithstanding the
+doubts that cast their shadows on that branch of my genealogical tree
+by which I was connected with my maternal grandfather, the title of the
+king to his crown is not more apparent than was my direct lineal
+descent from my father. I always believed him to be my ancestor de jure
+as well as de facto, and could fain have loved him and honored him as
+such had my natural yearnings been met with more lively bowels of
+sympathy on his side.
+
+Notwithstanding the long and unnatural estrangement that had thus
+existed between the father and son, the meeting on the present occasion
+was not entirely without some manifestations of feeling.
+
+“Thou art come at last, Jack,” said my ancestor; “I was afraid, boy,
+thou might’st be too late.”
+
+The difficult breathing, haggard countenance, and broken utterance of
+my father struck me with awe. This was the first death-bed by which I
+had ever stood; and the admonishing picture of time passing into
+eternity was indelibly stamped on my memory. It was not only a
+death-bed scene, but it was a family death-bed scene. I know not how it
+was, but I thought my ancestor looked more like the Goldencalfs than I
+had ever seen him look before.
+
+“Thou hast come at last, Jack,” he repeated, “and I’m glad of it. Thou
+art the only being in whom I have now any concern. It might have been
+better, perhaps, had I lived more with my kind—but thou wilt be the
+gainer. Ah! Jack, we are but miserable mortals after all! To be called
+away so suddenly and so young!”
+
+My ancestor had seen his seventy-fifth birthday; but unhappily he had
+not settled all his accounts with the world, although he had given the
+physician his last fee and sent the parson away with a donation to the
+poor of the parish that would make even a beggar merry for a whole
+life.
+
+“Thou art come at last, Jack! Well, my loss will be thy gain, boy! Send
+the nurse from the room.”
+
+I did as commanded, and we were left to ourselves.
+
+“Take this key,” handing me one from beneath his pillow, “and open the
+upper drawer of my secretary. Bring me the packet which is addressed to
+thyself.”
+
+I silently obeyed; when my ancestor, first gazing at it with a sadness
+that I cannot well describe—for it was neither worldly nor quite of an
+ethereal character, but a singular and fearful compound of both—put the
+papers into my hand, relinquishing his hold slowly and with reluctance.
+
+“Thou wilt wait till I am out of thy sight, Jack?”
+
+A tear burst from out its source and fell upon the emaciated hand of my
+father. He looked at me wistfully, and I felt a slight pressure that
+denoted affection.
+
+“It might have been better, Jack, had we known more of each other. But
+Providence made me fatherless, and I have lived childless by my own
+folly. Thy mother was a saint, I believe; but I fear I learned it too
+late. Well, a blessing often comes at the eleventh hour!”
+
+As my ancestor now manifested a desire not to be disturbed, I called
+the nurse and quitted the room, retiring to my own modest chamber,
+where the packet, a large bundle of papers sealed and directed to
+myself in the handwriting of the dying man, was carefully secured under
+a good lock. I did not meet my father again but once under
+circumstances which admitted of intelligible communion. From the time
+of our first interview he gradually grew worse, his reason tottered,
+and, like the sinful cardinal of Shakespeare, “he died and gave no
+sign.”
+
+Three days after my arrival, however, I was left alone with him, and he
+suddenly revived from a state approaching to stupor. It was the only
+time since the first interview in which he had seemed even to know me.
+
+“Thou art come at last!” he said, in a tone that was already
+sepulchral. “Canst tell me, boy, why they had golden rods to measure
+the city?” His nurse had been reading to him a chapter of the
+Revelations which had been selected by himself. “Thou seest, lad, the
+wall itself was of jasper and the city was of pure gold—I shall not
+need money in my new habitation—ha! it will not be wanted there!—I am
+not crazed, Jack—would I had loved gold less and my kind more. The city
+itself is of pure gold and the walls of jasper—precious abode!—ha!
+Jack, thou hearest, boy—I am happy—too happy, Jack!—gold—gold!”
+
+The final words were uttered with a shout. They were the last that ever
+came from the lips of Thomas Goldencalf. The noise brought in the
+attendants, who found him dead. I ordered the room to be cleared as
+soon as the melancholy truth was fairly established, and remained
+several minutes alone with the body. The countenance was set in death.
+The eyes, still open, had that revolting glare of frenzied delight with
+which the spirit had departed, and the whole face presented the dread
+picture of a hopeless end. I knelt and, though a Protestant, prayed
+fervently for the soul of the deceased. I then took my leave of the
+first and the last of all my ancestors.
+
+To this scene succeeded the usual period of outward sorrow, the
+interment, and the betrayal of the expectations of the survivors. I
+observed that the house was much frequented by many who rarely or never
+had crossed its threshold during the life of its late owner. There was
+much cornering, much talking in an undertone, and looking at me that I
+did not understand, and gradually the number of regular visitors
+increased until it amounted to about twenty. Among them were the parson
+of the parish, the trustees of several notorious charities, three
+attorneys, four or five well-known dealers of the stock exchange,
+foremost among whom was Sir Joseph Job, and three of the professionally
+benevolent, or of those whose sole occupation appears to be that of
+quickening the latent charities of their neighbors.
+
+The day after my ancestor was finally removed from our sight, the house
+was more than usually crowded. The secret conferences increased both in
+earnestness and in frequency, and finally I was summoned to meet these
+ill-timed guests in the room which had been the sanctum sanctorum of
+the late owner of the dwelling. As I entered among twenty strange
+faces, wondering why I, who had hitherto passed through life so little
+heeded, should be unseasonably importuned, Sir Joseph Job presented
+himself as the spokesman of the party.
+
+“We have sent for you, Mr. Goldencalf,” the knight commenced, decently
+wiping his eyes, “because we think that respect for our late
+much-esteemed, most excellent, and very respectable friend requires
+that we no longer neglect his final pleasure, but that we should
+proceed at once to open his will, in order that we may take prompt
+measures for its execution. It would have been more regular had we done
+this before he was interred, for we cannot have foreseen his pleasure
+concerning his venerable remains; but it is fully my determination to
+have everything done as he has ordered, even though we may be compelled
+to disinter the body.”
+
+I am habitually quiescent, and possibly credulous, but nature has not
+denied me a proper spirit. What Sir Joseph Job, or any one but myself,
+had to do with the will of my ancestor did not strike me at first
+sight; and I took care to express as much, in terms it was not easy to
+misunderstand.
+
+“The only child and, indeed, the only known relative of the deceased,”
+I said, “I do not well see, gentlemen, how this subject should interest
+in this lively manner so many strangers!”
+
+“Very spirited and proper, no doubt, sir,” returned Sir Joseph,
+smiling; “but you ought to know, young gentleman, that if there are
+such things as heirs there are also such things as executors!”
+
+This I did know already, and I had also somewhere imbibed an opinion
+that the latter was commonly the most lucrative situation.
+
+“Have you any reason to suppose, Sir Joseph Job, that my late father
+has selected you to fulfil this trust?”
+
+“That will be better known in the end, young gentleman. Your late
+father is known to have died rich, very rich—not that he has left as
+much by half a million as vulgar report will have it—but what I should
+term comfortably off; and it is unreasonable to suppose that a man of
+his great caution and prudence should suffer his money to go to the
+heir-at-law, that heir being a youth only in his twenty-third year,
+ignorant of business, not over-gifted with experience, and having the
+propensities of all his years in this ill-behaving and extravagant age,
+without certain trusts and provisions which will leave his hard
+earnings for some time to come under the care of men who like himself
+know the full value of money.”
+
+“No, never!—’tis quite impossible—’tis more than impossible!” exclaimed
+the bystanders, all shaking their heads.
+
+“And the late Mr. Goldencalf, too, intimate with most of the
+substantial names on ’Change, and particularly with Sir Joseph Job!”
+added another.
+
+Sir Joseph Job nodded his head, smiled, stroked his chin, and stood
+waiting for my reply.
+
+“Property is in danger, Sir Joseph,” I said, ironically; “but it
+matters not. If there is a will, it is as much my interest to know it
+as it can possibly be yours; and I am quite willing that a search be
+made on the spot.”
+
+Sir Joseph looked daggers at me; but being a man of business he took me
+at my word, and, receiving the keys I offered, a proper person was
+immediately set to work to open the drawers. The search was continued
+for four hours without success. Every private drawer was rummaged,
+every paper opened, and many a curious glance was cast at the contents
+of the latter, in order to get some clew to the probable amount of the
+assets of the deceased. Consternation and uneasiness very evidently
+increased among most of the spectators as the fruitless examination
+proceeded; and when the notary ended, declaring that no will was to be
+found, nor any evidence of credits, every eye was fastened on me as if
+I were suspected of stealing that which in the order of nature was
+likely to be my own without the necessity of crime.
+
+“There must be a secret repository of papers somewhere,” said Sir
+Joseph Job, as if he suspected more than he wished just then to
+express; “Mr. Goldencalf is largely a creditor on the public books, and
+yet here is not so much as a scrip for a pound!”
+
+I left the room and soon returned, bringing with me the bundle that had
+been committed to me by my father.
+
+“Here, gentlemen,” I said, “is a large packet of papers that were given
+to me by the deceased on his death-bed with his own hands. It is, as
+you see, sealed with his seal and especially addressed to me in his own
+handwriting, and it is not violent to suppose that the contents concern
+me only. Still, as you take so great an interest in the affairs of the
+deceased, it shall now be opened, and those contents, so far as you can
+have any right to know them, shall not be hid from you.”
+
+I thought Sir Joseph looked grave when he saw the packet and had
+examined the handwriting of the envelope. All, however, expressed their
+satisfaction that the search was now most probably ended. I broke the
+seals and exposed the contents of the envelope. Within it there were
+several smaller packets, each sealed with the seal of the deceased, and
+each addressed to me in his own handwriting like the external covering.
+Each of these smaller packets, too, had a separate indorsement of its
+contents. Taking them as they lay, I read aloud the nature of each
+before I proceeded to the next. They were also numbered.
+
+“No. 1,” I commenced. “Certificates of public stock held by Tho.
+Goldencalf, June 12th, 1815.” We were now at June 29th of the same
+year. As I laid aside this packet I observed that the sum indorsed on
+its back greatly exceeded a million. “No. 2. Certificates of Bank of
+England stock.” This sum was several hundred thousands of pounds. “No.
+3. South Sea Annuities.” Nearly three hundred thousand pounds. “No. 4.
+Bonds and mortgages.” Four hundred and thirty thousand pounds. “No. 5.
+The bond of Sir Joseph Job for sixty-three thousand pounds.”
+
+I laid down the paper and involuntarily exclaimed, “Property is in
+danger!” Sir Joseph turned pale, but he beckoned to me to proceed,
+saying, “We shall soon come to the will, sir.”
+
+“No. 6.—” I hesitated; for it was an assignment to myself, which from
+its very nature I perceived was an abortive attempt to escape the
+payment of the legacy duty.
+
+“Well, sir, No. 6?” inquired Sir Joseph, with tremulous exultation.
+
+“Is an instrument affecting myself, and with which you have no concern,
+sir.”
+
+“We shall see, sir, we shall see, sir—if you refuse to exhibit the
+paper there are laws to compel you.”
+
+“To do what, Sir Joseph Job? To exhibit to my father’s debtors’ papers
+that are exclusively addressed to me and which can affect me only? But
+here is the paper, gentlemen, that you so much desire to see. ‘No. 7.
+The last will and testament of Tho. Goldencalf, dated June 17th,
+1816.’” (He died June the 24th of the same year.)
+
+“Ah! the precious instrument!” exclaimed Sir Joseph Job, eagerly
+extending his hand as if expecting to receive the will.
+
+“This paper, as you perceive, gentlemen,” I said, holding it up in a
+manner that all present might see it, “is especially addressed to
+myself, and it shall not quit my hands until I learn that some other
+has a better right to it.”
+
+I confess my heart failed me as I broke the seals, for I had seen but
+little of my father and I knew that he had been a man of very peculiar
+opinions as well as habits. The will was all in his own handwriting,
+and it was very short. Summoning courage I read it aloud in the
+following words:
+
+“In the name of God—Amen: I, Tho. Goldencalf, of the parish of Bow, in
+the city of London, do publish and declare this instrument to be my
+last will and testament:
+
+“That is to say; I bequeath to my only child and much-beloved son, John
+Goldencalf, all my real estate in the parish of Bow and city of London,
+aforesaid, to be held in free-simple by him, his heirs, and assigns,
+forever.
+
+“I bequeath to my said only child and much-beloved son, John
+Goldencalf, all my personal property of every sort and description
+whatever of which I may die possessed, including bonds and mortgages,
+public debt, bank stock, notes of hand, goods and chattels, and all
+others of my effects, to him, his heirs, or assigns.
+
+“I nominate and appoint my said much-beloved son, John Goldencalf, to
+be the sole executor of this my last will and testament, counselling
+him not to confide in any of those who may profess to have been my
+friends; and particularly to turn a deaf ear to all the pretensions and
+solicitations of Sir Joseph Job, Knight. In witness whereof,” etc.,
+etc.
+
+This will was duly executed, and it was witnessed by the nurse, his
+confidential clerk, and the housemaid.
+
+“Property is in danger, Sir Joseph!” I dryly remarked, as I gathered
+together the papers in order to secure them.
+
+“This will may be set aside, gentlemen!” cried the knight in a fury.
+“It contains a libel!”
+
+“And for whose benefit, Sir Joseph?” I quietly inquired. “With or
+without the will my title to my father’s assets would seem to be
+equally valid.”
+
+This was so evidently true that the more prudent retired in silence;
+and even Sir Joseph after a short delay, during which he appeared to be
+strangely agitated, withdrew. The next week his failure was announced,
+in consequence of some extravagant risks on ’Change, and eventually I
+received but three shillings and fourpence in the pound for my bond of
+sixty-three thousand.
+
+When the money was paid I could not help exclaiming mentally, “Property
+is in danger!”
+
+The following morning Sir Joseph Job balanced his account with the
+world by cutting his throat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+ABOUT THE SOCIAL-STAKE SYSTEM, THE DANGERS OF CONCENTRATION, AND OTHER
+MORAL AND IMMORAL CURIOSITIES.
+
+
+The affairs of my father were almost as easy of settlement as those of
+a pauper. In twenty-four hours I was completely master of them, and
+found myself if not the richest, certainly one of the richest subjects
+of Europe. I say subjects, for sovereigns frequently have a way of
+appropriating the effects of others that would render a pretension to
+rivalry ridiculous. Debts there were none: and if there had been, ready
+money was not wanting; the balance in cash in my favor at the bank
+amounted in itself to a fortune.
+
+The reader may now suppose that I was perfectly happy. Without a
+solitary claim on either my time or my estate, I was in the enjoyment
+of an income that materially exceeded the revenues of many reigning
+princes. I had not an ex-pensive nor a vicious habit of any sort. Of
+houses, horses, hounds, packs, and menials, there were none to vex or
+perplex me. In every particular save one I was completely my own
+master. That one was the near, dear, cherished sentiment that rendered
+Anna in my eyes an angel (and truly she was little short of it in those
+of other people), and made her the polar star to which every wish
+pointed. How gladly would I have paid half a million just then to be
+the grandson of a baronet with precedency from the seventeenth century!
+
+There was, however, another and a present cause for un-easiness that
+gave me even more concern than the fact that my family reached the dark
+ages with so much embarrassing facility. In witnessing the dying agony
+of my ancestor I had got a dread lesson on the vanity, the hopeless
+character, the dangers, and the delusions of wealth that time can never
+eradicate. The history of its accumulation was ever present to mar the
+pleasure of its possession. I do not mean that I suspected what by the
+world’s convention is deemed dishonesty—of that there had been no
+necessity—but simply that the heartless and estranged existence, the
+waste of energies, the blunted charities, and the isolated and
+distrustful habits of my father appeared to me to be but poorly
+requited by the joyless ownership of its millions. I would have given
+largely to be directed in such a way as while escaping the wastefulness
+of the shoals of Scylla I might in my own case steer clear of the
+miserly rocks of Charybdis.
+
+When I drove from between the smoky lines of the London houses into the
+green fields and amid the blossoming hedges, this earth looked
+beautiful and as if it were made to be loved. I saw in it the
+workmanship of a divine and beneficent Creator, and it was not
+difficult to persuade myself that he who dwelt in the confusion of a
+town in order to transfer gold from the pocket of his neighbor to his
+own had mistaken the objects of his being. My poor ancestor who had
+never quitted London stood before me with his dying regrets; and my
+first resolution was to live in open communion with my kind. So
+intense, indeed, did my anxiety to execute this purpose become that it
+might have led even to frenzy had not a fortunate circumstance
+interposed to save me from so dire a calamity.
+
+The coach in which I had taken passage (for I purposely avoided the
+parade and trouble of post-chaise and servants), passed through a
+market town of known loyalty on the eve of a contested election. This
+appeal to the intelligence and patriotism of the constituency had
+occurred in consequence of the late incumbent having taken office. The
+new minister, for he was a member of the cabinet, had just ended his
+canvass, and he was about to address his fellow-subjects from a window
+of the tavern in which he lodged. Fatigued, but ready to seek mental
+relief by any means, I threw myself from the coach, secured a room, and
+made one of the multitude.
+
+The favorite candidate occupied a large balcony surrounded by his
+principal friends, among whom it was delightful to see earls, lords
+John, baronets, dignitaries of the church, tradesmen of influence in
+the borough, and even a mechanic or two, all squeezed together in the
+agreeable amalgamation of political affinity. Here then, thought I, is
+an example of the heavenly charities I The candidate himself, the son
+and heir of a peer, feels that he is truly of the same flesh and blood
+as his constituents; how amiably he smiles!—how bland are his
+manners!—and with what cordiality does he shake hands with the
+greasiest and the worst! There must be a corrective to human pride, a
+stimulus to the charities, a never-ending lesson of benevolence in this
+part of our excellent system, and I will look farther into it. The
+candidate appeared and his harangue commenced.
+
+Memory would fail me were I to attempt recording the precise language
+of the orator, but his opinions and precepts are so deeply graven on my
+recollection that I do not fear misrepresenting them. He commenced with
+a very proper and eloquent eulogium on the constitution, which he
+fearlessly pronounced to be in its way the very perfection of human
+reason; in proof of which he adduced the well-ascertained fact that it
+had always been known throughout the vicissitudes and trials of so many
+centuries to accommodate itself to circumstances, abhorring change.
+“Yes, my friends,” he exclaimed, in a burst of patriotic and
+constitutional fervor, “whether under the roses or the lilies—the
+Tudors, the Stuarts, or the illustrious house of Brunswick, this
+glorious structure has resisted the storms of faction, has been able to
+receive under its sheltering roof the most opposite elements of
+domestic strife, affording protection, warmth, aye, and food and
+raiment”—(here the orator happily laid his hand on the shoulder of a
+butcher, who wore a frieze overcoat that made him look not unlike a
+stall-fed beast)—“yes, food and raiment, victuals and drink, to the
+meanest subject in the realm. Nor is this all; it is a constitution
+peculiarly English: and who is there so base, so vile, so untrue to
+himself, to his fathers, to his descendants, as to turn his back on a
+constitution that is thoroughly and inherently English, a constitution
+that he has inherited from his ancestors, and which by every obligation
+both human and divine he is bound to transmit unchanged to
+posterity”;—here the orator, who continued to speak, however, was
+deafened by shouts of applause, and that part of the subject might very
+fairly be considered as definitively settled.
+
+From the constitution as a whole the candidate next proceeded to extol
+the particular feature of it that was known as the borough of
+Householder. According to his account of this portion of the
+government, its dwellers were animated by the noblest spirit of
+independence, the most rooted determination to uphold the ministry of
+which he was the least worthy member, and were distinguished by what in
+an ecstasy of political eloquence he happily termed the most freeborn
+understanding of its rights and privileges. This loyal and judicious
+borough had never been known to waste its favors on those who had not a
+stake in the community. It understood that fundamental principle of
+good government which lays down the axiom that none were to be trusted
+but those who had a visible and an extended interest in the country;
+for without these pledges of honesty and independence what had the
+elector to expect but bribery and corruption—a traffic in his dearest
+rights, and a bargaining that might destroy the glorious institutions
+under which he dwelt. This part of the harangue was listened to in
+respectful silence, and shortly after the orator concluded; when the
+electors dispersed, with, no doubt, a better opinion of themselves and
+the constitution than it had probably been their good fortune to
+entertain since the previous election.
+
+Accident placed me at dinner (the house being crowded) at the same
+table with an attorney who had been very active the whole morning among
+the Householders, and who I soon learned, from himself, was the
+especial agent of the owner of the independent borough in question. He
+told me that he had came down with the expectation of disposing of the
+whole property to Lord Pledge, the ministerial candidate named; but the
+means had not been forthcoming as he had been led to hope, and the
+bargain was unluckily broken off at the very moment when it was of the
+utmost importance to know to whom the independent electors rightfully
+belonged.
+
+“His lordship, however,” continued the attorney, winking, “has done
+what is handsome; and there can be no more doubt of his election than
+there would be of yours did you happen to own the borough.”
+
+“And is the property now open for sale?” I asked.
+
+“Certainly-my principal can hold out no longer. The price is settled,
+and I have his power of attorney to make the preliminary bargain. ’Tis
+a thousand pities that the public mind should be left in this undecided
+state on the eve of an election.”
+
+“Then, sir, I will be the purchaser.”
+
+My companion looked at me with astonishment and doubt. He had
+transacted too much business of this nature, however, not to feel his
+way before he was either off or on.
+
+“The price of the estate is three hundred and twenty-five thousand
+pounds, sir, and the rental is only six!”
+
+“Be it so. My name is Goldencalf: by accompanying me to town you shall
+receive the money.”
+
+“Goldencalf! What, sir, the only son and heir of the late Thomas
+Goldencalf of Cheapside?”
+
+“The same. My father has not been dead a month.”
+
+“Pardon me, sir—convince me of your identity—we must be particular in
+matters of this sort—and you shall have possession of the property in
+season to secure your own election or that of any of your friends. I
+will return Lord Pledge his small advances, and another time he will
+know better than to fail of keeping his promises. What is a borough
+good for if a nobleman’s word is not sacred? You will find the
+electors, in particular, every way worthy of your favor. They are as
+frank, loyal, and straightforward a constituency as any in England. No
+skulking behind the ballot for them!—and in all respects they are
+fearless Englishmen who will do what they say, and say whatever their
+landlord shall please to require of them.”
+
+As I had sundry letters and other documents about me, nothing was
+easier than to convince the attorney of my identity. He called for pen
+and ink; drew out of his pocket the contract that had been prepared for
+Lord Pledge; gave it to me to read; filled the blanks; and affixing his
+name, called the waiters as witnesses, and presented me the paper with
+a promptitude and respect that I found really delightful. So much,
+thought I, for having given pledges to society by the purchase of a
+borough. I drew on my bankers for three hundred and twenty-five
+thousand pounds, and arose from table virtually the owner of the estate
+of Householder and of the political consciences of its tenantry.
+
+A fact so important could not long be unknown; and in a few minutes all
+eyes in the coffee-room were upon me. The landlord presented himself
+and begged I would do him the honor to take possession of his family
+parlor, there being no other at his disposal. I was hardly installed
+before a servant in a handsome livery presented the following note.
+
+“DEAR MR. GOLDENCALF:
+
+“I have this moment heard of your being in town, and am exceedingly
+rejoiced to learn it. A long intimacy with your late excellent and most
+loyal father justifies my claiming you for a friend, and I waive all
+ceremony (official, of course, is meant, there being no reason for any
+other between us), and beg to be admitted for half an hour.
+
+“Dear Mr. Goldencalf,”
+
+“Yours very faithfully and sincerely,”
+
+“PLEDGE.”
+
+“—GOLDENCALF, Esquire.”
+
+“Monday evening.”
+
+I begged that the noble visitor might not be made to wait a moment.
+Lord Pledge met me like an old and intimate friend. He made a hundred
+handsome inquiries after my dead ancestor; spoke feelingly of his
+regret at not having been summoned to attend his death-bed; and then
+very ingenuously and warmly congratulated me on my succession to so
+large a property.
+
+“I hear, too, you have bought this borough, my dear sir. I could not
+make it convenient just at this particular moment to conclude my own
+arrangement—but it is a good thing. Three hundred and twenty thousand,
+I suppose, as was mentioned between me and the other party?”
+
+“Three hundred and twenty-five thousand, Lord Pledge.”
+
+I perceived by the countenance of the noble candidate that I had paid
+the odd five thousand as a fine—a circumstance which accounted for the
+promptitude of the attorney in the transaction, he most probably
+pocketing the difference himself.
+
+“You mean to sit, of course?”
+
+“I do, my lord, as one of the members, at the next general election;
+but at present I shall be most happy to aid your return.”
+
+“My dear Mr. Goldencalf—”
+
+“Really, without presuming to compliment, Lord Pledge, the noble
+sentiments I heard you express this morning were so very proper, so
+exceedingly statesmanlike, so truly English, that I shall feel
+infinitely more satisfaction in knowing that you fill the vacant seat
+than if it were in my own possession.”
+
+“I honor your public spirit, Mr. Goldencalf, and only wish to God there
+was more of it in the world. But you can count on our friendship, sir.
+What you have just remarked is true, very true, only too true, true to
+a hair-a-a-a—I mean, my dear Mr. Goldencalf, most especially those
+sentiments of mine which-a-a-a-I say it, before God, without vanity—but
+which, as you have so very ably intimated, are so truly proper and
+English.”
+
+“I sincerely think so, Lord Pledge, or I should not have said it. I am
+peculiarly situated myself. With an immense fortune, without rank,
+name, or connections, nothing is easier than for one of my years to be
+led astray; and it is my ardent desire to hit upon some expedient that
+may connect me properly with society.”
+
+“Marry, my dear young friend—select a wife from among the fair and
+virtuous of this happy isle—unluckily I can propose nothing in this way
+myself—for both my own sisters are disposed of.”
+
+“I have made choice, already, I thank you a thousand times, my dear
+Lord Pledge; although I scarcely dare execute my own wishes. There are
+objections—if I were only the child, now, of a baronet’s second son,
+or—”
+
+“Become a baronet yourself,” once more interrupted my noble friend,
+with an evident relief from suspense; for I verily believe he thought I
+was about to ask for something better. “Your affair shall be arranged
+by the end of the week—and if there is anything else I can do for you,
+I beg you to name it without reserve.”
+
+“If I could hear a few more of those remarkable sentiments of yours,
+concerning the stake we should all have in society, I think it would
+relieve my mind.”
+
+My companion looked at me a moment with a very awkward sort of an
+intensity, drew his hand across his brows, reflected, and then
+obligingly complied.
+
+“You attach too much importance, Mr. Goldencalf, to a few certainly
+very just but very ill-arranged ideas. That a man without a proper
+stake in society is little better than the beasts of the fields, I hold
+to be so obvious that it is unnecessary to dwell on the point. Reason
+as you will, forward or backward, you arrive at the same result—he that
+hath nothing is usually treated by mankind little better than a dog,
+and he that is little better than a dog usually has nothing. Again.
+What distinguishes the savage from the civilized man? Why, civilization
+to be sure. Now, what is civilization? The arts of life. What feeds,
+nourishes, sustains the arts of life? Money or property. By
+consequence, civilization is property, and property is civilization. If
+the control of a country is in the hands of those who possess the
+property, the government is a civilized government; but, on the other
+hand, if it is in the hands of those who have no property, the
+government is necessarily an uncivilized government. It is quite
+impossible that any one should become a safe statesman who does not
+possess a direct property interest in society. You know there is not a
+tyro of our political sect who does not fully admit the truth of this
+axiom.”
+
+“Mr. Pitt?”
+
+“Why, Pitt was certainly an exception in one way; but then, you will
+recollect, he was the immediate representative of the tories, who own
+most of the property of England.”
+
+“Mr. Fox?”
+
+“Fox represented the whigs, who own all the rest, you know. No, my dear
+Goldencalf, reason as you will, we shall always arrive at the same
+results. You will, of course, as you have just said, take one of the
+seats yourself at the next general election?”
+
+“I shall be too proud of being your colleague to hesitate.”
+
+This speech sealed our friendship; for it was a pledge to my noble
+acquaintance of his future connection with the borough. He was much too
+high-bred to express his thanks in vulgar phrases (though high-breeding
+rarely exhibits all its finer qualities pending an election), but—a man
+of the world, and one of a class whose main business it is to put the
+suaviter in modo, as the French have it en evidence,—the reader may be
+sure that when we parted that night I was in perfect good humor with
+myself and, as a matter of course, with my new acquaintance.
+
+The next day the canvass was renewed, and we had another convincing
+speech on the subject of the virtue of “a stake in society”; for Lord
+Pledge was tactician enough to attack the citadel, once assured of its
+weak point, rather than expend his efforts on the outworks of the
+place. That night the attorney arrived from town with the title-deeds
+all properly executed (they had been some time in preparation for Lord
+Pledge), and the following morning early the tenants were served with
+the usual notices, with a handsomely expressed sentiment on my part in
+favor of “a stake in society.” About noon Lord Pledge walked over the
+course, as it is expressed at Newmarket and Doncaster. After dinner we
+separated, my noble friend returning to town, while I pursued my way to
+the rectory.
+
+Anna never appeared more fresh, more serene, more elevated above
+mortality, than when we met, a week after I had quitted Householder, in
+the breakfast-parlor of her father’s abode.
+
+“You are beginning to look like yourself again, Jack,” she said,
+extending her hand with the simple cordiality of an Englishwoman; “and
+I hope we shall find you more rational.”
+
+“Ah, Anna, if I could only presume to throw myself at your feet, and
+tell you how much and what I feel, I should be the happiest fellow in
+all England.”
+
+“As it is you are the most miserable!” the laughing girl answered as,
+crimsoned to the temples, she drew away the hand I was foolishly
+pressing against my heart. “Let us go to breakfast, Mr. Goldencalf—my
+father has ridden across the country to visit Dr. Liturgy.”
+
+“Anna,” I said, after seating myself and taking a cup of tea from
+fingers that were rosy as the morn, “I fear you are the greatest enemy
+that I have on earth.”
+
+“John Goldencalf!” exclaimed the startled girl, turning pale and then
+flushing violently. “Pray explain yourself.”
+
+“I love you to my heart’s core—could marry you, and then, I fear,
+worship you, as man never before worshipped woman.”
+
+Anna laughed faintly.
+
+“And you feel in danger of the sin of idolatry?” she at length
+succeeded in saying.
+
+“No, I am in danger of narrowing my sympathies—of losing a broad and
+safe hold of life—of losing my proper stake in society—of—in short, of
+becoming as useless to my fellows as my poor, poor father, and of
+making an end as miserable. Oh! Anna, could you have witnessed the
+hopelessness of that death-bed, you could never wish me a fate like
+his!”
+
+My pen is unequal to convey an adequate idea of the expression with
+which Anna regarded me. Wonder, doubt, apprehension, affection, and
+anguish were all beaming in her eyes; but the unnatural brightness of
+these conflicting sentiments was tempered by a softness that resembled
+the pearly lustre of an Italian sky.
+
+“If I yield to my fondness, Anna, in what will my condition differ from
+that of my miserable father’s? He concentrated his feelings in the love
+of money, and I—yes, I feel it here, I know it is here—I should love
+you so intensely as to shut out every generous sentiment in favor of
+others. I have a fearful responsibility on my shoulders—wealth, gold;
+gold beyond limits; and to save my very soul I must extend not narrow
+my interest in my fellow-creatures. Were there a hundred such Annas I
+might press you all to my heart—but, one!—no—no—’twould be
+misery—’twould be perdition! The very excess of such a passion would
+render me a heartless miser, unworthy of the confidence of my
+fellow-men!”
+
+The radiant and yet serene eyes of Anna seemed to read my soul; and
+when I had done speaking she arose, stole timidly to my side of the
+table, as woman approaches when she feels most, placed her velvet-like
+hand on my burning forehead, pressed its throbbing pulses gently to her
+heart, burst into tears, and fled.
+
+We dined alone, nor did we meet again until the dinner hour. The manner
+of Anna was soothing, gentle, even affectionate; but she carefully
+avoided the subject of the morning. As for myself, I was constantly
+brooding over the danger of concentrating interests, and of the
+excellence of the social-stake system. “Your spirits will be better,
+Jack, in a day or two,” said Anna, when we had taken wine after the
+soup. “Country air and old friends will restore your freshness and
+color.”
+
+“If there were a thousand Annas I could be happy as man was never happy
+before! But I must not, dare not, lessen my hold on society.”
+
+“All of which proves my insufficiency to render you happy. But here
+comes Francis with yesterday morning’s paper—let us see what society is
+about in London.”
+
+After a few moments of intense occupation with the journal, an
+exclamation of pleasure and surprise escaped the sweet girl. On raising
+my eyes I saw her gazing (as I fancied) fondly at myself.
+
+“Read what you have that seems to give you so much pleasure.”
+
+She complied, reading with an eager and tremulous voice the following
+paragraph:
+
+“His majesty has been most graciously pleased to raise John Goldencalf
+of Householder Hall, in the county of Dorset, and of Cheapside,
+Esquire, to the dignity of a baronet of the united kingdoms of Great
+Britain and Ireland.”
+
+“Sir John Goldencalf, I have the honor to drink to your health and
+happiness!” cried the delighted girl, brightening like the dawn, and
+wetting her pouting lip with liquor less ruby than itself. “Here,
+Francis, fill a bumper and drink to the new baronet.”
+
+The gray-headed butler did as ordered with a very good grace, and then
+hurried into the servants’ hall to communicate the news.
+
+“Here at least, Jack, is a new hold that society has on you, whatever
+hold you may have on society.”
+
+I was pleased because she was pleased, and because it showed that Lord
+Pledge had some sense of gratitude (although he afterward took occasion
+to intimate that I owed the favor chiefly to HOPE), and I believe my
+eyes never expressed more fondness.
+
+“Lady Goldencalf would not have an awkward sound after all, dearest
+Anna.”
+
+“As applied to one, Sir John, it might possibly do; but not as applied
+to a hundred.” Anna laughed, blushed, burst into tears once more, and
+again fled.
+
+What right have I to trifle with the feelings of this single-hearted
+and excellent girl, said I to myself; it is evident that the subject
+distresses her—she is unequal to its discussion, and it is unmanly and
+improper in me to treat it in this manner. I must be true to my
+character as a gentleman and a man—aye, and, under present
+circumstances, as a baronet; and—I will never speak of it again as long
+as I live.
+
+The following day I took leave of Dr. Etherington and his daughter,
+with the avowed intention of travelling for a year or two. The good
+rector gave me much friendly advice, flattered me with expressions of
+confidence in my discretion, and, squeezing me warmly by the hand,
+begged me to recollect that I had always a home at the rectory. When I
+had made my adieus to the father, I went, with a sorrowful heart, in
+quest of the daughter. She was still in the little
+breakfast-parlor—that parlor so loved! I found her pale, timid,
+sensitive, bland, but serene. Little could ever disturb that heavenly
+quality in the dear girl; if she laughed, it was with a restrained and
+moderated joy; if she wept, it was like rain falling from a sky that
+still shone with the lustre of the sun. It was only when feeling and
+nature were unutterably big within her, that some irresistible impulse
+of her sex betrayed her into emotions like those I had twice witnessed
+so lately.
+
+“You are about to leave us, Jack,” she said, holding out her hand
+kindly and without the affectation of an indifference she did not feel;
+“you will see many strange faces, but you will see none who—”
+
+I waited for the completion of the sentence, but, although she
+struggled hard for self-possession, it was never finished.
+
+“At my age, Anna, and with my means, it would be unbecoming to remain
+at home, when, if I may so express it, ‘human nature is abroad.’ I go
+to quicken my sympathies, to open my heart to my kind, and to avoid the
+cruel regrets that tortured the death-bed of my father.”
+
+“Well—well,” interrupted the sobbing girl, “we will talk of it no more.
+It is best that you should travel; and so adieu, with a thousand—nay,
+millions of good wishes for your happiness and safe return. You will
+come back to us, Jack, when tired of other scenes.”
+
+This was said with gentle earnestness and a sincerity so winning that
+it came near upsetting all my philosophy; but I could not marry the
+whole sex, and to bind down my affections in one would have been giving
+the death-blow to the development of that sublime principle on which I
+was bent, and which I had already decided was to make me worthy of my
+fortune and the ornament of my species. Had I been offered a kingdom,
+however, I could not speak. I took the unresisting girl in my arms,
+folded her to my heart, pressed a burning kiss on her cheek, and
+withdrew.
+
+“You will come back to us, Jack?” she half whispered, as her hand was
+reluctantly drawn through my own.
+
+Oh! Anna, it was indeed painful to abandon thy frank and gentle
+confidence, thy radiant beauty, thy serene affections, and all thy
+womanly virtues, in order to practise my newly-discovered theory! Long
+did thy presence haunt me—nay, never did it entirely desert me—putting
+my constancy to a severe proof, and threatening at each remove to
+contract the lengthening chain that still bound me to thee, thy
+fireside, and thy altars! But I triumphed, and went abroad upon the
+earth with a heart expanding towards all the creatures of God, though
+thy image was still enshrined in its inmost core, shining in womanly
+glory, pure, radiant, and without spot, like the floating prism that
+forms the lustre of the diamond.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+A THEORY OF PALPABLE SUBLIMITY—SOME PRACTICAL IDEAS, AND THE
+COMMENCEMENT OF ADVENTURES.
+
+
+The recollection of the intense feelings of that important period of my
+life has, in some measure, disturbed the connection of the narrative,
+and may possibly have left some little obscurity in the mind of the
+reader on the subject of the new sources of happiness that had broken
+on my own intelligence. A word here in the way of elucidation,
+therefore, may not be misapplied, although it is my purpose to refer
+more to my acts, and to the wonderful incidents it will shortly be my
+duty to lay before the world, for a just understanding of my views,
+than to mere verbal explanations.
+
+Happiness—happiness, here and hereafter, was my goal. I aimed at a life
+of useful and active benevolence, a deathbed of hope and joy, and an
+eternity of fruition. With such an object before me, my thoughts, from
+the moment that I witnessed the dying regrets of my father, had been
+intensely brooding over the means of attainment. Surprising as, no
+doubt, it will appear to vulgar minds, I obtained the clew to this
+sublime mystery at the late election for the borough of Householder,
+and from the lips of my Lord Pledge. Like other important discoveries,
+it is very simple when understood, being easily rendered intelligible
+to the dullest capacities, as, indeed, in equity, ought to be the case
+with every principle that is so intimately connected with the
+well-being of man.
+
+It is a universally admitted truth that happiness is the only
+legitimate object of all human associations. The ruled concede a
+certain portion of their natural rights for the benefits of peace,
+security, and order, with the understanding that they are to enjoy the
+remainder as their own proper indefeasible estate. It is true that
+there exist in different nations some material differences of opinion
+on the subject of the quantities to be bestowed and retained; but these
+aberrations from a just medium are no more than so many caprices of the
+human judgment, and in no manner do they affect the principle. I found
+also that all the wisest and best of the species, or what is much the
+same thing, the most responsible, uniformly maintain that he who has
+the largest stake in society is, in the nature of things, the most
+qualified to administer its affairs. By a stake in society is meant,
+agreeable to universal convention, a multiplication of those interests
+which occupy us in our daily concerns—or what is vulgarly called
+property. This principle works by exciting us to do right through those
+heavy investments of our own which would inevitably suffer were we to
+do wrong. The proposition is now clear, nor can the premises readily be
+mistaken. Happiness is the aim of society; and property, or a vested
+interest in that society, is the best pledge of our disinterestedness
+and justice, and the best qualification for its proper control. It
+follows as a legitimate corollary that a multiplication of those
+interests will increase the stake, and render us more and more worthy
+of the trust by elevating us as near as may be to the pure and ethereal
+condition of the angels. One of those happy accidents which sometimes
+make men emperors and kings, had made me, perhaps, the richest subject
+of Europe. With this polar star of theory shining before my eyes, and
+with practical means so ample, it would have been clearly my own fault
+had I not steered my bark into the right haven. If he who had the
+heaviest investments was the most likely to love his fellows, there
+could be no great difficulty for one in my situation to take the lead
+in philanthropy. It is true that with superficial observers the
+instance of my own immediate ancestor might be supposed to form an
+exception, or rather an objection, to the theory. So far from this
+being the case, however, it proves the very reverse. My father in a
+great measure had concentrated all his investments in the national
+debt! Now, beyond all cavil, he loved the funds intensely; grew violent
+when they were assailed; cried out for bayonets when the mass declaimed
+against taxation; eulogized the gallows when there were menaces of
+revolt, and in a hundred other ways prove that “where the treasure is,
+there will the heart be also.” The instance of my father, therefore,
+like all exceptions, only went to prove the excellence of the rule. He
+had merely fallen into the error of contraction, when the only safe
+course was that of expansion. I resolved to expand; to do that which
+probably no political economist had ever yet thought of doing—in short,
+to carry out the principle of the social stake in such a way as should
+cause me to love all things, and consequently to become worthy of being
+intrusted with the care of all things.
+
+On reaching town my earliest visit was one of thanks to my Lord Pledge.
+At first I had felt some doubts whether the baronetcy would or would
+not aid the system of philanthropy; for by raising me above a large
+portion of my kind, it was in so much at least a removal from
+philanthropical sympathies; but by the time the patent was received and
+the fees were paid, I found that it might fairly be considered a
+pecuniary investment, and that it was consequently brought within the
+rule I had prescribed for my own government.
+
+The next thing was to employ suitable agents to aid in making the
+purchases that were necessary to attach me to mankind. A month was
+diligently occupied in this way. As ready money was not wanting, and I
+was not very particular on the subject of prices, at the end of that
+time I began to have certain incipient sentiments which went to prove
+the triumphant success of the experiment. In other words I owned much,
+and was beginning to take a lively interest in all I owned.
+
+I made purchases of estates in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.
+This division of real property was meant to equalize my sentiments
+justly between the different portions of my native country. Not
+satisfied with this, however, I extended the system to the colonies. I
+had East India shares, a running ship, Canada land, a plantation in
+Jamaica, sheep at the Cape and at New South Wales, an indigo concern at
+Bengal, an establishment for the collection of antiques in the Ionian
+Isles, and a connection with a shipping house for the general supply of
+our various dependencies with beer, bacon, cheese, broadcloths, and
+ironmongery. From the British empire my interests were soon extended
+into other countries. On the Garonne and Xeres I bought vineyards. In
+Germany I took some shares in different salt and coal mines; the same
+in South America in the precious metals; in Russia I dipped deeply into
+tallow; in Switzerland I set up an extensive manufactory of watches,
+and bought all the horses for a voiturier on a large scale. I had
+silkworms in Lombardy, olives and hats in Tuscany, a bath in Lucca, and
+a maccaroni establishment at Naples. To Sicily I sent funds for the
+purchase of wheat, and at Rome I kept a connoisseur to conduct a
+general agency in the supply of British articles, such as mustard,
+porter, pickles, and corned beef, as well as for the forwarding of
+pictures and statues to the lovers of the arts and of VIRTU.
+
+By the time all this was effected I found my hands full of business.
+Method, suitable agents, and a resolution to succeed smoothed the way,
+however, and I began to look about me and to take breath. By way of
+relaxation I now descended into details; and for a few days I
+frequented the meetings of those who are called “the Saints,” in order
+to see if something might be done towards the attainment of my object
+through their instrumentality. I cannot say that this experiment met
+with all the success I had anticipated. I heard a great deal of subtle
+discussion, found that manner was of more account than matter, and had
+unreasonable and ceaseless appeals to my pocket. So near a view of
+charity had a tendency to expose its blemishes, as the brilliancy of
+the sun is known to exhibit defects on the face of beauty, which escape
+the eye when seen through the medium of that artificial light for which
+they are best adapted; and I soon contented myself with sending my
+contributions at proper intervals, keeping aloof in person. This
+experiment gave me occasion to perceive that human virtues, like little
+candles, shine best in the dark, and that their radiance is chiefly
+owing to the atmosphere of a “naughty world.” From speculating I
+returned to facts.
+
+The question of slavery had agitated the benevolent for some years, and
+finding a singular apathy in ray own bosom on this important subject, I
+bought five hundred of each sex to stimulate my sympathies. This led me
+nearer to the United States of America, a country that I had endeavored
+to blot out of my recollection; for while thus encouraging a love for
+the species, I had scarcely thought it necessary to go so far from
+home. As no rule exists without an exception, I confess I was a good
+deal disposed to believe that a Yankee might very fairly be an omission
+in an Englishman’s philanthropy. But “in for a penny in for a pound.”
+The negroes led me to the banks of the Mississippi, where I was soon
+the owner of both a sugar and a cotton plantation. In addition to these
+purchases I took shares in divers South-Seamen, owned a coral and pearl
+fishery of my own, and sent an agent with a proposition to King
+Tamamamaah to create a monopoly of sandalwood in our joint behalf.
+
+The earth and all it contained assumed new glories in my eyes. I had
+fulfilled the essential condition of the political economists, the
+jurists, the constitution-mongers, and all the “talents and decency,”
+and had stakes in half the societies of the world. I was fit to govern,
+I was fit to advise, to dictate to most of the people of Christendom;
+for I had taken a direct interest in their welfares by making them my
+own. Twenty times was I about to jump into a post-chaise, and to gallop
+down to the rectory in order to lay my newborn alliance with the
+species, and all its attendant felicity, at the feet of Anna, but the
+terrible thought of monogamy, and of its sympathy-withering
+consequences, as often stayed my course. I wrote to her weekly,
+however, making her the participator of a portion of my happiness,
+though I never had the satisfaction of receiving a single line in
+reply.
+
+Fairly emancipated from selfishness, and pledged to the species, I now
+quitted England on a tour of philanthropical inspection. I shall not
+weary the reader with an account of my journeys over the beaten tracks
+of the continent, but transport him and myself at once to Paris, in
+which city I arrived on the 17th of May, Anno Domini 1819. I had seen
+much, fancied myself improved, and, by constant dwelling on my system,
+saw its excellences as plainly as Napoleon saw the celebrated star
+which defied the duller vision of his uncle the cardinal. At the same
+time, as usually happens with those who direct all their energies to a
+given point, the opinions originally formed of certain portions of my
+theory began to undergo mutations, as nearer and more practical views
+pointed out inconsistencies and exposed defects. As regards Anna in
+particular, the quiet, gentle, unobtrusive, and yet distinct picture of
+womanly loveliness that was rarely absent from my mind, had for the
+past twelvemonth haunted me with a constancy of argument that might
+have unsettled the Newtonian scheme of philosophy itself. I already
+more than questioned whether the benefit to be derived from the support
+of one so affectionate and true would not fully counterbalance the
+disadvantage of a concentration of interest, so far as the sex was
+concerned. This growing opinion was fast getting to be conviction, when
+I encountered on the boulevards one day an old country neighbor of the
+rector’s, who gave me the best account of the family, adding, after
+descanting on the beauty and excellence of Anna herself, that the dear
+girl had quite lately actually refused a peer of the realm, who enjoyed
+all the acknowledged advantages of youth, riches, birth, rank, and a
+good name, and who had selected her from a deep conviction of her
+worth, and of her ability to make any sensible man happy. As to my own
+power over the heart of Anna I never entertained a doubt. She had
+betrayed it in a thousand ways and on a hundred occasions; nor had I
+been at all backward in letting her understand how highly I valued her
+dear self, although I had never yet screwed up my resolution so high as
+distinctly to propose for her hand. But all my unsettled purposes
+became concentrated on hearing this welcome intelligence; and, taking
+an abrupt leave of my old acquaintance, I hurried home and wrote the
+following letter:
+
+Dear—very dear, nay—dearest ANNA:
+
+“I met your old neighbor—this morning on the boulevards, and during an
+interview of an hour we did little else but talk of thee. Although it
+has been my most ardent and most predominant wish to open my heart to
+the whole species, yet, Anna, I fear I have loved thee alone! Absence,
+so far from expanding, appears to contract my affections, too many of
+which centre in thy sweet form and excellent virtues. The remedy I
+proposed is insufficient, and I begin to think that matrimony alone can
+leave me master of sufficient freedom of thought and action to turn the
+attention I ought to the rest of the human race. Thou hast been with me
+in idea in the four corners of the earth, by sea and by land, in
+dangers and in safety, in all seasons, regions, and situations, and
+there is no sufficient reason why those who are ever present in the
+spirit should be materially separated. Thou hast only to say a word, to
+whisper a hope, to breathe a wish, and I will throw myself a repentant
+truant at thy feet and implore thy pity. When united, however, we will
+not lose ourselves in the sordid and narrow paths of selfishness, but
+come forth again in company to acquire a new and still more powerful
+hold on this beautiful creation, of which, by this act, I acknowledge
+thee to be the most divine portion.
+
+“Dearest, dearest Anna, thine and the species’,
+
+“Forever,
+
+“JOHN GOLDENCALF. “TO MISS ETHERINGTON.”
+
+If there was ever a happy fellow on earth it was myself when this
+letter was written, sealed, and fairly despatched. The die was cast,
+and I walked into the air a regenerated and an elastic being! Let what
+might happen, I was sure of Anna. Her gentleness would calm my
+irritability; her prudence temper my energies; her bland but enduring
+affections soothe my soul. I felt at peace with all around me, myself
+included, and I found a sweet assurance of the wisdom of the step I had
+just taken in the expanding sentiment. If such were my sensations now
+that every thought centred in Anna, what would they not become when
+these personal transports were cooled by habit, and nature was left to
+the action of the ordinary impulses! I began to doubt of the
+infallibility of that part of my system which had given me so much
+pain, and to incline to the new doctrine that by concentration on
+particular parts we come most to love the whole. On examination there
+was reason to question whether it was not on this principle even that,
+as an especial landholder, I attained so great an interest in my native
+island; for while I certainly did not own the whole of Great Britain, I
+felt that I had a profound respect for everything in it that was in
+any, even the most remote manner, connected with my own particular
+possessions.
+
+A week flew by in delightful anticipations. The happiness of this short
+but heavenly period became so exciting, so exquisite, that I was on the
+point of giving birth to an improvement on my theory (or rather on the
+theory of the political economists and constitution-mongers, for it is
+in fact theirs and not mine), when the answer of Anna was received. If
+anticipation be a state of so much happiness—happiness being the great
+pursuit of man—why not invent a purely probationary condition of
+society?—why not change its elementary features from positive to
+anticipating interests, which would give more zest to life, and bestow
+felicity unimpaired by the dross of realities? I had determined to
+carry out this principle in practice by an experiment, and left the
+hotel to order an agent to advertise, and to enter into a treaty or
+two, for some new investments (without the smallest intention of
+bringing them to a conclusion), when the porter delivered me the
+ardently expected letter. I never knew what would be the effect of
+taking a stake in society by anticipation, therefore; the contents of
+Anna’s missive driving every subject that was not immediately connected
+with the dear writer, and with sad realities, completely out of my
+head. It is not improbable, however, that the new theory would have
+proved to be faulty, for I have often had occasion to remark that heirs
+(in remainder, for instance), manifest an hostility to the estate, by
+carrying out the principle of anticipation, rather than any of that
+prudent respect for social consequences to which the legislator looks
+with so much anxiety.
+
+The letter of Anna was in the following words:
+
+“Good—nay, Dear JOHN:
+
+“Thy letter was put into my hands yesterday. This is the fifth answer I
+have commenced, and you will therefore see that I do not write without
+reflection. I know thy excellent heart, John, better than it is known
+to thyself. It has either led thee to the discovery of a secret of the
+last importance to thy fellow-creatures, or it has led thee cruelly
+astray. An experiment so noble and so praiseworthy ought not to be
+abandoned on account of a few momentary misgivings concerning the
+result. Do not stay thy eagle flight at the instant thou art soaring so
+near the sun! Should we both judge it for our mutual happiness, I can
+become thy wife at a future day. We are still young, and there is no
+urgency for an immediate union. In the mean time, I will endeavor to
+prepare myself to be the companion of a philanthropist by practising on
+thy theory, and, by expanding my own affections, render myself worthy
+to be the wife of one who has so large a stake in society, and who
+loves so many and so truly.
+
+“Thine imitator and friend,
+
+“Without change,
+
+“ANNA ETHERINGTON.
+
+“To Sir JOHN GOLDENCALF, Bart.
+
+“P.S.—You may perceive that I am in a state of improvement, for I have
+just refused the hand of Lord M’Dee, because I found I loved all his
+neighbors quite as well as I loved the young peer himself.”
+
+Ten thousand furies took possession of my soul, in the shape of so many
+demons of jealousy. Anna expanding her affections! Anna taking any
+other stake in society than that I made sure she would accept through
+me! Anna teaching herself to love more than one, and that one myself!
+The thought was madness. I did not believe in the sincerity of her
+refusal of Lord M’Dee. I ran for a copy of the Peerage (for since my
+own elevation in life I regularly bought both that work and the
+Baronetage), and turned to the page that contained his name. He was a
+Scottish viscount who had just been created a baron of the united
+kingdom, and his age was precisely that of my own. Here was a rival to
+excite distrust. By a singular contradiction in sentiments, the more I
+dreaded his power to injure me, the more I undervalued his means. While
+I fancied Anna was merely playing with me, and had in secret made up
+her mind to be a peeress, I had no doubt that the subject of her choice
+was both ill-favored and awkward, and had cheek-bones like a Tartar.
+While reading of the great antiquity of his family (which reached
+obscurity in the thirteenth century), I set it down as established that
+the first of his unknown predecessors was a bare-legged thief, and, at
+the very moment that I imagined Anna was smiling on him, and retracting
+her coquettish denial, I could have sworn that he spoke with an
+unintelligible border accent, and that he had red hair!
+
+The torment of such pictures grew to be intolerable, and I rushed into
+the open air for relief. How long or whither I wandered I know not; but
+on the morning of the following day I found I was seated in a
+guinguette near the base of Montmartre, eagerly devouring a roll and
+refreshing myself with sour wine. When a little recovered from the
+shock of discovering myself in a situation so novel (for having no
+investment in guinguettes, I had not taken sufficient interest in these
+popular establishments ever to enter one before), I had leisure to look
+about and survey the company. Some fifty Frenchmen of the laboring
+classes were drinking on every side, and talking with a vehemence of
+gesticulation and a clamor that completely annihilated thought. This
+then, thought I, is a scene of popular happiness. These creatures are
+excellent fellows, enjoying themselves on liquor that has not paid the
+city duty, and perhaps I may seize upon some point that favors my
+system among spirits so frank and clamorous. Doubtless if any one among
+them is in possession of any important social secret it will not fail
+to escape him here. From meditations of this philosophical character I
+was suddenly aroused by a violent blow before me, accompanied with an
+exclamation in very tolerable English of the word,
+
+“King!”
+
+On the centre of the board which did the office of a table, and
+directly beneath my eyes, lay a clenched fist of fearful dimensions,
+that in color and protuberances bore a good deal of resemblance to a
+freshly unearthed Jerusalem artichoke. Its sinews seemed to be cracking
+with tension, and the whole knob was so expressive of intense pugnacity
+that my eyes involuntarily sought its owner’s face. I had unconsciously
+taken my seat directly opposite a man whose stature was nearly double
+that of the compact, bustling sputtering, and sturdy little fellows who
+were bawling on every side of us, and whose skinny lips, instead of
+joining in the noise, were so firmly compressed as to render the
+crevice of the mouth no more strongly marked than a wrinkle in the brow
+of a man of sixty. His complexion was naturally fair, but exposure had
+tanned the skin of his face to the color of the crackle of a roasted
+pig; those parts which a painter would be apt to term the “high lights”
+being indicated by touches of red, nearly as bright as fourth-proof
+brandy. His eyes were small, stern, fiery, and very gray; and just at
+the instant they met my admiring look they resembled two stray coals
+that by some means had got separated from the body of adjacent heat in
+the face. He had a prominent, well-shaped nose, athwart which the skin
+was stretched like leather in the process of being rubbed down on the
+currier’s bench, and his ropy black hair was carefully smoothed over
+his temples and brows, in a way to show that he was abroad on a holiday
+excursion.
+
+When our eyes met, this singular-looking being gave me a nod of
+friendly recognition, for no better reason that I could discover than
+the fact that I did not appear to be a Frenchman. “Did mortal man ever
+listen to such fools, captain?” he observed, as if certain we must
+think alike on the subject.
+
+“Really I did not attend to what was said; there certainly is much
+noise.”
+
+“I don’t pretend to understand a word of what they are saying myself;
+but it SOUNDS like thorough nonsense.”
+
+“My ear is not yet sufficiently acute to distinguish sense from
+nonsense by mere intonation and sound—but it would seem, sir, that you
+speak English only.”
+
+“Therein you are mistaken; for, being a great traveller, I have been
+compelled to look about me, and as a nat’ral consequence I speak a
+little of all languages. I do not say that I use the foreign parts of
+speech always fundamentally, but then I worry through an idee so as to
+make it legible and of use, especially in the way of eating and
+drinking. As to French, now, I can say ‘don-nez-me some van,’ and
+‘don-nez-vous some pan,’ as well as the best of them; but when there
+are a dozen throats bawling at once, as is the case with these here
+chaps, why one might as well go on the top of Ape’s Hill and hold a
+conversation with the people he will meet with there, as to pretend to
+hold a rational or a discussional discourse. For my part, where there
+is to be a conversation, I like every one to have his turn, keeping up
+the talk, as it might be, watch and watch; but among these Frenchmen it
+is pretty much as if their idees had been caged, and the door being
+suddenly opened, they fly out in a flock, just for the pleasure of
+saying they are at liberty.”
+
+I now perceived that my companion was a reflecting being, his
+ratiocination being connected by regular links, and that he did not
+boost his philosophy on the leaping-staff of impulse, like most of
+those who were sputtering, and arguing, and wrangling, with untiring
+lungs, in all corners of the guinguette. I frankly proposed, therefore,
+that we should quit the place and walk into the road, where our
+discourse would be less disturbed, and consequently more satisfactory.
+The proposal was well received, and we left the brawlers, walking by
+the outer boulevards towards my hotel in the Rue de Rivoli, by the way
+of the Champs Elysees.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+TOUCHING AN AMPHIBIOUS ANIMAL, A SPECIAL INTRODUCTION, AND ITS
+CONSEQUENCES.
+
+
+I soon took an interest in my new acquaintance. He was communicative,
+shrewd, and peculiar; and though apt to express himself quaintly, it
+was always with the pith of one who had seen a great deal of at least
+one portion of his fellow-creatures. The conversation, under such
+circumstances, did not flag; on the contrary, it soon grew more
+interesting by the stranger’s beginning to touch on his private
+interests. He told me that he was a mariner who had been cast ashore by
+one of the accidents of his calling, and, by way of cutting in a word
+in his own favor, he gave me to understand that he had seen a great
+deal, more especially of that castle of his fellow-creatures who like
+himself live by frequenting the mighty deep.
+
+“I am very happy,” I said, “to have met with a stranger who can give me
+information touching an entire class of human beings with whom I have
+as yet had but little communion. In order that we may improve the
+occasion to the utmost, I propose that we introduce ourselves to each
+other at once, and swear an eternal friendship, or, at least, until we
+may find it convenient to dispense with the obligation.”
+
+“For my part, I am one who likes the friendship of a dog better than
+his enmity,” returned my companion, with a singleness of purpose that
+left him no disposition to waste his breath in idle compliments. “I
+accept the offer, therefore, with all my heart; and this the more
+readily because you are the only one I have met for a week who can ask
+me how I do without saying, ‘Come on, cong portez-vous.’ Being used to
+meet with squalls, however, I shall accept your offer under the last
+condition named.”
+
+I liked the stranger’s caution. It denoted a proper care of character,
+and furnished a proof of responsibility. The condition was therefore
+accepted on my part as frankly as it had been urged on his.
+
+“And now, sir,” I added, when we had shaken each other very cordially
+by the hand, “may I presume to ask your name?”
+
+“I am called Noah, and I don’t care who knows it. I am not ashamed of
+either of my names, whatever else I may be ashamed of.”
+
+“Noah—?”
+
+“Poke, at your service.” He pronounced the word slowly and very
+distinctly, as if what he had just said of his self-confidence were
+true. As I had afterward occasion to take his signature, I shall at
+once give it in the proper form—“Capt. Noah Poke.”
+
+“Of what part of England are you a native, Mr. Poke?”
+
+“I believe I may say of the new parts.”
+
+“I do not know that any portion of the island was so designated. Will
+you have the good-nature to explain yourself?”
+
+“I’m a native of Stunin’tun, in the State of Connecticut, in old New
+England. My parents being dead, I was sent to sea a four-year-old, and
+here I am, walking about the kingdom of France without a cent in my
+pocket, a shipwrecked mariner. Hard as my lot is, to say the truth, I’d
+about as leave starve as live by speaking their d—d lingo.”
+
+“Shipwrecked—a mariner—starving—and a Yankee!”
+
+“All that, and maybe more, too; though, by your leave, commodore, we’ll
+drop the last title. I’m proud enough to call myself a Yankee, but my
+back is apt to get up when I hear an Englishman use the word. We are
+yet friends, and it may be well enough to continue so until some good
+comes of it to one or other of the parties.”
+
+“I ask your pardon, Mr. Poke, and will not offend again. Have you
+circumnavigated the globe?”
+
+Captain Poke snapped his fingers, in pure contempt of the simplicity of
+the question.
+
+“Has the moon ever sailed round the ’arth! Look here, a moment,
+commodore”—he took from his pocket an apple, of which he had been
+munching half a-dozen during the walk, and held it up to view—“draw
+your lines which way you will on this sphere; crosswise or lengthwise,
+up or down, zigzag or parpendic’lar, and you will not find more
+traverses than I’ve worked about the old ball!”
+
+“By land as well as by sea?”
+
+“Why, as to the land, I’ve had my share of that, too; for it has been
+my hard fortune to run upon it, when a softer bed would have given a
+more quiet nap. This is just the present difficulty with me, for I am
+now tacking about among these Frenchmen in order to get afloat again,
+like an alligator floundering in the mud. I lost my schooner on the
+northeast coast of Russia—somewhere hereabouts,” pointing to the
+precise spot on the apple; “we were up there trading in skins-and
+finding no means of reaching home by the road I’d come, and smelling
+salt water down hereaway, I’ve been shaping my course westward for the
+last eighteen months, steering as near as might be directly athwart
+Europe and Asia; and here I am at last within two days’ run of Havre,
+which is, if I can get good Yankee planks beneath me once more, within
+some eighteen or twenty days’ run of home.”
+
+“You allow me, then, to call the planks Yankee?”
+
+“Call ’em what you please, commodore; though I should prefar to call
+’em the ‘Debby and Dolly of Stunin’tun,’ to anything else, for that was
+the name of the craft I lost. Well, the best of us are but frail, and
+the longest-winded man is no dolphin to swim with his head under
+water!”
+
+“Pray, Mr. Poke, permit me to ask where you learned to speak the
+English language with so much purity?”
+
+“Stunin’tun—I never had a mouthful of schooling but what I got at home.
+It’s all homespun. I make no boast of scholarship; but as for
+navigating, or for finding my way about the ’arth, I’ll turn my back on
+no man, unless it be to leave him behind. Now we have people with us
+that think a great deal of their geometry and astronomies, but I hold
+to no such slender threads. My way is, when there is occasion to go
+anywhere, to settle it well in my mind as to the place, and then to
+make as straight a wake as natur’ will allow, taking little account of
+charts, which are as apt to put you wrong as right; and when they do
+get you into a scrape it’s a smasher! Depend on yourself and human
+natur’, is my rule; though I admit there is some accommodation in a
+compass, particularly in cold weather.”
+
+“Cold weather! I do not well comprehend the distinction.”
+
+“Why, I rather conclude that one’s scent gets to be dullish in a frost;
+but this may be no more than a conceit after all, for the two times
+I’ve been wrecked were in summer, and both the accidents happened by
+sheer dint of hard blowing, and in broad daylight, when nothing human
+short of a change of wind could have saved us.”
+
+“And you prefer this peculiar sort of navigation?”
+
+“To all others, especially in the sealing business, which is my raal
+occupation. It’s the very best way in the world to discover islands;
+and everybody knows that we sealers are always on the lookout for
+su’thin’ of that sort.”
+
+“Will you suffer me to inquire, Captain Poke, how many times you have
+doubled Cape Horn?”
+
+My navigator threw a quick, jealous glance at me, as if he distrusted
+the nature of the question.
+
+“Why, that is neither here nor there; perhaps I don’t double either of
+the capes, perhaps I do. I get into the South Sea with my craft, and
+it’s of no great moment how it’s done. A skin is worth just as much in
+the market, though the furrier may not happen to have a glossary of the
+road it has travelled.”
+
+“A glossary?”
+
+“What matters a signification, commodore, when people understand each
+other? This overland journey has put me to my wits, for you will
+understand that I’ve had to travel among natives that cannot speak a
+syllable of the homespun; so I brought the schooner’s dictionary with
+me as a sort of terrestrial almanac, and I fancied that, as they spoke
+gibberish to me, the best way was to give it to them back again as near
+as might be in their own coin, hoping I might hit on su’thin’ to their
+liking. By this means I’ve come to be rather more voluble than
+formerly.”
+
+“The idea was happy.”
+
+“No doubt it was, as is just evinced. But having given you a pretty
+clear insight into my natur’ and occupation, it is time that I ask a
+few questions of you. This is a business, you must know, at which we do
+a good deal at Stunin’tun, and at which we are commonly thought to be
+handy,”
+
+“Put your questions, Captain Poke; I hope the answers will be
+satisfactory.”
+
+“Your name?”
+
+“John Goldencalf—by the favor of his majesty, Sir John Goldencalf,
+Baronet.”
+
+“Sir John Goldencalf—by the favor of his majesty, a baronet! Is baronet
+a calling? or what sort of a crittur or thing is it?”
+
+“It is my rank in the kingdom to which I belong.”
+
+“I begin to understand what you mean. Among your nation mankind is what
+we call stationed, like a ship’s people that are called to go about;
+you have a certain berth in that kingdom of yours, much as I should
+have in a sealing schooner.”
+
+“Exactly so; and I presume you will allow that order, and propriety,
+and safety result from this method among mariners?”
+
+“No doubt—no doubt, we station anew, however, each v’yage, according to
+experience; I’m not so sure that it would do to take even the cook from
+father to son, or we might have a pretty mess of it.”
+
+Here the sealer commenced a series of questions, which he put with a
+vigor and perseverance that I fear left me without a single fact of my
+life unrevealed, except those connected with the sacred sentiment that
+bound me to Anna, and which were far too hallowed to escape me even
+under the ordeal of a Stunin’tun inquisitor. In short, finding that I
+was nearly helpless in such hands, I made a merit of necessity, and
+yielded up my secrets as wood in a vice discharges its moisture. It was
+scarcely possible that a mind like mine, subjected to the action of
+such a pair of moral screws, should not yield some hints touching its
+besetting propensities. The Captain seized this clew, and he went at
+the theory like a bulldog at the muzzle of an ox.
+
+To oblige him, therefore, I entered at some length into an explanation
+of my system. After the general remarks that were necessary to give a
+stranger an insight into its leading principles, I gave him to
+understand that I had long been looking for one like him, for a purpose
+that shall now be explained to the reader. I had entertained some
+negotiations with Tamahamaah, and had certain investments in the pearl
+and whale fisheries, it is true; but on the whole my relations with all
+that portion of mankind who inhabit the islands of the Pacific, the
+northwest coast of America, and the northeast coast of the old
+continent, were rather loose, and generally in an unsettled and vague
+condition; and it appeared to me that I had been singularly favored in
+having a man so well adapted to their regeneration thrown as it were by
+Providence, and in a manner so unusual, directly in my way. I now
+frankly proposed, therefore, to fit out an expedition, that should be
+partly of trade and partly of discovery, in order to expand my
+interests in this new direction, and to place my new acquaintance at
+its head. Ten minutes of earnest explanation on my part sufficed to put
+my companion in possession of the leading features of the plan. When I
+had ended this direct appeal to his love of enterprise, I was answered
+by the favorite exclamation of—
+
+“King!”
+
+“I do not wonder, Captain Poke, that your admiration breaks out in this
+manner; for I believe few men fairly enter into the beauty of this
+benevolent system who are not struck equally with its grandeur and its
+simplicity. May I count on your assistance?”
+
+“This is a new idee, Sir Goldencalf—”
+
+“Sir John Goldencalf, if you please, sir.”
+
+“A new idee, Sir John Goldencalf, and it needs circumspection.
+Circumspection in a bargain is the certain way to steer clear of
+misunderstandings. You wish a navigator to take your craft, let her be
+what she will, into unknown seas, and I wish, naturally, to make a
+straight course for Stunin’tun. You see the bargain is in apogee, from
+the start.”
+
+“Money is no consideration with me, Captain Poke.”
+
+“Well, this is an idee that has brought many a more difficult contract
+at once into perigee, Sir John Goldencalf. Money is always a
+considerable consideration with me, and I may say, also, just now it is
+rather more so than usual. But when a gentleman clears the way as
+handsomely as you have now done, any bargain may be counted as a good
+deal more than half made.”
+
+A few explicit explanations disposed of this part of the subject, and
+Captain Poke accepted of my terms in the spirit of frankness with which
+they were made. Perhaps his decision was quickened by an offer of
+twenty Napoleons, which I did not neglect making on the spot. Amicable
+and in some respects confidential relations were now established
+between my new acquaintance and myself; and we pursued our walk,
+discussing the details necessary to the execution of our project. After
+an hour or two passed in this manner, I invited my companion to go to
+my hotel, meaning that he should partake of my board until we could
+both depart for England, where it was my intention to purchase without
+delay a vessel for the contemplated voyage, in which I also had decided
+to embark in person.
+
+We were obliged to make our way through the throng that usually
+frequents the lower part of the Champs Elysees during the season of
+good weather and towards the close of the day. This task was nearly
+over when my attention was particularly drawn to a group that was just
+entering the place of general resort, apparently with the design of
+adding to the scene of thoughtlessness and amusement. But as I am now
+approaching the most material part of this extraordinary work, it will
+be proper to reserve the opening for a new chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+AN INTRODUCTION TO FOUR NEW CHARACTERS, SOME TOUCHES OF PHILOSOPHY, AND
+A FEW CAPITAL THOUGHTS ON POLITICAL ECONOMY.
+
+
+The group which drew my attention was composed of six individuals, two
+of which were animals of the genus homo, or what is vulgarly termed
+man; and the remainder were of the order primates, and of the class
+mammalia; or what in common parlance are called monkeys.
+
+The first were Savoyards, and may be generally described as being
+unwashed, ragged, and carnivorous; in color swarthy; in lineaments and
+expression avaricious and shrewd; and in appetites voracious. The
+latter were of the common species, of the usual size, and of approved
+gravity. There were two of each sex; being very equally paired as to
+years and external advantages.
+
+The monkeys were all habited with more or less of the ordinary attire
+of our modern European civilization; but peculiar care had been taken
+with the toilet of the senior of the two males. This individual had on
+the coat of a hussar, a cut that would have given a particular part of
+his body a more military contour than comported with his real character
+were it not for a red petticoat that was made shorter than common;
+less, however, with a view to show a pretty foot and ankle than to
+leave the nether limbs at liberty to go through with certain
+extravagant efforts which the Savoyards were unmercifully exacting from
+his natural agility. He wore a Spanish hat, decorated with a few
+bedraggled feathers, a white cockade, and a wooden sword. In addition
+to the latter, he carried in his hand a small broom.
+
+Observing that my attention was strongly attracted to this party, the
+ill-favored Savoyards immediately commenced a series of experiments in
+saltation, with the sole view, beyond a question, to profit by my
+curiosity. The inoffensive victims of this act of brutal tyranny
+submitted with a patience worthy of the profoundest philosophy, meeting
+the wishes of their masters with a readiness and dexterity that was
+beyond all praise. One swept the earth, another leaped on the back of a
+dog, a third threw himself head-over-heels again and again without a
+murmur, and the fourth moved gracefully to and fro, like a young girl
+in a quadrille. All this might have passed without calling for
+particular remark (since, alas! the spectacle is only too common), were
+it not for certain eloquent appeals that were made to me through the
+eyes by the individual in the hussar jacket. His look was rarely
+averted from my face for a moment, and in this way a silent communion
+was soon established between us. I observed that his gravity was
+indomitable. Nothing could elicit a smile or a change of countenance.
+Obedient to the whip of his brutal master, he never refused the
+required leap; for minutes at a time his legs and petticoat described
+confused circles in the air, appearing to have taken a final leave of
+the earth; but, the effort ended, he invariably descended to the ground
+with a quiet dignity and composure that showed how little the inward
+monkey partook of the antics of the outward animal. Drawing my
+companion a little aside, I ventured to suggest a few thoughts to him
+on the subject.
+
+“Really, Captain Poke, it appears to me there is great injustice in the
+treatment of these poor creatures!” I said. “What right have these two
+foul-looking blackguards to seize upon beings much more interesting to
+the eye and, I dare say, far more intellectual than themselves, and
+cause them to throw their legs about in this extravagant manner, under
+the penalty of stripes, and without regard to their feelings or their
+convenience? I say, sir, the measure appears to me intolerably
+oppressive, and it calls for prompt redress.”
+
+“King!”
+
+“King or subject, it does not alter the moral deformity of the act.
+What have these innocent beings done that they should be subjected to
+this disgrace? Are they not flesh and blood like ourselves—do they not
+approach nearer to our form and, for aught we know to the contrary, to
+our reason, than any other animal? and is it tolerable that our nearest
+imitations, our very cousins, should be thus dealt by? Are they dogs
+that they are treated like dogs?”
+
+“Why, to my notion, Sir John, there isn’t a dog on ’arth that can take
+such a summerset. Their flapjacks are quite extraor’nary!”
+
+“Yes, sir, and more than extraordinary; they are oppressive. Place
+yourself, Mr. Poke, for a single instant, in the situation of one of
+these persons; fancy that you had a hussar jacket squeezed upon your
+brawny shoulders, a petticoat placed over your lower extremities, a
+Spanish hat with bedraggled feathers set upon your head, a wooden sword
+stuck at your side, and a broom put into your hand; and that these two
+Savoyards were to menace you with stripes unless you consented to throw
+summersets for the amusement of strangers—I only ask you to make the
+case your own sir, and then say what course you would take and what you
+would do?”
+
+“I would lick both of these young blackguards, Sir John, without
+remorse, break the sword and broom over their heads, kick their
+sensibilities till they couldn’t see, and take my course for
+Stunin’tun, where I belong.”
+
+“Yes, sir, this might do with the Savoyards, who are young and feeble—”
+
+“’Twouldn’t alter the case much if two of these Frenchmen were in their
+places,” put in the Captain, glaring wolfishly about him. “To be plain
+with you, Sir John Goldencalf, being human, I’d submit to no such
+monkey tricks.”
+
+“Do not use the term reproachfully, Mr. Poke, I entreat of you. We call
+these animals monkeys, it is true; but we do not know what they call
+themselves. Man is merely an animal, and you must very well know—”
+
+“Harkee, Sir John,” interrupted the Captain, “I’m no botanist, and do
+not pretend to more schooling than a sealer has need of for finding his
+way about the ’arth; but as for a man’s being an animal, I just wish to
+ask you, now, if in your judgment a hog is also an animal?”
+
+“Beyond a doubt—and fleas, and toads, and sea-serpents, and lizards,
+and water-devils—we are all neither more nor less than animals.”
+
+“Well, if a hog is an animal, I am willing to allow the relationship;
+for in the course of my experience, which is not small, I have met with
+men that you might have mistaken for hogs, in everything but the
+bristles, the snout, and the tail. I’ll never deny what I’ve seen with
+my own eyes, though I suffer for it; and therefore I admit that, hogs
+being animals, it is more than likely that some men must be animals
+too.”
+
+“We call these interesting beings monkeys; but how do we know that they
+do not return the compliment, and call us, in their own particular
+dialect, something quite as offensive? It would become our species to
+manifest a more equitable and philosophical spirit, and to consider
+these interesting strangers as an unfortunate family which has fallen
+into the hands of brutes, and which is in every way entitled to our
+commiseration and our active interference. Hitherto I have never
+sufficiently stimulated my sympathies for the animal world by any
+investment in quadrupeds; but it is my intention to write to-morrow to
+my English agent to purchase a pack of hounds and a suitable stud of
+horses; and by way of quickening so laudable a resolution, I shall
+forthwith make propositions to the Savoyards for the speedy
+emancipation of this family of amiable foreigners. The slave-trade is
+an innocent pastime compared to the cruel oppression that the gentleman
+in the Spanish hat, in particular, is compelled to endure.”
+
+“King!”
+
+“He may be a king, sure enough, in his own country, Captain Poke; a
+fact that would add tenfold agony to his unmerited sufferings.”
+
+Hereupon I proceeded without more ado to open a negotiation with the
+Savoyards. The judicious application of a few Napoleons soon brought
+about a happy understanding between the contracting parties, when the
+Savoyards transferred to my hands the strings which confined their
+vassals, as the formal and usual acknowledgment of the right of
+ownership. Committing the three others to the keeping of Mr. Poke, I
+led the individual in the hussar jacket a little on one side, and
+raising my hat to show that I was superior to the vulgar feelings of
+feudal superiority, I addressed him briefly in the following words:
+
+“Although I have ostensibly bought the right which these Savoyards
+professed to have in your person and services, I seize an early
+occasion to inform you that virtually you are now free. As we are among
+a people accustomed to see your race in subjection, however, it may not
+be prudent to proclaim the nature of the present transaction, lest
+there might be some further conspiracies against your natural rights.
+We will retire to my hotel forthwith, therefore, where your future
+happiness shall be the subject of our more mature and of our united
+deliberations.”
+
+The respectable stranger in the hussar jacket heard me with inimitable
+gravity and self-command until, in the warmth of feeling, I raised an
+arm in earnest gesticulation, when, most probably overcome by the
+emotions of delight that were naturally awakened in his bosom by this
+sudden change in his fortune, he threw three summersets, or flapjacks,
+as Captain Poke had quaintly designated his evolutions, in such rapid
+succession as to render it for a moment a matter of doubt whether
+nature had placed his head or his heels uppermost.
+
+Making a sign for Captain Poke to follow, I now took my way directly to
+the Rue de Rivoli. We were attended by a constantly increasing crowd
+until the gate of the hotel was fairly entered; and glad was I to see
+my charge safely housed, for there were abundant indications of another
+design upon their rights in the taunts and ridicule of the living mass
+that rolled up as it were upon our heels. On reaching my own
+apartments, a courier who had been waiting my return, and who had just
+arrived express from England, put a packet into my hands, stating that
+it came from my principal English agent. Hasty orders were given to
+attend to the comfort and wants of Captain Poke and the strangers
+(orders that were in no danger of being neglected, since Sir John
+Goldencalf, with the reputed annual revenue of three millions of
+francs, had unlimited credit with all the inhabitants of the hotel);
+and I hurried into my cabinet and sat down to the eager perusal of the
+different communications.
+
+Alas! there was not a line from Anna! The obdurate girl still trifled
+with my misery; and in revenge I entertained a momentary resolution of
+adopting the notions of Mahmoud, in order to qualify myself to set up a
+harem.
+
+The letters were from a variety of correspondents, embracing many of
+those who were entrusted with the care of my interests in very opposite
+quarters of the world. Half an hour before I had been dying to open
+more intimate relations with the interesting strangers; but my thoughts
+instantly took a new direction, and I soon found that the painful
+sentiments I had entertained touching their welfare and happiness were
+quite lost in the newly awakened interests that lay before me. It is in
+this simple manner, no doubt, that the system to which I am a convert
+effects no small part of its own great purposes. No sooner does any one
+interest grow painful by excess than a new claim arises to divert the
+thoughts, a new demand is made on the sensibilities; and by lowering
+our affections from the intensity of selfishness to the more bland and
+equable feeling of impartiality, forms that just and generous condition
+of the mind at which the political economists aim when they dilate on
+the glories and advantages of their favorite theory of the social
+stake.
+
+In this happy frame of mind I fell to reading the letters with avidity
+and with the godlike determination to reverence Providence and to do
+justice. Fiat justitia ruat coelum!
+
+The first epistle was from the agent of the principal West India
+estate. He acquainted me with the fact that all hopes from the expected
+crop were destroyed by a hurricane, and he begged that I would furnish
+the means necessary to carry on the affairs of the plantation until
+another season might repair the loss. Priding myself on punctuality as
+a man of business, before I broke another seal a letter was written to
+a banker in London requesting him to supply the necessary credits, and
+to notify the agents in the West Indies of the circumstance. As he was
+a member of parliament, I seized the occasion also to press upon him
+the necessity of government’s introducing some early measure for the
+protection of the sugar-growers, a most meritorious class of his
+fellow-subjects, and one whose exposures and actual losses called
+loudly for relief of this nature. As I closed the letter I could not
+help dwelling with complacency on the zeal and promptitude with which I
+had acted—the certain proof of the usefulness of the theory of
+investments.
+
+The second communication was from the manager of an East India
+property, that very happily came with its offering to fill the vacuum
+left by the failure of the crops just mentioned. Sugar was likely to be
+a drug in the peninsula, and my correspondent stated that the cost of
+transportation being so much greater than from the other colonies, this
+advantage would be entirely lost unless government did something to
+restore the East Indian to his natural equality. I enclosed this letter
+in one to my Lord Say and Do, who was in the ministry, asking him in
+the most laconic and pointed terms whether it were possible for the
+empire to prosper when one portion of it was left in possession of
+exclusive advantages, to the prejudice of all the others? As this
+question was put with a truly British spirit, I hope it had some
+tendency to open the eyes of his majesty’s ministers; for much was
+shortly after said, both in the journals and in parliament, on the
+necessity of protecting our East Indian fellow-subjects, and of doing
+natural justice by establishing the national prosperity on the only
+firm basis, that of free trade.
+
+The next letter was from the acting partner of a large manufacturing
+house to which I had advanced quite half the capital, in order to enter
+into a sympathetic communion with the cotton-spinners. The writer
+complained heavily of the import duty on the raw material, made some
+poignant allusions to the increasing competition on the continent and
+in America, and pretty clearly intimated that the lord of the manor of
+Householder ought to make himself felt by the administration in a
+question of so much magnitude to the nation. On this hint I spake. I
+sat down on the spot and wrote a long letter to my friend Lord Pledge,
+in which I pointed out to him the danger that threatened our political
+economy; that we were imitating the false theories of the Americans
+(the countrymen of Captain Poke), that trade was clearly never so
+prosperous as when it was the most successful, that success depended on
+effort, and effort was the most efficient when the least encumbered,
+and in short that as it was self-evident a man would jump farther
+without being in foot-irons, or strike harder without being
+hand-cuffed, so it was equally apparent that a merchant would make a
+better bargain for himself when he could have things all his own way
+than when his enterprise and industry were shackled by the impertinent
+and selfish interposition of the interests of others. In conclusion
+there was an eloquent description of the demoralizing consequences of
+smuggling, and a pungent attack on the tendencies of taxation in
+general. I have written and said some good things in my time, as
+several of my dependents have sworn to me in a way that even my natural
+modesty cannot repudiate; but I shall be excused for the weakness if I
+now add that I believe this letter to Lord Pledge contained some as
+clever points as anything I remember in their way; the last paragraph
+in particular being positively the neatest and the best turned moral I
+ever produced.
+
+Letter fourth was from the steward of the Householder estate. He spoke
+of the difficulty of getting the rents; a difficulty that he imputed
+altogether to the low price of corn. He said that it would soon be
+necessary to relet certain farms; and he feared that the unthinking cry
+against the corn-laws would affect the conditions. It was incumbent on
+the landed interest to keep an eye on the popular tendencies as
+respected this subject, for any material variation from the present
+system would lower the rental of all the grain-growing counties in
+England thirty per cent, at least at a blow. He concluded with a very
+hard rap at the agrarians, a party that was just coming a little into
+notice in Great Britain, and by a very ingenious turn, in which he
+completely demonstrated that the protection of the landlord and the
+support of the Protestant religion were indissolubly connected. There
+was also a vigorous appeal to the common sense of the subject on the
+danger to be apprehended by the people from themselves; which he
+treated in a way that, a little more expanded, would have made a
+delightful homily on the rights of man.
+
+I believe I meditated on the contents of this letter fully an hour. Its
+writer, John Dobbs, was as worthy and upright a fellow as ever
+breathed; and I could not but admire the surprising knowledge of men
+which shone through every line he had indited. Something must be done
+it was clear; and at length I determined to take the bull by the horns
+and to address Mr. Huskisson at once, as the shortest way of coming at
+the evil. He was the political sponsor for all the new notions on the
+subject of our foreign mercantile policy; and by laying before him in a
+strong point of view the fatal consequences of carrying his system to
+extremes, I hoped something might yet be done for the owners of real
+estate, the bones and sinews of the land.
+
+I shall just add in this place that Mr. Huskisson sent me a very polite
+and a very statesman-like reply, in which he disclaimed any intention
+of meddling improperly with British interests in any way; that taxation
+was necessary to our system, and of course every nation was the best
+judge of its own means and resources; but that he merely aimed at the
+establishment of just and generous principles, by which nations that
+had no occasion for British measures should not unhandsomely resort to
+them; and that certain external truths should stand, like so many
+well-constructed tubs, each on its own bottom. I must say I was pleased
+with this attention from a man generally reputed as clever as Mr.
+Huskisson, and from that time I became a convert to most of his
+opinions.
+
+The next communication that I opened was from the overseer of the
+estate in Louisiana, who informed me that the general aspect of things
+in that quarter of the world was favorable, but the smallpox had found
+its way among the negroes, and the business of the plantation would
+immediately require the services of fifteen able-bodied men, with the
+usual sprinkling of women and children. He added that the laws of
+America prohibited the further importation of blacks from any country
+without the limits of the Union, but that there was a very pretty and
+profitable internal trade in the article, and that the supply might be
+obtained in sufficient season either from the Carolinas, Virginia, or
+Maryland. He admitted, however, that there was some choice between the
+different stocks of these several States, and that some discretion
+might be necessary in making the selection. The negro of the Carolinas
+was the most used to the cotton-field, had less occasion for clothes,
+and it had been proved by experiment could be fattened on red herrings;
+while, on the other hand, the negro farther north had the highest
+instinct, could sometimes reason, and that he had even been known to
+preach when he had got as high up as Philadelphia. He much affected,
+also, bacon and poultry. Perhaps it might be well to purchase samples
+of lots from all the different stocks in market.
+
+In reply I assented to the latter idea, suggesting the expediency of
+getting one or two of the higher castes from the north; I had no
+objection to preaching provided they preached work; but I cautioned the
+overseer particularly against schismatics. Preaching, in the abstract,
+could do no harm; all depending on doctrine.
+
+This advice was given as the result of much earnest observation. Those
+European states that had the most obstinately resisted the introduction
+of letters, I had recently had occasion to remark were changing their
+systems, and were about to act on the principle of causing “fire to
+fight fire.” They were fast having recourse to school-books, using no
+other precaution than the simple expedient of writing them themselves.
+By this ingenious invention poison was converted into food, and truths
+of all classes were at once put above the dangers of disputations and
+heresies.
+
+Having disposed of the Louisianian, I very gladly turned to the opening
+of the sixth seal. The letter was from the efficient trustee of a
+company to whose funds I had largely contributed by way of making an
+investment in charity. It had struck me, a short time previously to
+quitting home, that interests positive as most of those I had embarked
+in had a tendency to render the spirit worldly; and I saw no other
+check to such an evil than by seeking for some association with the
+saints, in order to set up a balance against the dangerous propensity.
+A lucky occasion offered through the wants of the
+Philo-African-anti-compulsion-free-labor Society, whose meritorious
+efforts were about to cease for the want of the great
+charity-power—gold. A draft for five thousand pounds had obtained me
+the honor of being advertised as a shareholder and a patron; and, I
+know not why!—but it certainly caused me to inquire into the results
+with far more interest than I had ever before felt in any similar
+institution. Perhaps this benevolent anxiety arose from that principle
+in our nature which induces us to look after whatever has been our own
+as long as any part of it can be seen.
+
+The principal trustee of the Philo-African-anti-compulsion-free-labor
+Society now wrote to state that some of the speculations which had gone
+pari passu with the charity had been successful, and that the
+shareholders were, by the fundamental provisions of the association,
+entitled to a dividend, but—how often that awkward word stands between
+the cup and the lip!—BUT that he was of opinion the establishment of a
+new factory near a point where the slavers most resorted, and where
+gold-dust and palm-oil were also to be had in the greatest quantities,
+and consequently at the lowest prices, would equally benefit trade and
+philanthropy; that by a judicious application of our means these two
+interests might be made to see-saw very cleverly, as cause and effect,
+effect and cause; that the black man would be spared an incalculable
+amount of misery, the white man a grievous burden of sin, and the
+particular agents of so manifest a good might quite reasonably
+calculate on making at the very least forty per cent. per annum on
+their money besides having all their souls saved in the bargain. Of
+course I assented to a proposition so reasonable in itself, and which
+offered benefits so plausible!
+
+The next epistle was from the head of a great commercial house in Spain
+in which I had taken some shares, and whose interests had been
+temporarily deranged by the throes of the people in their efforts to
+obtain redress for real or imaginary wrongs. My correspondent showed a
+proper indignation on the occasion, and was not sparing in his language
+whenever he was called to speak of popular tumults. “What do the
+wretches wish?” he asked with much point—“Our lives as well as our
+property? Ah! my dear sir, this bitter fact impresses us all (by us he
+meant the mercantile interests) with the importance of strong
+executives. Where should we have been but for the bayonets of the king?
+or what would have become of our altars, our firesides, and our
+persons, had it not pleased God to grant us a monarch indomitable in
+will, brave in spirit, and quick in action?” I wrote a proper answer of
+congratulation and turned to the next epistle, which was the last of
+the communications.
+
+The eighth letter was from the acting head of another commercial house
+in New York, United States of America, or the country of Captain Poke,
+where it would seem the president by a decided exercise of his
+authority had drawn upon himself the execrations of a large portion of
+the commercial interests of the country; since the effect of the
+measure, right or wrong, as a legitimate consequence or not, by hook or
+by crook, had been to render money scarce. There is no man so keen in
+his philippics, so acute in discovering and so prompt in analyzing
+facts, so animated in his philosophy, and so eloquent in his
+complaints, as your debtor when money unexpectedly gets to be scarce.
+Credit, comfort, bones, sinews, marrow and all appear to depend on the
+result; and it is no wonder that, under so lively impressions, men who
+have hitherto been content to jog on in the regular and quiet habits of
+barter, should suddenly start up into logicians, politicians, aye, or
+even into magicians. Such had been the case with my present
+correspondent, who seemed to know and to care as little in general of
+the polity of his own country as if he had never been in it, but who
+now was ready to split hairs with a metaphysician, and who could not
+have written more complacently of the constitution if he had even read
+it. My limits will not allow an insertion of the whole letter, but one
+or two of its sentences shall be given. “Is it tolerable, my dear sir,”
+he went on to say, “that the executive of ANY country, I will not say
+merely of our own, should possess, or exercise, even admitting that he
+does possess them, such unheard of powers? Our condition is worse than
+that of the Mussulmans, who in losing their money usually lose their
+heads, and are left in a happy insensibility to their sufferings: but,
+alas! there is an end of the much boasted liberty of America! The
+executive has swallowed up all the other branches of the government,
+and the next thing will be to swallow up us. Our altars, our firesides,
+and our persons will shortly be invaded; and I much fear that my next
+letter will be received by you long after all correspondence shall be
+prohibited, every means of communication cut off, and we ourselves
+shall be precluded from writing, by being chained like beasts of burden
+to the car of a bloody tyrant.” Then followed as pretty a string of
+epithets as I remember to have heard from the mouth of the veriest
+shrew at Billingsgate.
+
+I could not but admire the virtue of the “social-stake system,” which
+kept men so sensibly alive to all their rights, let them live where
+they would, or under what form of government, which was so admirably
+suited to sustain truth and render us just. In reply I sent back
+epithet for epithet, echoed all the groans of my correspondent, and
+railed as became a man who was connected with a losing concern.
+
+This closed my correspondence for the present, and I arose wearied with
+my labors, and yet greatly rejoicing in their fruits. It was now late,
+but excitement prevented sleep; and before retiring for the night I
+could not help looking in upon my guests. Captain Poke had gone to a
+room in another part of the hotel, but the family of amiable strangers
+were fast asleep in the antechamber. They had supped heartily as I was
+assured, and were now indulging in a happy but temporary oblivion—to
+use an improved expression—of all their wrongs. Satisfied with this
+state of things, I now sought my own pillow, or, according to a
+favorite phrase of Mr. Noah Poke, I also “turned in.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+THE COMMENCEMENT OF WONDERS, WHICH ARE THE MORE EXTRAORDINARY ON
+ACCOUNT OF THEIR TRUTH.
+
+
+I dare say my head had been on the pillow fully an hour before sleep
+closed my eyes. During this time I had abundant occasion to understand
+the activity of what are called the “busy thoughts.” Mine were
+feverish, glowing, and restless. They wandered over a wild field; one
+that included Anna, with her beauty, her mild truth, her womanly
+softness, and her womanly cruelty; Captain Poke and his peculiar
+opinions; the amiable family of quadrupeds and their wounded
+sensibilities; the excellences of the social-stake system; and, in
+short, most of that which I had seen and heard during the last
+four-and-twenty hours. When sleep did tardily arrive, it overtook me at
+the very moment that I had inwardly vowed to forget my heartless
+mistress, and to devote the remainder of my life to the promulgation of
+the doctrine of the
+expansive-super-human-generalized-affection-principle, to the utter
+exclusion of all narrow and selfish views, and in which I resolved to
+associate myself with Mr. Poke, as with one who had seen a great deal
+of this earth and its inhabitants, without narrowing down his
+sympathies in favor of any one place or person in particular,
+Stunin’tun and himself very properly excepted.
+
+It was broad daylight when I awoke on the following morning. My spirits
+were calmed by rest, and my nerves had been soothed by the balmy
+freshness of the atmosphere. It appeared that my valet had entered and
+admitted the morning air, and then had withdrawn as usual to await the
+signal of the bell before he presumed to reappear. I lay many minutes
+in delicious repose, enjoying the periodical return of life and reason,
+bringing with it the pleasures of thought and its ten thousand
+agreeable associations. The delightful reverie into which I was
+insensibly dropping was, however, ere long arrested by low, murmuring,
+and, as I thought, plaintive voices at no great distance from my own
+bed. Seating myself erect, I listened intently and with a good deal of
+surprise; for it was not easy to imagine whence sounds so unusual for
+that place and hour could proceed. The discourse was earnest and even
+animated; but it was carried on in so low a tone that it would have
+been utterly inaudible but for the deep quiet of the hotel.
+Occasionally a word reached my ear, and I was completely at fault in
+endeavoring to ascertain even the language. That it was in neither of
+the five great European tongues I was certain, for all these I either
+spoke or read; and there were particular sounds and inflections that
+induced me to think that it savored of the most ancient of the two
+classics. It is true that the prosody of these dialects, at the same
+time that it is a shibboleth of learning, is a disputed point, the very
+sounds of the vowels even being a matter of national convention; the
+Latin word dux, for instance, being ducks in England, docks in Italy,
+and dukes in France: yet there is a ‘je ne sais quoi,’ a delicacy in
+the auricular taste of a true scholar, that will rarely lead him astray
+when his ears are greeted with words that have been used by Demosthenes
+or Cicero. [Footnote: Or Chichero, or Kickero, whichever may happen to
+suit the prejudices of the reader.] In the present instance I
+distinctly heard the word my-bom-y-nos-fos-kom-i-ton, which I made sure
+was a verb in the dual number and second person, of a Greek root, but
+of a signification that I could not on the instant master, but which
+beyond a question every scholar will recognize as having a strong
+analogy to a well-known line in Homer. If I was puzzled with the
+syllables that accidentally reached me, I was no less perplexed with
+the intonations of the voices of the different speakers. While it was
+easy to understand they were of the two sexes, they had no direct
+affinity to the mumbling sibilations of the English, the vehement
+monotony of the French, the gagging sonorousness of the Spaniards, the
+noisy melody of the Italians, the ear-splitting octaves of the Germans,
+or the undulating, head-over-heels enunciation of the countrymen of my
+particular acquaintance Captain Noah Poke. Of all the living languages
+of which I had any knowledge, the resemblance was nearer to the Danish
+and Swedish than to any other; but I much doubted at the time I first
+heard the syllables, and still question, if there is exactly such a
+word as my-bom-y-nos-fos-kom-i-ton to be found in even either of those
+tongues. I could no longer support the suspense. The classical and
+learned doubts that beset me grew intensely painful; and arising with
+the greatest caution, in order not to alarm the speakers, I prepared to
+put an end to them all by the simple and natural process of actual
+observation.
+
+The voices came from the antechamber, the door of which was slightly
+open. Throwing on a dressing-gown, and thrusting my feet into slippers,
+I moved on tiptoe to the aperture, and placed my eye in such a
+situation as enabled me to command a view of the persons of those who
+were still earnestly talking in the adjoining room. All surprise
+vanished the moment I found that the four monkeys were grouped in a
+corner of the apartment, where they were carrying on a very animated
+dialogue, the two oldest of the party (a male and a female) being the
+principal speakers. It was not to be expected that even a graduate of
+Oxford, although belonging to a sect so proverbial for classical lore
+that many of them knew nothing else, could at the first hearing decide
+upon the analogies and character of a tongue that is so little
+cultivated even in that ancient sea of learning. Although I had now
+certainly a direct clew to the root of the dialect of the speakers, I
+found it quite impossible to get any useful acquaintance with the
+general drift of what was passing among them. As they were my guests,
+however, and might possibly be in want of some of the conveniences that
+were necessary to their habits, or might even be suffering under still
+graver embarrassments, I conceived it to be a duty to waive the
+ordinary usages of society, and at once offer whatever it was in my
+power to bestow, at the risk of interrupting concerns that they might
+possibly wish to consider private. Using the precaution, therefore, to
+make a little noise, as the best means of announcing my approach, the
+door was gently opened, and I presented myself to view. At first I was
+a little at a loss in what manner to address the strangers; but
+believing that a people who spoke a language so difficult of utterance
+and so rich as that I had just heard, like those who use dialects
+derived from the Slavonian root, were most probably the masters of all
+others; and remembering, moreover, that French was a medium of thought
+among all polite people, I determined to have recourse to that tongue.
+“Messieurs et mesdames,” I said, inclining my body in salutation,
+“mille pardons four cette intrusion feu convenable”—but as I am writing
+in English it may be well to translate the speeches as I proceed;
+although I abandon with regret the advantage of going through them
+literally, and in the appropriate dialect in which they were originally
+spoken.
+
+“Gentlemen and ladies,” I said, inclining my body in salutation, “I ask
+a thousand pardons for this inopportune intrusion on your retirement;
+but overhearing a few of what I much fear are but too well-grounded
+complaints, touching the false position in which you are placed as the
+occupant of this apartment, and in that light your host, I have
+ventured to approach, with no other desire than the wish that you would
+make me the repository of all your griefs, in order, if possible, that
+they may be repaired as soon as circumstances shall in any manner
+allow.”
+
+The strangers were very naturally a little startled at my unexpected
+appearance, and at the substance of what I had just said. I observed
+that the two ladies were apparently in some slight degree even
+distressed, the younger turning her head on one side in maiden modesty,
+while the elder, a duenna sort of looking person, dropped her eyes to
+the floor, but succeeded in better maintaining her self-possession and
+gravity. The eldest of the two gentlemen approached me with dignified
+composure, after a moment of hesitation, and returning my salute by
+waving his tail with singular grace and decorum, he answered as
+follows. I may as well state in this place that he spoke the French
+about as well as an Englishman who has lived long enough on the
+continent to fancy he can travel in the provinces without being
+detected for a foreigner. Au reste, his accent was slightly Russian,
+and his enunciation whistling and harmonious. The females, especially
+in some of the lower keys of their voices, made sounds not unlike the
+sighing tones of the Eolian harp. It was really a pleasure to hear
+them; but I have often had occasion to remark that, in every country
+but one, which I do not care to name, the language when uttered by the
+softer sex takes new charms, and is rendered more delightful to the
+ear.
+
+“Sir,” said the stranger, when he had done waving his tail, “I should
+do great injustice to my feelings, and to the monikin character in
+general, were I to neglect expressing some small portion of the
+gratitude I feel on the present occasion. Destitute, houseless,
+insulted wanderers and captives, fortune has at length shed a ray of
+happiness on our miserable condition, and hope begins to shine through
+the cloud of our distress, like a passing gleam of the sun. From my
+very tail, sir, in my own name and in that of this excellent and most
+prudent matron, and in those of these two noble and youthful lovers, I
+thank you. Yes! honorable and humane being of the genus homo, species
+Anglicus, we all return our most tail-felt acknowledgments of your
+goodness!”
+
+Here the whole party gracefully bent the ornaments in question over
+their heads, touching their receding foreheads with the several tips,
+and bowed. I would have given ten thousand pounds at that moment to
+have had a good investment in tails, in order to emulate their form of
+courtesy; but naked, shorn, and destitute as I was, with a feeling of
+humility I was obliged to put my head a little on one shoulder and give
+the ordinary English bob, in return for their more elaborate
+politeness.
+
+“If I were merely to say, sir,” I continued, when the opening
+salutations were thus properly exchanged, “that I am charmed at this
+accidental interview, the word would prove very insufficient to express
+my delight. Consider this hotel as your own; its domestics as your
+domestics; its stores of condiments as your stores of condiments, and
+its nominal tenant as your most humble servant and friend. I have been
+greatly shocked at the indignities to which you have hitherto been
+exposed, and now promise you liberty, kindness, and all those
+attentions to which it is very apparent you are fully entitled by your
+birth, breeding, and the delicacy of your sentiments. I congratulate
+myself a thousand times for having been so fortunate as to make your
+acquaintance. My greatest desire has always been to stimulate the
+sympathies; but until to-day various accidents have confined the
+cultivation of this heaven-born property in a great measure to my own
+species; I now look forward, however, to a delicious career of new-born
+interests in the whole of the animal creation, I need scarcely say in
+that of quadrupeds of your family in particular.”
+
+“Whether we belong to the class of quadrupeds or not, is a question
+that has a good deal embarrassed our own savans” returned the stranger.
+“There is an ambiguity in our physical action that renders the point a
+little questionable; and therefore, I think, the higher castes of our
+natural philosophers rather prefer classing the entire monikin species,
+with all its varieties, as caudae-jactans, or tail-wavers; adopting the
+term from the nobler part of the animal formation. Is not this the
+better opinion at home, my Lord Chatterino?” he asked, turning to the
+youth, who stood respectfully at his side.
+
+“Such, I believe, my dear Doctor, was the last classification
+sanctioned by the academy,” the young noble replied, with a readiness
+that proved him to be both well-informed and intelligent, and at the
+same time with a reserve of manner that did equal credit to his modesty
+and breeding. “The question of whether we are or are not bipeds has
+greatly agitated the schools for more than three centuries.”
+
+“The use of this gentleman’s name,” I hastily rejoined, “my dear sir,
+reminds me that we are but half acquainted with each other. Permit me
+to waive ceremony, and to announce myself at once as Sir John
+Goldencalf, Baronet, of Householder Hall, in the kingdom of Great
+Britain, a poor admirer of excellence wherever it is to be found, or
+under whatever form, and a devotee of the system of the
+‘social-stake.’”
+
+“I am happy to be admitted to the honor of this formal introduction,
+Sir John. In return I beg you will suffer me to say that this young
+nobleman is, in our own dialect, No. 6, purple; or, to translate the
+appellation, my Lord Chat-terino. This young lady is No. 4, violet, or,
+my Lady Chatterissa. This excellent and prudent matron is No.
+4,626,243, russet, or, Mistress Vigilance Lynx, to translate her
+appellation also into the English tongue; and that I am No. 22,817,
+brown-study color, or, Dr. Reasono, to give you a literal signification
+of my name—a poor disciple of the philosophers of our race, an LL.D.,
+and a F.U.D.G.E., the travelling tutor of this heir of one of the most
+illustrious and the most ancient houses of the island of Leaphigh, in
+the monikin section of mortality.”
+
+“Every syllable, learned Dr. Reasono, that falls from your revered lips
+only whets curiosity and adds fuel to the flame of desire, tempting me
+to inquire further into your private history, your future intentions,
+the polity of your species, and all those interesting topics that will
+readily suggest themselves to one of your quick apprehension and
+extensive acquirements. I dread being thought indiscreet, and yet,
+putting yourself in my position, I trust you will overlook a wish so
+natural and so ardent.”
+
+“Apology is unnecessary, Sir John, and nothing would afford me greater
+satisfaction than to answer any and every inquiry you may be disposed
+to make.”
+
+“Then, sir, to cut short all useless circumlocution, suffer me to ask
+at once an explanation of the system of enumeration by which you
+indicate individuals? You are called No. 22,817, brown-study color—”
+
+“Or Dr. Reasono. As you are an Englishman, you will perhaps understand
+me better if I refer to a recent practice of the new London police. You
+may have observed that the men wear letters in red or white, and
+numbers on the capes of their coats. By the letters the passenger can
+refer to the company of the officer, while the number indicates the
+individual. Now, the idea of this improvement came, I make no doubt,
+from our system, under which society is divided into castes, for the
+sake of harmony and subordination, and these castes are designated by
+colors and shades of colors that are significant of their stations and
+pursuits—the individual, as in the new police, being known by the
+number. Our own language being exceedingly sententious, is capable of
+expressing the most elaborate of these combinations in a very few
+sounds. I should add that there is no difference in the manner of
+distinguishing the sexes, with the exception that each is numbered
+apart, and each has a counterpart color to that of the same caste in
+the other sex. Thus purple and violet are both noble, the former being
+masculine and the latter feminine, and russet being the counterpart of
+brown-study color.”
+
+“And—excuse my natural ardor to know more—and do you bear these numbers
+and colors marked on your attire in your own region?”
+
+“As for attire, Sir John, the monikins are too highly improved,
+mentally and physically, to need any. It is known that in all cases
+extremes meet. The savage is nearer to nature than the merely civilized
+being, and the creature that has passed the mystifications of a middle
+state of improvement finds himself again approaching nearer to the
+habits, the wishes, and the opinions of our common mother. As the real
+gentleman is more simple in manners than the distant imitator of his
+deportment; as fashions and habits are always more exaggerated in
+provincial towns than in polished capitals; or as the profound
+philosopher has less pretensions than the tyro, so does our common
+genus, as it draws nearer to the consummation of its destiny and its
+highest attainments, learn to reject the most valued usages of the
+middle condition, and to return with ardor towards nature as to a first
+love. It is on this principle, sir, that the monikin family never wear
+clothes.”
+
+“I could not but perceive that the ladies have manifested some
+embarrassment ever since I entered—is it possible that their delicacy
+has taken the alarm at the state of my toilet?”
+
+“At the toilet itself, Sir John, rather than at its state, if I must
+speak plainly. The female mind, trained as it is with us from infancy
+upwards in the habits and usages of nature, is shocked by any departure
+from her rules. You will know how to make allowances for the
+squeamishness of the sex, for I believe it is much alike in this
+particular, let it come from what quarter of the earth it may.”
+
+“I can only excuse the seeming want of politeness by my ignorance, Dr.
+Reasono. Before I ask another question the oversight shall be repaired.
+I must retire into my own chamber for an instant, gentlemen and ladies,
+and I beg you will find such sources of amusement as first offer until
+I can return. There are nuts, I believe, in this closet; sugar is
+usually kept on that table, and perhaps the ladies might find some
+relaxation by exercising themselves on the chairs. In a single moment I
+shall be with you again.”
+
+Hereupon I withdrew into my bed-chamber, and began to lay aside the
+dressing-gown as well as my shirt. Remembering, however, that I was but
+too liable to colds in the head, I returned to ask Dr. Reasono to step
+in where I was for an instant. On mentioning the difficulty, this
+excellent person assumed the office of preparing his female friends to
+overlook the slight innovation of my still wearing the nightcap and
+slippers.
+
+“The ladies would think nothing of it,” the philosopher good-humoredly
+remarked, by way of lessening my regrets at having wounded their
+sensibilities, “were you even to appear in a military cloak and Hessian
+boots, provided it was not thought that you were of their acquaintance
+and in their immediate society. I think you must have often remarked
+among the sex of your own species, who are frequently quite indifferent
+to nudities (their prejudices running counter to ours) that appear in
+the streets, but which would cause them instantly to run out of the
+room when exhibited in the person of an acquaintance; these
+conventional asides being tolerated everywhere by a judicious
+concession of punctilios that might otherwise become insupportable.”
+
+“The distinction is too reasonable to require another word of
+explanation, dear sir. Now let us rejoin the ladies, since I am at
+length in some degree fit to be seen.”
+
+I was rewarded for this bit of delicate attention by an approving smile
+from the lovely Chatterissa, and good Mistress Lynx no longer kept her
+eyes riveted on the floor, but bent them on me with looks of admiration
+and gratitude.
+
+“Now that this little contre-temps is no longer an obstacle,” I
+resumed, “permit me to continue those inquiries which you have hitherto
+answered with so much amenity and so satisfactorily. As you have no
+clothes, in what manner is the parallel between your usage and that of
+the new London police practically completed?”
+
+“Although we have no clothes, nature, whose laws are never violated
+with impunity, but who is as beneficent as she is absolute, has
+furnished us with a downy covering to supply their places wherever
+clothes are needed for comfort. We have coats that defy fashions,
+require no tailors, and never lose their naps. But it would be
+inconvenient to be totally clad in this manner; and, therefore, the
+palms of the hands are, as you see, ungloved; the portions of the frame
+on which we seat ourselves are left uncovered, most probably lest some
+inconvenience should arise from taking accidental and unfavorable
+positions. This is the part of the monikin frame the best adapted for
+receiving paint, and the numbers of which I have spoken are
+periodically renewed there, at public offices appointed for that
+purpose. Our characters are so minute as to escape the human eye; but
+by using that opera-glass, I make no doubt that you may still see some
+of my own enregistration, although, alas! unusual friction, great
+misery, and, I may say, unmerited wrongs, have nearly un-monikined me
+in this, as well as in various other particulars.”
+
+As Dr. Reasono had the complaisance to turn round, and to use his tail
+like the index of a black-board, by aid of the glass I very distinctly
+traced the figures to which he alluded. Instead of being in paint,
+however, as he had given me reason to anticipate, they seemed to be
+branded, or burnt in, indelibly, as we commonly mark horses, thieves,
+and negroes. On mentioning the fact to the philosopher, it was
+explained with his usual facility and politeness.
+
+“You are quite right, sir,” he said; “the omission of paint was to
+prevent tautology, an offence against the simplicity of the monikin
+dialect, as well as against monikin taste, that would have been
+sufficient, under our opinions, even to overturn the government.”
+
+“Tautology!”
+
+“Tautology, Sir John; on examining the background of the picture, you
+will perceive that it is already of a dusky, sombre hue; now, this
+being of a meditative and grave character, has been denominated by our
+academy the ‘brown-study color’; and it would clearly have been
+supererogatory to lay the same tint upon it. No, sir; we avoid
+repetitions even in our prayers, deeming them to be so many proofs of
+an illogical and of an anti-consecutive mind.”
+
+“The system is admirable, and I see new beauties at each moment. You
+enjoy the advantage, for instance, under this mode of enumeration, of
+knowing your acquaintances from behind, quite as well as if you met
+them face to face!”
+
+“The suggestion is ingenious, showing an active and an observant mind;
+but it does not quite reach the motive of the
+politico-numerical-identity system of which we are speaking. The
+objects of this arrangement are altogether of a higher and more useful
+nature; nor do we usually recognize our friends by their countenances,
+which at the best are no more than so many false signals, but by their
+tails.”
+
+“This is admirable! What a facility you possess for recognizing an
+acquaintance who may happen to be up a tree! But may I presume to
+inquire, Dr. Reasono, what are the most approved of the advantages of
+the politico-numerical-identity system? For impatience is devouring my
+vitals.”
+
+“They are connected with the interests of government. You know, sir,
+that society is established for the purposes of governments, and
+governments, themselves, mainly to facilitate contributions and
+taxations. Now, by the numerical system, we have every opportunity of
+including the whole monikin race in the collections, as they are
+periodically checked off by their numbers. The idea was a happy thought
+of an eminent statistician of ours, who gained great credit at court by
+the invention, and, in fact, who was admitted to the academy in
+consequence of its ingenuity.”
+
+“Still it must be admitted, my dear Doctor,” put in Lord Chatterino,
+always with the modesty, and, perhaps I might add, with the generosity
+of youth, “that there are some among us who deny that society was made
+for governments, and who maintain that governments were made for
+society; or, in other words, for monikins.”
+
+“Mere theorists, my good lord; and their opinions, even if true, are
+never practised on. Practice is everything in political matters; and
+theories are of no use, except as they confirm practice.”
+
+“Both theory and practice are perfect,” I cried, “and I make no doubt
+that the classification into colors, or castes, enables the authorities
+to commence the imposts with the richest, or the ‘purples.’”
+
+“Sir, monikin prudence never lays the foundation-stone at the summit;
+it seeks the base of the edifice; and as contributions are the walls of
+society, we commence with the bottom. When you shall know us better,
+Sir John Goldencalf, you will begin to comprehend the beauty and
+benevolence of the entire monikin economy.”
+
+I now adverted to the frequent use of this word “monikin”; and,
+admitting my ignorance, desired an explanation of the term, as well as
+a more general insight into the origin, history, hopes, and polity of
+the interesting strangers; if they can be so called who were already so
+well known to me. Dr. Reasono admitted that the request was natural and
+was entitled to respect; but he delicately suggested the necessity of
+sustaining the animal function by nutriment, intimating that the ladies
+had supped but in an indifferent way the evening before, and
+acknowledging that, philosopher as he was, he should go through the
+desired explanations after improving the slight acquaintance he had
+already made with certain condiments in one of the armoires, with far
+more zeal and point, than could possibly be done in the present state
+of his appetite. The suggestion was so very plausible that there was no
+resisting it; and, suppressing my curiosity as well as I could, the
+bell was rung. I retired to my bed-chamber to resume so much of my
+attire as was necessary to the semi-civilization of man, and then the
+necessary orders were given to the domestics, who, by the way, were
+suffered to remain under the influence of those ordinary and vulgar
+prejudices that are pretty generally entertained by the human, against
+the monikin family.
+
+Previously to separating from my new friend Dr. Reasono, however, I
+took him aside, and stated that I had an acquaintance in the hotel, a
+person of singular philosophy, after the human fashion, and a great
+traveller; and that I desired permission to let him into the secret of
+our intended lecture on the monikin economy, and to bring him with me
+as an auditor. To this request, No. 22,817, brown-study color, or Dr.
+Reasono, gave a very cordial assent; hinting delicately, at the same
+time, his expectation that this new auditor, who, of course, was no
+other than Captain Noah Poke, would not deem it disparaging to his
+manhood, to consult the sensibilities of the ladies, by appearing in
+the garments of that only decent and respectable tailor and draper,
+nature. To this suggestion I gave a ready approval; when each went his
+way, after the usual salutations of bowing and tail-waving, with a
+mutual promise of being punctual to the appointment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+A GREAT DEAL OF NEGOTIATION, IN WHICH HUMAN SHREWDNESS IS COMPLETELY
+SHAMED, AND HUMAN INGENUITY IS SHOWN TO BE OF A VERY SECONDARY QUALITY.
+
+
+Mr. Poke listened to my account of all that had passed, with a very
+sedate gravity. He informed me that he had witnessed so much ingenuity
+among the seals, and had known so many brutes that seemed to have the
+sagacity of men, and so many men who appeared to have the stupidity of
+brutes, that he had no difficulty whatever in believing every word I
+told him. He expressed his satisfaction, too, at the prospect of
+hearing a lecture on natural philosophy and political economy from the
+lips of a monkey; although he took occasion to intimate that no desire
+to learn anything lay at the bottom of his compliance; for, in his
+country, these matters were pretty generally studied in the district
+schools, the very children who ran about the streets of ‘Stunin’tun’
+usually knowing more than most of the old people in foreign parts.
+Still a monkey might have some new ideas; and for his part, he was
+willing to hear what every one had to say; for, if a man didn’t put in
+a word for himself in this world, he might be certain no one else would
+take the pains to speak for him. But when I came to mention the details
+of the programme of the forthcoming interview, and stated that it was
+expected the audience would wear their own skins, out of respect to the
+ladies, I greatly feared that my friend would have so far excited
+himself as to go into fits. The rough old sealer swore some terrible
+oaths, protesting “that he would not make a monkey of himself, by
+appearing in this garb, for all the monikin philosophers, or high-born
+females, that could be stowed in a ship’s hold; that he was very liable
+to take cold; that he once knew a man who undertook to play beast in
+this manner, and the first thing the poor devil knew, he had great
+claws and a tail sprouting out of him; a circumstance that he had
+always attributed to a just judgment for striving to make himself more
+than Providence had intended him for; that, provided a man’s ears were
+naked, he could hear just as well as if his whole body was naked; that
+he did not complain of the monkeys going in their skins, and that they
+ought, in reason, not to meddle with his clothes; that he should be
+scratching himself the whole time, and thinking what a miserable figure
+he cut; that he would have no place to keep his tobacco; that he was
+apt to be deaf when he was cold; that he would be d——d if he did any
+such thing; that human natur’ and monkey natur’ were not the same, and
+it was not to be expected that men and monkeys should follow exactly
+the same fashions; that the meeting would have the appearance of a
+boxing match, instead of a philosophical lecture; that he never heard
+of such a thing at Stunin’tun; that he should feel sneaking at seeing
+his own shins in the presence of ladies; that a ship always made better
+weather under some canvas than under bare poles; that he might possibly
+be brought to his shirt and pantaloons, but as for giving up these, he
+would as soon think of cutting the sheet-anchor off his bows, with the
+vessel driving on a lee-shore; that flesh and blood were flesh and
+blood, and they liked their comfort; that he should think the whole
+time he was about to go in a-swimming, and should be looking about for
+a good place to dive”; together with a great many more similar
+objections, that have escaped me in the multitude of things of greater
+interest which have since occupied my time. I have frequently had
+occasion to observe, that, when a man has one good, solid reason for
+his decision, it is no easy matter to shake it; but, that he who has a
+great many, usually finds them of far less account in the struggle of
+opinions. Such proved to be the fact with Captain Poke on the present
+occasion. I succeeded in stripping him of his garments, one by one,
+until I got him reduced to the shirt, where, like a stout ship that is
+easily brought to her bearings by the breeze, he “stuck and hung” in a
+manner to manifest it would require a heavy strain to bring him down
+any lower. A lucky thought relieved us all from the dilemma. There were
+a couple of good large bison-skins among my effects, and on suggesting
+to Dr. Reasono the expediency of encasing Captain Poke in the folds of
+one of them, the philosopher cheerfully assented, observing that any
+object of a natural and simple formation was agreeable to the monikin
+senses; their objections were merely to the deformities of art, which
+they deemed to be so many offences against Providence. On this
+explanation, I ventured to hint that, being still in the infancy of the
+new civilization, it would be very agreeable to my ancient habits,
+could I be permitted to use one of the skins, also, while Mr. Poke
+occupied the other. Not the slightest objection was raised to the
+proposal, and measures were immediately taken to prepare us to appear
+in good company. Soon after I received from Dr. Reasono a protocol of
+the conditions that were to regulate the approaching interview. This
+document was written in Latin, out of respect to the ancients, and as I
+afterwards understood, it was drawn up by my Lord Chatterino, who had
+been educated for the diplomatic career at home, previously to the
+accident which had thrown him, alas! into human hands. I translate it
+freely, for the benefit of the ladies, who usually prefer their own
+tongues to any others.
+
+Protocol of an interview that is to take place between Sir John
+Goldencalf, Bart., of Householder Hall, in the kingdom of Great
+Britain, and No. 22,817, brown-study color, or Socrates Reasono,
+F.U.D.G.E., Professor of Probabilities in the University of Monikinia,
+and in the kingdom of Leaphigh:
+
+The contracting parties agree as follows, viz.:
+
+ARTICLE 1. That there shall be an interview.
+
+ART. 2. That the said interview shall be a peaceable interview, and not
+a belligerent interview.
+
+ART. 3. That the said interview shall be logical, explanatory, and
+discursory.
+
+ART. 4. That during said interview, Dr. Reasono shall have the
+privilege of speaking most, and Sir John Goldencalf the privilege of
+hearing most.
+
+ART. 5. That Sir John Goldencalf shall have the privilege of asking
+questions, and Dr. Reasono the privilege of answering them.
+
+ART. 6. That a due regard shall be had to both human and monikin
+prejudices and sensibilities.
+
+ART. 7. That Dr. Reasono, and any monikins who may accompany him, shall
+smooth their coats, and otherwise dispose of their natural vestments,
+in a way that shall be as agreeable as possible to Sir John Goldencalf
+and his friend.
+
+ART. 8. That Sir John Goldencalf, and any man who may accompany him,
+shall appear in bison-skins, wearing no other clothing, in order to
+render themselves as agreeable as possible to Dr. Reasono and his
+friends.
+
+ART. 9. That the conditions of this protocol shall be respected.
+
+ART. 10. That any doubtful significations in this protocol shall be
+interpreted, as near as may be, in favor of both parties.
+
+ART. 11. That no precedent shall be established to the prejudice of
+either the human or the monikin dialect, by the adoption of the Latin
+language on this occasion.
+
+Delighted with this proof of attention on the part of my Lord
+Chatterino, I immediately left a card for that young nobleman, and then
+seriously set about preparing myself, with an increased scrupulousness,
+for the fulfilment of the smallest condition of the compact. Captain
+Poke was soon ready, and I must say that he looked more like a
+quadruped on its hind legs, in his new attire, than a human being. As
+for my own appearance, I trust it was such as became my station and
+character.
+
+At the appointed time all the parties were assembled, Lord Chatterino
+appearing with a copy of the protocol in his hand. This instrument was
+formally read, by the young peer, in a very creditable manner, when a
+silence ensued, as if to invite comment. I know not how it is, but I
+never yet heard the positive stipulations of any bargain, that I did
+not feel a propensity to look out for weak places in them. I had begun
+to see that the discussion might lead to argument, argument to
+comparisons between the two species, and something like an esprit de
+corps was stirring within me. It now struck me that a question might be
+fairly raised as to the propriety of Dr. Reasono’s appearing with THREE
+backers, while I had but ONE. The objection was therefore urged on my
+part, I hope, in a modest and conciliatory manner. In reply, my Lord
+Chatterino observed, it was true the protocol spoke in general terms of
+mutual supporters, but if—
+
+“Sir John Goldencalf would be at the trouble of referring to the
+instrument itself, he would see that the backers of Dr. Reasono were
+mentioned in the plural number, while that of Sir John himself was
+alluded to only in the singular number.”
+
+“Perfectly true, my lord; but you will, however, permit me to remark
+that two monikins would completely fulfil the conditions in favor of
+Dr. Reasono, while he appears here with three; there certainly must be
+some limits to this plurality, or the Doctor would have a right to
+attend the interview accompanied by all the inhabitants of Leaphigh.”
+
+“The objection is highly ingenious, and creditable in the last degree
+to the diplomatic abilities of Sir John Goldencalf; but, among
+monikins, two females are deemed equal to only one male, in the eye of
+the law. Thus, in cases which require two witnesses, as in conveyances
+of real estate, two male monikins are sufficient, whereas it would be
+necessary to have four female signatures, in order to give the
+instrument validity. In the legal sense, therefore, I conceive that Dr.
+Reasono is attended by only two monikins.”
+
+Captain Poke hereupon observed that this provision in the law of
+Leaphigh was a good one; for he often had occasion to remark that
+women, quite half the time, did not know what they were about; and he
+thought, in general, that they require more ballast than men.
+
+“This reply would completely cover the case, my lord,” I answered,
+“were the protocol purely a monikin document, and this assembly purely
+a monikin assembly. But the facts are notoriously otherwise. The
+document is drawn up in a common vehicle of thought among scholars, and
+I gladly seize the opportunity to add, that I do not remember to have
+seen a better specimen of modern latinity.”
+
+“It is undeniable, Sir John,” returned Lord Chatterino, waving his tail
+in acknowledgment of the compliment, “that the protocol itself is in a
+language that has now become common property; but the mere medium of
+thought, on such occasions, is of no great moment, provided it is
+neutral as respects the contracting parties; moreover, in this
+particular case, article 11 of the protocol contains a stipulation that
+no legal consequences whatever are to follow the use of the Latin
+language; a stipulation that leaves the contracting parties in
+possession of their original rights. Now, as the lecture is to be a
+monikin lecture, given by a monikin philosopher, and on monikin
+grounds, I humbly urge that it is proper the interview should generally
+be conducted on monikin principles.”
+
+“If by monikin grounds, is meant monikin ground (which I have a right
+to assume, since the greater necessarily includes the less), I beg
+leave to remind your lordship, that the parties are, at this moment, in
+a neutral country, and that, if either of them can set up a claim of
+territorial jurisdiction, or the rights of the flag, these claims must
+be admitted to be human, since the locataire of this apartment is a
+man, in control of the locus in quo, and pro hac vice, the suzerain.”
+
+“Your ingenuity has greatly exceeded my construction, Sir John, and I
+beg leave to amend my plea. All I mean is, that the leading
+consideration in this interview, is a monikin interest—that we are met
+to propound, explain, digest, animadvert on, and embellish a monikin
+theme—that the accessory must be secondary to the principal—that the
+lesser must merge, not in your sense, but in my sense, in the
+greater—and, by consequence, that—”
+
+“You will accord me your pardon, my dear lord, but I hold—”
+
+“Nay, my good Sir John, I trust to your intelligence to be excused if I
+say—”
+
+“One word, my Lord Chatterino, I pray you, in order that—”
+
+“A thousand, very cheerfully, Sir John, but—”
+
+“My Lord Chatterino!”
+
+“Sir John Goldencalf!”
+
+Hereupon we both began talking at the same time, the noble young
+monikin gradually narrowing down the direction of his observations to
+the single person of Mrs. Vigilance Lynx, who, I afterwards had
+occasion to know, was an excellent listener; and I, in my turn, after
+wandering from eye to eye, settled down into a sort of oration that was
+especially addressed to the understanding of Captain Noah Poke. My
+auditor contrived to get one ear entirely clear of the bison’s skin,
+and nodded approbation of what fell from me, with a proper degree of
+human and clannish spirit. We might possibly have harangued in this
+desultory manner, to the present time, had not the amiable Chatterissa
+advanced, and, with the tact and delicacy which distinguish her sex, by
+placing her pretty patte on the mouth of the young nobleman,
+effectually checked his volubility. When a horse is running away, he
+usually comes to a dead stop, after driving through lanes, and gates,
+and turnpikes, the moment he finds himself master of his own movements,
+in an open field. Thus, in my own case, no sooner did I find myself in
+sole possession of the argument, than I brought it to a close. Dr.
+Reasono improved the pause, to introduce a proposition that, the
+experiment already made by myself and Lord Chatterino being evidently a
+failure, he and Mr. Poke should retire and make an effort to agree upon
+an entirely new programme of the proceedings. This happy thought
+suddenly restored peace; and, while the two negotiators were absent, I
+improved the opportunity to become better acquainted with the lovely
+Chatterissa and her female Mentor. Lord Chatterino, who possessed all
+the graces of diplomacy, who could turn from a hot and angry
+discussion, on the instant, to the most bland and winning courtesy, was
+foremost in promoting my wishes, inducing his charming mistress to
+throw aside the reserve of a short acquaintance, and to enter, at once,
+into a free and friendly discourse.
+
+Some time elapsed before the plenipotentiaries returned, for it appears
+that, owing to a constitutional peculiarity, or, as he subsequently
+explained it himself, a “Stunin’tun principle,” Captain Poke conceived
+he was bound, in a bargain, to dispute every proposition which came
+from the other party. This difficulty would probably have proved
+insuperable, had not Dr. Reasono luckily bethought him of a frank and
+liberal proposal to leave every other article, without reserve, to the
+sole dictation of his colleague, reserving to himself the same
+privilege for all the rest. Noah, after being well assured that the
+philosopher was no lawyer, assented; and the affair, once begun in this
+spirit of concession, was soon brought to a close. And here I would
+recommend this happy expedient to all negotiators of knotty and
+embarrassing treaties, since it enables each party to gain his point,
+and probably leaves as few openings for subsequent disputes, as any
+other mode that has yet been adopted. The new instrument ran as
+follows, it having been written, in duplicate, in English and in
+Monikin. It will be seen that the pertinacity of one of the negotiators
+gave it very much the character of a capitulation.
+
+PROTOCOL of an Interview, &c., &c., &c.
+
+The contracting parties agree as follows, viz.:
+
+ARTICLE 1. There shall be an interview.
+
+ART. 2. Agreed; provided all the parties can come and go at pleasure.
+
+ART. 3. The said interview shall be conducted, generally, on
+philosophical and liberal principles.
+
+ART. 4. Agreed; provided tobacco may be used at discretion.
+
+ART. 5. That either party shall have the privilege of propounding
+questions, and either party the privilege of answering them.
+
+ART. 6. Agreed; provided no one need listen, or no one talk, unless so
+disposed.
+
+ART. 7. The attire of all present shall be conformable to the abstract
+rules of propriety and decorum.
+
+ART. 8. Agreed; provided the bison-skins may be reefed, from time to
+time, according to the state of the weather.
+
+ART. 9. The provisions of this protocol shall be rigidly respected.
+
+ART. 10. Agreed; provided no advantage be taken by lawyers.
+
+Lord Chatterino and myself pounced upon the respective documents like
+two hawks, eagerly looking for flaws, or the means of maintaining the
+opinions we had before advanced, and which we had both shown so much
+cleverness in supporting.
+
+“Why, my lord, there is no provision for the appearance of any monikins
+at all at this interview!”
+
+“The generality of the terms leaves it to be inferred that all may come
+and go who may be so disposed.”
+
+“Your pardon, my lord; article 8 contains a direct allusion to
+BISON-SKINS in the PLURAL, and under circumstances from which it
+follows, by a just deduction, that it was contemplated that more than
+ONE wearer of the said skins should be present at the said interview.”
+
+“Perfectly just, Sir John; but you will suffer me to observe that by
+article 1, it is conditioned that there shall be an interview; and by
+article 3, it is furthermore agreed that the said interview shall be
+conducted ‘on philosophical and liberal principles’; now, it need
+scarcely be urged, good Sir John, that it would be the extreme of
+illiberality to deny to one party any privilege that was possessed by
+the other.”
+
+“Perfectly just my lord, were this an affair of mere courtesy; but
+legal constructions must be made on legal principles, or else, as
+jurists and diplomatists, we are all afloat on the illimitable ocean of
+conjecture.”
+
+“And yet article 10 expressly stipulates that ‘no advantage shall be
+taken by lawyers.’ By considering articles 3 and 10 profoundly and in
+conjunction, we learn that it was the intention of the negotiators to
+spread the mantle of liberality, apart from all the subtleties and
+devices of mere legal practitioners, over the whole proceedings. Permit
+me, in corroboration of what is now urged, to appeal to the voices of
+those who framed the very conditions about which we are now arguing.
+Did YOU, sir,” continued my Lord Chatterino, turning to Captain Poke,
+with emphasis and dignity; “did you, sir, when you drew up this
+celebrated article 10—did you deem that you were publishing authority
+of which the lawyers could take advantage?”
+
+A deep and very sonorous “No,” was the energetic reply of Mr. Poke.
+
+My Lord Chatterino, then turning, with equal grace, to the Doctor,
+first diplomatically waving his tail three times, continued:
+
+“And you, sir, in drawing up article 3, did you conceive that you were
+supporting and promulgating illiberal principles?”
+
+The question was met by a prompt negative, when the young noble paused,
+and looked at me like one who had completely triumphed.
+
+“Perfectly eloquent, completely convincing, irrefutably argumentative,
+and unanswerably just, my lord,” I put in; “but I must be permitted to
+hint that the validity of all laws is derived from the enactment; now
+the enactment, or, in the case of a treaty, the virtue of the
+stipulation, is not derived from the intention of the party who may
+happen to draw up a law or a clause, but from the assent of the legal
+deputies. In the present instance, there are two negotiators, and I now
+ask permission to address a few questions to them, reversing the order
+of your own interrogatories; and the result may possibly furnish a clue
+to the quo animo, in a new light.” Addressing the philosopher, I
+continued—“Did YOU, sir, in assenting to article 10, imagine that you
+were defeating justice, countenancing oppression, and succoring might
+to the injury of right?”
+
+The answer was a solemn, and, I do not doubt, a very conscientious,
+“No.”
+
+“And YOU, sir,” turning to Captain Poke, “did you, in assenting to
+article 3, in the least conceive that, by any possibility, the foes of
+humanity could torture your approbation into the means of determining
+that the bison-skin wearers were not to be upon a perfect footing with
+the best monikins of the land?”
+
+“Blast me, if I did!”
+
+But, Sir John Goldencalf, the Socratic method of reasoning—”
+
+“Was first resorted to by yourself, my lord—”
+
+“Nay, good Sir—”
+
+“Permit me, my dear lord—”
+
+“Sir John—”
+
+“My lord—”
+
+Hereupon the gentle Chatterissa again advanced, and by another timely
+interposition of her graceful tact, she succeeded in preventing the
+reply. The parallel of the runaway horse was acted over, and I came to
+another stand-still. Lord Chatterino now gallantly proposed that the
+whole affair should be referred, with full powers, to the ladies. I
+could not refuse; and the plenipotentiaries retired, under a growling
+accompaniment of Captain Poke, who pretty plainly declared that women
+caused more quarrels than all the rest of the world, and, from the
+little he had seen, he expected it would turn out the same with
+monikinas.
+
+The female sex certainly possess a facility of composition that is
+denied our portion of the creation. In an incredibly short time, the
+referees returned with the following programme:
+
+PROTOCOL of an Interview between, &c., &c.
+
+The contracting parties agree as follows, viz.:
+
+ARTICLE 1. There shall be an amicable, logical, philosophical, ethical,
+liberal, general, and controversial interview.
+
+ART. 2. The interview shall be amicable.
+
+ART. 3. The interview shall be general.
+
+ART. 4. The interview shall be logical.
+
+ART. 5. The interview shall be ethical.
+
+ART. 6. The interview shall be philosophical.
+
+ART. 7. The interview shall be liberal.
+
+ART. 8. The interview shall be controversial.
+
+ART. 9. The interview shall be controversial, liberal, philosophical,
+ethical, logical, general, and amicable.
+
+ART. 10. The interview shall be as particularly agreed upon.
+
+The cat does not leap upon the mouse with more avidity than Lord
+Chatterino and myself pounced upon the third protocol, seeking new
+grounds for the argument that each was resolved on.
+
+“Auguste! cher Auguste!” exclaimed the lovely Chatterissa, in the
+prettiest Parisian accent I thought I had ever heard—“Pour moi!”
+
+“A moi! monseignear!” I put in, flourishing my copy of the protocol—I
+was checked in the midst of this controversial ardor by a tug at the
+bison-skin; when, casting a look behind me, I saw Captain Poke winking
+and making other signs that he wished to say a word in a corner.
+
+“I think, Sir John,” observed the worthy sealer, “if we ever mean to
+let this bargain come to a catastrophe, it might as well be done now.
+The females have been cunning, but the deuce is in it if we cannot
+weather upon two women before the matter is well over. In Stunin’tun,
+when it is thought best to accommodate proposals, why we object and
+raise a breeze in the beginning, but towards the end we kinder soften
+and mollify, or else trade would come to a stand. The hardest gale must
+blow its pipe out. Trust to me to floor the best argument the best
+monkey of them all can agitate!”
+
+“This matter is getting serious, Noah, and I am filled with an esprit
+de corps. Do you not begin yourself to feel human?”
+
+“Kinder; but more bisonish than anything else. Let them go on, Sir
+John; and, when the time comes, we will take them aback, or set me down
+as a pettifogger.”
+
+The Captain winked knowingly; and I began to see that there was some
+sense in his opinion. On rejoining our friends, or allies, I scarce
+know which to call them, I found that the amiable Chatterissa had
+equally calmed the diplomatic ardor of her lover, again, and we now met
+on the best possible terms. The protocol was accepted by acclamation;
+and preparations were instantly commenced for the lecture of Dr.
+Reasono.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+A PHILOSOPHY THAT IS BOTTOMED ON SOMETHING SUBSTANTIAL—SOME REASONS
+PLAINLY PRESENTED, AND CAVILLING OBJECTIONS PUT TO FLIGHT BY A CHARGE
+OF LOGICAL BAYONETS.
+
+
+Dr. Reasono was quite as reasonable, in the personal embellishments of
+his lyceum, as any public lecturer I remember to have seen, who was
+required to execute his functions in the presence of ladies. If I say
+that his coat had been brushed, his tail newly curled, and that his air
+was a little more than usually “solemnized,” as Captain Poke described
+it in a decent whisper, I believe all will be said that is either
+necessary or true. He placed himself behind a foot-stool, which served
+as a table, smoothed its covering a little with his paws, and at once
+proceeded to business. It may be well to add that he lectured without
+notes, and, as the subject did not immediately call for experiments,
+without any apparatus.
+
+Waving his tail towards the different parts of the room in which his
+audience were seated, the philosopher commenced.
+
+“As the present occasion, my hearers,” he said, “is one of those
+accidental calls upon science, to which all belonging to the academies
+are liable, and does not demand more than the heads of our thesis to be
+explained, I shall not dig into the roots of the subject, but limit
+myself to such general remarks as may serve to furnish the outlines of
+our philosophy, natural, moral, and political—”
+
+“How, sir,” I cried, “have you a political as well as a moral
+philosophy?”
+
+“Beyond a question; and a very useful philosophy it is. No interests
+require more philosophy than those connected with politics. To
+resume—our philosophy, natural, moral and political, reserving most of
+the propositions, demonstrations, and corollaries, for greater leisure,
+and a more advanced state of information in the class. Prescribing to
+myself these salutary limits, therefore, I shall begin only with
+nature.
+
+“Nature is a term that we use to express the pervading and governing
+principle of created things. It is known both as a generic and a
+specific term, signifying in the former character the elements and
+combinations of omnipotence, as applied to matter in general, and in
+the latter its particular subdivisions, in connection with matter in
+its infinite varieties. It is moreover subdivided into its physical and
+moral attributes, which admit also of the two grand distinctions just
+named. Thus, when we say nature, in the abstract, meaning physically,
+we should be understood as alluding to those general, uniform,
+absolute, consistent, and beautiful laws, which control and render
+harmonious, as a great whole, the entire action, affinities, and
+destinies of the universe; and when we say nature in the speciality, we
+would be understood to speak of the nature of a rock, of a tree, of
+air, fire, water, and land. Again, in alluding to a moral nature in the
+abstract, we mean sin, and its weaknesses, its attractions, its
+deformities-in a word, its totality; while, on the other hand, when we
+use the term, in this sense, under the limits of a speciality, we
+confine its signification to the particular shades of natural qualities
+that mark the precise object named. Let us illustrate our positions by
+a few brief examples.
+
+“When we say ‘Oh nature, how art thou glorious, sublime,
+instructive!’—we mean that her laws emanate from a power of infinite
+intelligence and perfection; and when we say ‘Oh nature, how art thou
+frail, vain and insufficient!’ we mean that she is, after all, but a
+secondary quality, inferior to that which brought her into existence,
+for definite, limited, and, doubtless, useful purposes. In these
+examples we treat the principle in the abstract.
+
+“The examples of nature in the speciality will be more familiar, and,
+although in no degree more true, will be better understood by the
+generality of my auditors. Especial nature, in the physical
+signification, is apparent to the senses, and is betrayed in the
+outward forms of things, through their force, magnitude, substance, and
+proportions, and, in its more mysterious properties, to examination, by
+their laws, harmony, and action. Especial moral nature is denoted in
+the different propensities, capacities, and conduct of the different
+classes of all moral beings. In this latter sense we have monikin
+nature, dog nature, horse nature, hog nature, human nature—”
+
+“Permit me, Dr. Reasono,” I interrupted, “to inquire if, by this
+classification, you intend to convey more than may be understood by the
+accidental arrangement of your examples?”
+
+“Purely the latter, I do assure you, Sir John.”
+
+“And do you admit the great distinctions of animal and vegetable
+natures?”
+
+“Our academies are divided on this point. One school contends that all
+living nature is to be embraced in a great comprehensive genus, while
+another admits of the distinctions you have named. I am of the latter
+opinion, inclining to the belief that nature herself has drawn the line
+between the two classes, by bestowing on one the double gift of the
+moral and physical nature, and by withdrawing the former from the
+other. The existence of the moral nature is denoted by the presence of
+the will. The academy of Leaphigh has made an elaborate classification
+of all the known animals, of which the sponge is at the bottom of the
+list, and the monikin at the top!”
+
+“Sponges are commonly uppermost,” growled Noah.
+
+“Sir,” said I, with a disagreeable rising at the throat, “am I to
+understand that your savans account man an animal in a middle state
+between a sponge and a monkey?”
+
+“Really, Sir John, this warmth is quite unsuited to philosophical
+discussion—if you continue to indulge in it, I shall find myself
+compelled to postpone the lecture.”
+
+At this rebuke I made a successful effort to restrain myself, although
+my esprit de corps nearly choked me. Intimating, as well as I could, a
+change of purpose, Dr. Reasono, who had stood suspended over his table
+with an air of doubt, waved his tail, and proceeded:—
+
+“Sponges, oysters, crabs, sturgeons, clams, toads, snakes, lizards,
+skunks, opossums, ant-eaters, baboons, negroes, wood-chucks, lions,
+Esquimaux, sloths, hogs, Hottentots, ourang-outangs, men and monikins,
+are, beyond a question, all animals. The only disputed point among us
+is, whether they are all of the same genus, forming varieties or
+species, or whether they are to be divided into the three great
+families of the improvables, the unimprovables, and the retrogressives.
+They who maintain that we form but one great family, reason by certain
+conspicuous analogies, that serve as so many links to unite the great
+chain of the animal world. Taking man as a centre, for instance, they
+show that this creature possesses, in common with every other creature,
+some observable property. Thus, man is, in one particular, like a
+sponge; in another, he is like an oyster; a hog is like a man; the
+skunk has one peculiarity of a man; the ourang-outang another; the
+sloth another—”
+
+“King!”
+
+“And so on, to the end of the chapter. This school of philosophers,
+while it has been very ingeniously supported, is not, however, the one
+most in favor just at this moment in the academy of Leaphigh—”
+
+“Just at this moment, Doctor!”
+
+“Certainly, sir. Do you not know that truths, physical as well as
+moral, undergo their revolutions, the same as all created nature? The
+academy has paid great attention to this subject; and it issues
+annually an almanac, in which the different phases, the revolutions,
+the periods, the eclipses, whether partial or total, the distances from
+the centre of light, the apogee and perigee of all the more prominent
+truths, are calculated with singular accuracy; and by the aid of which
+the cautious are enabled to keep themselves, as near as possible,
+within the bounds of reason. We deem this effort of the monikin mind as
+the sublimest of all its inventions, and as furnishing the strongest
+known evidence of its near approach to the consummation of our earthly
+destiny. This is not the place to dwell on that particular point of our
+philosophy, however; and, for the present, we will postpone the
+subject.”
+
+“Yet you will permit me, Dr. Reasono, in virtue of clause 1, article 5,
+protocol No. 1 (which protocol, if not absolutely adopted, must be
+supposed to contain the spirit of that which was), to inquire whether
+the calculations of the revolutions of truth, do not lead to dangerous
+moral extravagances, ruinous speculations in ideas, and serve to
+unsettle society?”
+
+The philosopher withdrew a moment with my Lord Chatterino, to consult
+whether it would be prudent to admit of the validity of protocol No. 1,
+even in this indirect manner; whereupon it was decided between them,
+that, as such admission would lay open all the vexatious questions that
+had just been so happily disposed of, clause 1 of article 5 having a
+direct connection with clause 2; clauses 1 and 2 forming the whole
+article; and the said article 5, in its entirety, forming an integral
+portion of the whole instrument; and the doctrine of constructions,
+enjoining that instruments are to be construed like wills, by their
+general, and not by their especial tendencies, it would be dangerous to
+the objects of the interview to allow the application to be granted.
+But, reserving a protest against the concession being interpreted into
+a precedent, it might be well to concede that as an act of courtesy,
+which was denied as a right. Hereupon, Dr. Reasono informed me that
+these calculations of the revolutions of truth DID lead to certain
+moral extravagances, and in many instances to ruinous speculations in
+ideas; that the academy of Leaphigh, and, so far as his information
+extended, the academy of every other country, had found the subject of
+truth, more particularly moral truth, the one of all others the most
+difficult to manage, the most likely to be abused, and the most
+dangerous to promulgate. I was moreover promised, at a future day, some
+illustrations of this branch of the subject.
+
+“To pursue the more regular thread of my lecture,” continued Dr.
+Reasono, when he had politely made this little digression, “we now
+divide these portions of the created world into animated and vegetable
+nature; the former is again divided into the improvable, and the
+unimprovable, and the retrogressive. The improvable embraces all those
+species which are marching, by slow, progressive, but immutable
+mutations, towards the perfection of terrestrial life, or to that last,
+elevated, and sublime condition of mortality, in which the material
+makes its final struggle with the immaterial—mind with matter. The
+improvable class of animals, agreeably to the monikin dogmas, commences
+with those species in which matter has the most unequivocal ascendency,
+and terminates with those in which mind is as near perfection as this
+mortal coil will allow. We hold that mind and matter, in that
+mysterious union which connects the spiritual with the physical being,
+commence in the medium state, undergoing, not, as some men have
+pretended, transmigrations of the soul only, but such gradual and
+imperceptible changes of both soul and body, as have peopled the world
+with so many wonderful beings—wonderful, mentally and physically; and
+all of which (meaning all of the improvable class) are no more than
+animals of the same great genus, on the high road of tendencies, who
+are advancing towards the last stage of improvement, previously to
+their final translation to another planet, and a new existence.
+
+“The retrogressive class is composed of those specimens which, owing to
+their destiny, take a false direction; which, instead of tending to the
+immaterial, tend to the material; which gradually become more and more
+under the influence of matter, until, by a succession of physical
+translations, the will is eventually lost, and they become incorporated
+with the earth itself. Under this last transformation, these purely
+materialized beings are chemically analyzed in the great laboratory of
+nature, and their component parts are separated; thus the bones become
+rocks, the flesh earth, the spirits air, the blood water, the gristle
+clay and the ashes of the will are converted into the element of fire.
+In this class we enumerate whales, elephants, hippopotami, and divers
+other brutes, which visibly exhibit accumulations of matter that must
+speedily triumph over the less material portions of their natures.”
+
+“And yet, Doctor, there are facts that militate against the theory; the
+elephant, for instance, is accounted one of the most intelligent of all
+the quadrupeds.”
+
+“A mere false demonstration, sir. Nature delights in these little
+equivocations; thus, we have false suns, false rainbows, false
+prophets, false vision, and even false philosophy. There are entire
+races of both our species, too, as the Congo and the Esquimaux, for
+yours, and baboons and the common monkeys, that inhabit various parts
+of the world possessed by the human species, for ours, which are mere
+shadows of the forms and qualities that properly distinguish the animal
+in its state of protection.”
+
+“How, sir! are you not, then, of the same family as all the other
+monkeys that we see hopping and skipping about the streets?”
+
+“No more, sir, than you are of the same family as the flat-nosed,
+thick-lipped, low-browed, ink-skinned negro, or the squalid,
+passionless, brutalized Esquimaux. I have said that nature delights in
+vagaries; and all these are no more than some of her mystifications. Of
+this class is the elephant, who, while verging nearest to pure
+materialism, makes a deceptive parade of the quality he is fast losing.
+Instances of this species of playing trumps, if I may so express it,
+are common in all classes of beings. How often, for instance, do men,
+just as they are about to fail, make a parade of wealth, women seem
+obdurate an hour before they capitulate, and diplomatists call Heaven
+to be a witness of their resolutions to the contrary, the day before
+they sign and seal! In the case of the elephant, however, there is a
+slight exception to the general rule, which is founded on an
+extraordinary struggle between mind and matter, the former making an
+effort that is unusual, and which may be said to form an exception to
+the ordinary warfare between these two principles, as it is commonly
+conducted in the retrogressive class of animals. The most infallible
+sign of the triumph of mind over matter, is in the development of the
+tail—”
+
+“King!”
+
+“Of the tail, Dr. Reasono?”
+
+“By all means, sir—that seat of reason, the tail! Pray, Sir John, what
+other portion of our frames did you imagine was indicative of
+intellect?”
+
+“Among men, Dr. Reasono, it is commonly thought the head is the more
+honorable member, and, of late, we have made analytical maps of this
+part of our physical formation, by which it is pretended to know the
+breadth and length of a moral quality, no less than its boundaries.”
+
+“You have made the best use of your materials, such as they were, and I
+dare say the map in question, all things considered, is a very clever
+performance. But in the complication and abstruseness of this very
+moral chart (one of which I perceive standing on your mantelpiece), you
+may learn the confusion which still reigns over the human intellect.
+Now, in regarding us, you can understand the very converse of your
+dilemma. How much easier, for instance, is it to take a yard-stick, and
+by a simple admeasurement of a tail, come to a sound, obvious and
+incontrovertible conclusion as to the extent of the intellect of the
+specimen, than by the complicated, contradictory, self-balancing and
+questionable process to which you are reduced! Were there only this
+fact, it would abundantly establish the higher moral condition of the
+monikinrace, as it is compared with that of man.”
+
+“Dr. Reasono, am I to understand that the monikin family seriously
+entertain a position so extravagant as this; that a monkey is a
+creature more intellectual and more highly civilized than man?”
+
+“Seriously, good Sir John! Why you are the first respectable person it
+has been my fortune to meet, who has even affected to doubt the fact.
+It is well known that both belong to the improvable class of animals,
+and that monkeys, as you are pleased to term us, were once men, with
+all their passions, weaknesses, inconsistencies, mode of philosophy,
+unsound ethics, frailties, incongruities and subserviency to matter;
+that they passed into the monikin state by degrees, and that large
+divisions of them are constantly evaporating into the immaterial world,
+completely spiritualized and free from the dross of flesh. I do not
+mean in what is called death—for that is no more than an occasional
+deposit of matter to be resumed in a new aspect, and with a nearer
+approach to the grand results (whether of the improvable or of the
+retrogressive classes)—but those final mutations which transfer us to
+another planet, to enjoy a higher state of being, and leaving us always
+on the high road towards final excellence.”
+
+“All this is very ingenious, sir; but before you can persuade me into
+the belief that man is an animal inferior to a monkey, Dr. Reasono, you
+will allow me to say that you must prove it.”
+
+“Ay, ay, or me, either,” put in Captain Poke, waspishly.
+
+“Were I to cite my proofs, gentlemen,” continued the philosopher, whose
+spirit appeared to be much less moved by our doubts than ours were by
+his position—“I should in the first place refer you to history. All the
+monikin writers are agreed in recording the gradual translation of the
+species from the human family—”
+
+“This may do very well, sir, for the latitude of Leaphigh, but permit
+me to say that no human historian, from Moses down to Buffon, has ever
+taken such a view of our respective races. There is not a word in any
+of all these writers on the subject.”
+
+“How should there be, sir? History is not a prediction, but a record of
+the past. Their silence is so much negative proof in our favor. Does
+Tacitus, for instance, speak of the French revolution? Is not Herodotus
+silent on the subject of the independence of the American continent?—or
+do any of the Greek and Roman writers give us the annals of
+Stunin’tun—a city whose foundations were most probably laid some time
+after the commencement of the Christian era? It is morally impossible
+that men or monikins can faithfully relate events that have never
+happened; and as it has never yet happened to any man, who is still a
+man, to be translated to the monikin state of being, it follows, as a
+necessary consequence, that he can know nothing about it. If you want
+historical proof, therefore, of what I say, you must search the monikin
+annals for evidence. There it is to be found with an infinity of
+curious details; and I trust the time is not far distant, when I shall
+have great pleasure in pointing out to you some of the most approved
+chapters of our best writers on this subject. But we are not confined
+to the testimony of history, in establishing our condition to be of the
+secondary formation. The internal evidence is triumphant; we appeal to
+our simplicity, our philosophy, the state of the arts among us, in
+short, to all those concurrent proofs which are dependent on the
+highest possible state of civilization. In addition to this, we have
+the infallible testimony which is to be derived from the development of
+our tails. Our system of caudology is, in itself, a triumphant proof of
+the high improvement of the monikin reason.”
+
+“Do I comprehend you aright, Dr. Reasono, when I understand your system
+of caudology, or tailology, to render it into the vernacular, to
+dogmatize on the possibility that the seat of reason in man, which
+to-day is certainly in his brains, can ever descend into a tail?”
+
+“If you deem development, improvement and simplification a descent,
+beyond a question, sir. But your figure is a bad one, Sir John; for
+ocular demonstration is before you, that a monikin can carry his tail
+as high as a man can possibly carry his head. Our species, in this
+sense, is morally nicked; and it costs us no effort to be on a level
+with human kings. We hold, with you, that the brain is the seat of
+reason, while the animal is in what we call the human probation, but
+that it is a reason undeveloped, imperfect, and confused; cased, as it
+were, in an envelope unsuited to its functions; but that, as it
+gradually oozes out of this straitened receptable towards the base of
+the animal, it acquires solidity, lucidity, and, finally, by elongation
+and development, point. If you examine the human brain, you will find
+it, though capable of being stretched to a great length, compressed in
+a diminutive compass, involved and snarled; whereas the same physical
+portion of the genus gets simplicity, a beginning and an end, a
+directness and consecutiveness that are necessary to logic, and, as has
+just been mentioned, a point, in the monikin seat of reason, which, by
+all analogy, go to prove the superiority of the animal possessing
+advantages so great.”
+
+“Nay, sir, if you come to analogies, they will be found to prove more
+than you may wish. In vegetation, for instance, saps ascend for the
+purposes of fructification and usefulness; and, reasoning from the
+analogies of the vegetable world, it is far more probable that tails
+have ascended into brains than that brains have descended into tails;
+and, consequently, that men are much more likely to be an improvement
+on monkeys, than monkeys an improvement on men.”
+
+I spoke with warmth, I know; for the doctrine of Dr. Reasono was new to
+me; and by this time, my esprit de corps had pretty effectually blinded
+reflection.
+
+“You gave him a red-hot shot that time, Sir John,” whispered Captain
+Poke at my elbow; “now, if you are so disposed, I will wring the necks
+of all these little blackguards, and throw them out of the window.”
+
+I immediately intimated that any display of brute force would militate
+directly against our cause; as the object, just at that moment, was to
+be as immaterial as possible.
+
+“Well, well, manage it in your own way, Sir John, and I’m quite as
+immaterial as you can wish; but should these cunning varments ra’ally
+get the better of us in the argument, I shall never dare look at Miss
+Poke, or show my face ag’in in Stunin’tun.”
+
+This little aside was secretly conducted, while Dr. Reasono was
+drinking a glass of eau sucre; but he soon returned to the subject,
+with the dignified gravity that never forsook him.
+
+“Your remark touching saps has the usual savor of human ingenuity,
+blended, however, with the proverbial short-sightedness of the species.
+It is very true that saps ascend for fructification; but what is this
+fructification, to which you allude? It is no more than a false
+demonstration of the energies of the plant. For all the purposes of
+growth, life, durability, and the final conversion of the vegetable
+matter into an element, the root is the seat of power and authority;
+and, in particular, the tap-root above or rather below all others. This
+tap-root may be termed the tail of vegetation. You may pluck fruits
+with impunity—nay, you may even top all the branches, and the tree
+shall survive; but, put the axe to the root, and the pride of the
+forest falls.”
+
+All this was too evidently true to be denied, and I felt worried and
+badgered; for no man likes to be beaten in a discussion of this sort,
+and more especially by a monkey. I bethought me of the elephant, and
+determined to make one more thrust, by the aid of his powerful tusks,
+before I gave up the point.
+
+“I am inclined to think, Dr. Reasono,” I put in as soon as possible,
+“that your savans have not been very happy in illustrating their theory
+by means of the elephant. This animal, besides being a mass of flesh,
+is too well provided with intellect to be passed off for a dunce; and
+he not only has ONE, but he might almost be said to be provided with
+TWO tails.”
+
+“That has been his chief misfortune, sir. Matter, in the great warfare
+between itself and mind, has gone on the principle of ‘divide and
+conquer.’ You are nearer the truth than you imagined, for the trunk of
+the elephant is merely the abortion of a tail; and yet, you see, it
+contains nearly all the intelligence that the animal possesses. On the
+subject of the fate of the elephant, however, theory is confirmed by
+actual experiment. Do not your geologists and naturalists speak of the
+remains of animals, which are no longer to be found among living
+things?”
+
+“Certainly, sir; the mastodon—the megatherium, iguanodon; and the
+plesiosaurus—”
+
+“And do you not also find unequivocal evidences of animal matter
+incorporated with rocks?”
+
+“This fact must be admitted, too.”
+
+“These phenomena, as you call them, are no more than the final deposits
+which nature has made in the cases of those creatures in which matter
+has completely overcome its rival, mind. So soon as the will is
+entirely extinct, the being ceases to live; or it is no longer an
+animal. It falls and reverts altogether to the element of matter. The
+processes of decomposition and incorporation are longer, or shorter,
+according to circumstances; and these fossil remains of which your
+writers say so much, are merely cases that have met with accidental
+obstacles to their final decomposition. As respects our two species, a
+very cursory examination of their qualities ought to convince any
+candid mind of the truth of our philosophy. Thus, the physical part of
+man is much greater in proportion to the spiritual, than it is in the
+monikin; his habits are grosser and less intellectual; he requires
+sauce and condiments in his food; he is farther removed from
+simplicity, and, by necessary implication, from high civilization; he
+eats flesh, a certain proof that the material principle is still strong
+in the ascendant; he has no cauda—-”
+
+“On this point, Dr. Reasono, I would inquire if your scholars attach
+any weight to traditions?”
+
+“The greatest possible, sir. It is the monikin tradition that our
+species is composed of men refined, of diminished matter and augmented
+minds, with the seat of reason extricated from the confinement and
+confusion of the caput, and extended, unravelled, and rendered logical
+and consecutive, in the cauda.”
+
+“Well, sir, WE too have our traditions; and an eminent writer, at no
+great distance of time, has laid it down as incontrovertible, that men
+once HAD caudae.”
+
+“A mere prophetic glance into the future, as coming events are known to
+cast their shadows before.”
+
+“Sir, the philosopher in question establishes his position, by pointing
+to the stumps.”
+
+“He has unluckily mistaken a foundation-stone for a ruin! Such errors
+are not unfrequent with the ardent and ingenious. That men WILL have
+tails, I make no doubt; but that they HAVE ever reached this point of
+perfection, I do most solemnly deny. There are many premonitory
+symptoms of their approaching this condition; the current opinions of
+the day, the dress, habits, fashions, and philosophy of the species,
+encourage the belief; but hitherto you have never reached the enviable
+distinction. As to traditions, even your own are all in favor of our
+theory. Thus, for instance, you have a tradition that the earth was
+once peopled by giants. Now, this is owing to the fact that men were
+formerly more under the influence of matter, and less under that of
+mind than to day. You admit that you diminish in size, and improve in
+moral attainments; all of which goes to establish the truth of the
+monikin philosophy. You begin to lay less stress on physical, and more
+on moral excellences; and, in short, many things show that the time for
+the final liberation and grand development of your brains, is not far
+distant. This much I very gladly concede; for, while the dogmas of our
+schools are not to be disregarded, I very cheerfully admit that you are
+our fellow-creatures, though in a more infant and less improved
+condition of society.”
+
+“King!”
+
+Here Dr. Reasono announced the necessity of taking a short intermission
+in order to refresh himself. I retired with Captain Poke, to have a
+little communication with my fellow-mortal, under the peculiar
+circumstances in which we were placed, and to ask his opinion of what
+had been said. Noah swore bitterly at some of the conclusions of the
+monikin philosopher, affirming that he should like no better sport than
+to hear him lecture in the streets of Stunin’tun, where, he assured me,
+such doctrine would not be tolerated any longer than was necessary to
+sharpen a harpoon, or to load a gun. Indeed, he did not know but the
+Doctor would be incontinently kicked over into Rhode Island, without
+ceremony.
+
+“For that matter,” continued the indignant old sealer, “I should ask no
+better sport than to have permission to put the big toe of my right
+foot, under full sail, against the part of the blackguard where his
+beloved tail is stepped. That would soon bring him to reason. Why, as
+for his cauda, if you will believe me, Sir John, I once saw a man, on
+the coast of Patagonia—a savage, to be sure, and not a philosopher, as
+this fellow pretends to be—who had an outrigger of this sort, as long
+as a ship’s ringtail-boom. And what was he, after all, but a poor devil
+who did not know a sea-lion from a grampus!”
+
+This assertion of Captain Poke relieved my mind considerably; and
+laying aside the bison-skin, I asked him to have the goodness to
+examine the localities, with some particularity, about the termination
+of the dorsal bone, in order to ascertain if there were any encouraging
+signs to be discovered. Captain Poke put on his spectacles, for time
+had brought the worthy mariner to their use, as he said, “whenever he
+had occasion to read fine print”; and, after some time, I had the
+satisfaction to hear him declare, that if it was a cauda I wanted,
+there was as good a place to step one, as could be found about any
+monkey in the universe; “and you have only to say the word, Sir John,
+and I will just step into the next room, and by the help of my knife
+and a little judgment in choosing, I’ll fit you out with a
+jury-article, which, if there be any ra’al vartue in this sort of
+thing, will qualify you at once to be a judge, or, for that matter, a
+bishop.”
+
+We were now summoned again to the lecture-room, and I had barely time
+to thank Captain Poke for his obliging offer, which circumstances just
+then, however, forbade my accepting.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+BETTER AND BETTER—A HIGHER FLIGHT OF REASON—MORE OBVIOUS TRUTHS, DEEPER
+PHILOSOPHY, AND FACTS THAT EVEN AN OSTRICH MIGHT DIGEST.
+
+
+“I gladly quit what I fear some present may have considered the
+personal part of my lecture,” resumed Dr. Reasono, “to turn to those
+portions of the theme that should possess a common interest, awaken
+common pride, and excite common felicitations. I now propose to say a
+few words on that part of our natural philosophy which is connected
+with the planetary system, the monikin location—and, as a consequence
+from both, the creation of the world.”
+
+“Although dying with impatience to be enlightened on all these
+interesting points, you will grant me leave to inquire en passant, Dr.
+Reasono, if your savans receive the Mosaic account of the creation or
+not.”
+
+“As far as it corroborates our own system, sir, and no farther. There
+would be a manifest inconsistency in our giving an antagonistic
+validity to any hostile theory, let it come from Moses or Aaron; as one
+of your native good sense and subsequent cultivation will readily
+perceive.”
+
+“Permit me to intimate, Dr. Reasono, that the distinction your
+philosophers take in this matter, is directly opposed to a very
+arbitrary canon in the law of evidence, which dictates the necessity of
+repudiating the whole of a witness’s testimony, when we repudiate a
+part.”
+
+“That may be a human, but it is not a monikin distinction. So far from
+admitting the soundness of the principle, we hold that no monikin is
+ever wholly right, or that he will be wholly right, so long as he
+remains in the least under the influence of matter; and we therefore
+winnow the false from the true, rejecting the former as worse than
+useless, while we take the latter as the nutriment of facts.”
+
+“I now repeat my apologies for so often interrupting you, venerable and
+learned sir; and I entreat you will not waste another moment in
+replying to my interrogatories, but proceed at once to an explanation
+of your planetary system, or of any other little thing it may suit your
+convenience to mention. When one listens to a real philosopher, one is
+certain to learn something that is either useful or agreeable, let the
+subject be what it may.”
+
+“By the monikin philosophy, gentlemen,” continued Dr. Reasono, “we
+divide the great component parts of this earth into land and water.
+These two principles we term the primary elements. Human philosophy has
+added air and fire to the list; but these we reject either entirely, or
+admit them only as secondary elements. That neither air nor fire is a
+primary element, may be proved by experiment. Thus, air can be formed,
+in the quality of gases, can be rendered pure or foul; is dependent on
+evaporation, being no more than ordinary matter in a state of high
+rarefaction. Fire has no independent existence, requires fuel for its
+support, and is evidently a property that is derived from the
+combinations of other principles. Thus, by putting two or more billets
+of wood together, by rapid friction you produce fire. Abstract the air
+suddenly, and your fire becomes extinct; abstract the wood, and you
+have the same result. From these two experiments it is shown that fire
+has no independent existence, and therefore is not an element. On the
+other hand, take a billet of wood and let it be completely saturated
+with water; the wood acquires a new property (as also by the
+application of fire, which converts it into ashes and air), for its
+specific gravity is increased, it becomes less inflammable, emits vapor
+more readily, and yields less readily to the blow of the axe. Place the
+same billet under a powerful screw, and a vessel beneath. Compress the
+billet, and by a sufficient application of force, you will have the
+wood, perfectly dry, left beneath the screw, and the vessel will
+contain water. Thus is it shown that land (all vegetable matter being
+no more than fungi of the earth) is a. primary element, and that water
+is also a primary element; while air and fire are not.
+
+“Having established the elements, I shall, for brevity’s sake, suppose
+the world created. In the beginning, the orb was placed in vacuum,
+stationary, and with its axis perpendicular to the plane of what is now
+called its orbit. Its only revolution was the diurnal.”
+
+“And the changes of the seasons?”
+
+“Had not yet taken place. The days and nights were equal; there were no
+eclipses; the same stars were always visible. This state of the earth
+is supposed, from certain geological proofs, to have continued about a
+thousand years, during which time the struggle between mind and matter
+was solely confined to quadrupeds. Man is thought to have made his
+appearance, so far as our documents go to establish the fact, about the
+year of the world one thousand and three. About this period, too, it is
+supposed that fire was generated by the friction of the earth’s axis,
+while making the diurnal movement; or, as some imagine, by the friction
+of the periphery of the orb, rubbing against vacuum at the rate of so
+many miles in a minute. The fire penetrating the crust, soon got access
+to the bodies of water that fill the cavities of the earth. From this
+time is to be dated the existence of a new and most important agent in
+the terrestrial phenomena, called steam. Vegetation now began to
+appear, as the earth received warmth from within—”
+
+“Pray, sir, may I ask in what manner all the animals existed
+previously?”
+
+“By feeding on each other. The strong devoured the weak, until the most
+diminutive of the animalcula were reached, when these turned on their
+persecutors, and profiting by their insignificance, commenced devouring
+the strongest. You find daily parallels to this phenomenon in the
+history of man. He who by his energy and force has triumphed over his
+equals, is frequently the prey of the insignificant and vile. You
+doubtless know that the polar regions even in the original attitude of
+the earth, owing to their receiving the rays of the sun obliquely, must
+have possessed a less genial climate than the parts of the orb that lie
+between the arctic and the antarctic circles. This was a wise provision
+of Providence to prevent a premature occupation of those chosen
+regions, or to cause them to be left uninhabited, until mind had so far
+mastered matter, as to have brought into existence the first monikin.”
+
+“May I venture to ask to what epoch you refer the appearance of the
+first of your species?”
+
+“To the monikin epocha, beyond a doubt, sir—but if you mean to ask in
+what year of the world this event took place, I should answer, about
+the year 4017. It is true that certain of our writers affect to think
+that divers men were approaching to the sublimation of the monikin
+mind, previously to this period; but the better opinion is, that these
+cases were no more than what are termed premonitory. Thus, Socrates,
+Plato, Confucius, Aristotle, Euclid, Zeno, Diogenes, and Seneca, were
+merely so many admonishing types of the future condition of man,
+indicating their near approach to the monikin, or to the final
+translation.”
+
+“And Epicurus—”
+
+“Was an exaggeration of the material principle, that denoted the
+retrogression of a large portion of the race towards brutality and
+matter. These phenomena are still of daily occurrence.”
+
+“Do you then hold the opinion, for instance, Dr. Reasono, that Socrates
+is now a monikin philosopher, with his brain unravelled and rendered
+logically consecutive, and that Epicurus is transformed perchance into
+a hippopotamus or a rhinoceros, with tusks, horns, and hide?”
+
+“You quite mistake our dogmas, Sir John. We do not believe in
+transmigration in the individual at all, but in the transmigration of
+classes. Thus, we hold that whenever a given generation of men, in a
+peculiar state of society, attain, in the aggregate, a certain degree
+of moral improvement, or mentality, as we term it in the schools, that
+there is an admixture of their qualities in masses, some believe by
+scores, others think by hundreds, and others again pretend by
+thousands; and if it is found, by the analysis that is regularly
+instituted by nature, that the proportions are just, the material is
+consigned to the monikin birth; if not, it is repudiated, and either
+kneaded anew for another human experiment, or consigned to the vast
+stores of dormant matter. Thus all individuality, so far as it is
+connected with the past, is lost.”
+
+“But, sir, existing facts contradict one of the most important of your
+propositions; while you admit that a want of a change in the seasons
+would be a consequence of the perpendicularity of the earth’s axis to
+the plane of its present orbit, this change in the seasons is a matter
+not to be denied. Flesh and blood testify against you here, no less
+than reason.”
+
+“I spoke of things as they were, sir, previously to the birth of the
+monikinia; since which time a great, salutary, harmonious, and
+contemplated alteration has occurred. Nature had reserved the polar
+region for the new species, with divers obvious and benevolent
+purposes. They were rendered uninhabitable by the obliquity of the
+sun’s rays; and though matter, in the shape of mastodons and whales,
+with an instinct of its antagonistic destination, had frequently
+invaded their precincts, it was only to leave the remains of the first
+embedded in fields of ice, memorials of the uselessness of struggling
+against destiny, and to furnish proofs of the same great truth in the
+instance of the others; who, if they did enter the polar basins as
+masters of the great deep, either left their bones there, or returned
+in the same characters as they went. From the appearance of animal
+nature on the earth, down to the period when the monikin race arose,
+the regions in question were not only uninhabited, but virtually
+uninhabitable. When, however, nature, always wary, wise, beneficent,
+and never to be thwarted, had prepared the way, those phenomena were
+exhibited that cleared the road for the new species. I have alluded to
+the internal struggle between fire and water, and to their progeny,
+steam. This new agent was now required to act. A moment’s attention to
+the manner in which the next great step in the progress of civilization
+was made, will show with what foresight and calculation our common
+mother had established her laws. The earth is flattened at the poles,
+as is well imagined by some of the human philosophers, in consequence
+of its diurnal movement commencing while the ball was still in a state
+of fusion, which naturally threw off a portion of the unkneaded matter
+towards the periphery. This was not done without the design of
+accomplishing a desired end. The matter that was thus accumulated at
+the equator, was necessarily abstracted from other parts; and in this
+manner the crust of the globe became thinnest at the poles. When a
+sufficiency of steam had been generated in the centre of the ball, a
+safety-valve was evidently necessary to prevent a total disruption. As
+there was no other machinist than nature, she worked with her own
+tools, and agreeably to her own established laws. The thinnest portions
+of the crust opportunely yielded to prevent a catastrophe, when the
+superfluous and heated vapor escaped, in a right line with the earth’s
+axis, into vacuum. This phenomenon occurred, as nearly as we have been
+able to ascertain, about the year 700 before the Christian era
+commenced, or some two centuries previously to the birth of the first
+monikins.”
+
+“And why so early, may I presume to inquire, Doctor?”
+
+“Simply that there might be time for the new climate to melt the ice
+that had accumulated about the islands and continents of that region
+(for it was only at the southern extremity of the earth that the
+explosion had taken place), in the course of so many centuries. Two
+hundred and seventy years of the active and unremitted agency of steam
+sufficed for this end; since the accomplishment of which, the monikin
+race has been in the undisturbed enjoyment of the whole territory,
+together with its blessed fruits.”
+
+“Am I to understand,” asked Captain Poke, with more interest than he
+had before manifested in the philosopher’s lecture, “that your folks,
+when at hum’, live to the south’ard of the belt of ice that we mariners
+always fall in with somewhere about the parallel of 77 degrees south
+latitude?”
+
+“Precisely so—alas! that we should, this day, be so far from those
+regions of peace, delight, intelligence, and salubrity! But the will of
+Providence be done!—doubtless there is a wise motive for our captivity
+and sufferings, which may yet lead to the further glory of the monikin
+race!”
+
+“Will you have the kindness to proceed with your explanations, Doctor?
+If you deny the annual revolution of the earth, in what manner do you
+account for the changes of the seasons, and other astronomical
+phenomena, such as the eclipses which so frequently occur?”
+
+“You remind me that the subject is not yet exhausted,” the philosopher
+hurriedly rejoined, hastily and covertly dashing a tear from his eye.
+“Prosperity produced some of its usual effects among the founders of
+our species. For a few centuries, they went on multiplying in numbers,
+elongating and rendering still more consecutive their cauda, improving
+in knowledge and the arts, until some spirits, more audacious than the
+rest, became restive under the slow march of events, which led them
+towards perfection at a rate ill-suited to their fiery impatience. At
+this time, the mechanic arts were at the highest pitch of perfection
+amongst us—we have since, in a great measure, abandoned them, as
+unsuited to, and unnecessary for, an advanced state of civilization—we
+wore clothes, constructed canals, and effected other works that were
+greatly esteemed among the species from which we had emigrated. At this
+time, also, the whole monikin family lived together as one people,
+enjoyed the same laws, and pursued the same objects. But a political
+sect arose in the region, under the direction of misguided and
+hot-headed leaders, who brought down upon us the just judgment of
+Providence, and a multitude of evils that it will require ages to
+remedy. This sect soon had recourse to religious fanaticism and
+philosophical sophisms, to attain its ends. It grew rapidly in power
+and numbers; for we monikins, like men, as I have had occasion to
+observe, are seekers of novelties. At last it proceeded to absolute
+overt acts of treason against the laws of Providence itself. The first
+violent demonstration of its madness and folly was, setting up the
+doctrine that injustice had been done the monikin race, by causing the
+safety-valve of the world to be opened within their region. Although we
+were manifestly indebted to this very circumstance for the benignity of
+our climate, the value of our possessions, the general healthfulness of
+our families-nay, for our separate existence itself, as an independent
+species, yet did these excited and ill-judging wretches absolutely wage
+war upon the most benevolent and the most unequivocal friend they had.
+Specious promises led to theories, theories to declamations,
+declamation to combination, combination to denunciation, and
+denunciation to open hostilities. The matter in dispute was debated for
+two generations, when the necessary degree of madness having been
+excited, the leaders of the party, who by this time had worked
+themselves through their hobby, into the general control of the monikin
+affairs, called a meeting of all their partisans and passed certain
+resolutions, which will never be blotted from the monikin memory, so
+fatal were their consequences, so ruinous for a time their effects!
+They were conceived in the following terms:—
+
+“‘At a full and overflowing meeting of the most monikinized of the
+monikin race, holden at the house of Peleg Pat (we still used the human
+appellations, at that epoch), in the year of the world 3,007, and of
+the monikin era 317, Plausible Shout was called to the chair, and Ready
+Quill was named secretary.’”
+
+“‘After several excellent and eloquent addresses from all present, it
+was unanimously resolved as follows, viz.:’”
+
+“‘That steam is a curse, and not a blessing; and that it deserves to be
+denounced by all patriotic and true monikins.’”
+
+“‘That we deem it the height of oppression and injustice in nature,
+that she has placed the great safety-valve of the world within the
+lawful limits of the monikin territories.’”
+
+“‘That the said safety-valve ought to be removed forthwith; and that it
+shall be so removed, peaceably if it can, forcibly if it must.’”
+
+“‘That we cordially approve of the sentiments of John Jaw, our present
+estimable chief magistrate, the incorruptible partisan, the undaunted
+friend of his friends, the uncompromising enemy of steam, and the
+sound, pure, orthodox, and true monikin.’”
+
+“‘That we recommend the said Jaw to the confidence of all monikins.’”
+
+“‘That we call upon the country to sustain us in our great, holy, and
+glorious design, pledging ourselves, posterity, the bones of our
+ancestors, and all who have gone before or who may come after us, to
+the faithful execution of our intentions.
+
+“‘Signed,’”
+
+“‘PLAUSIBLE SHOUT, Chairman.’”
+
+“‘READY QUILL, Secretary.’”
+
+“No sooner were these resolutions promulgated (for instead of being
+passed at a full meeting, it is now understood they were drawn up
+between Messrs. Shout and Quill, under the private dictation of Mr.
+Jaw), than the public mind began seriously to meditate proceeding to
+extremities. That perfection in the mechanic arts, which had hitherto
+formed our pride and boast, now proved to be our greatest enemy. It is
+thought that the leaders of this ill-directed party meant, in truth, to
+confine themselves to certain electioneering effects; but who can stay
+the torrent, or avert the current of prejudice! The stream was setting
+against steam; the whole invention of the species was put in motion;
+and in one year from the passage of the resolutions I have recited,
+mountains were transported, endless piles of rocks were thrown into the
+gulf, arches were constructed, and the hole of the safety-valve was
+hermetically sealed. You will form some idea of the waste of
+intelligence and energy on this occasion, when I add that it was found,
+by actual observation, that this artificial portion of the earth was
+thicker, stronger, and more likely to be durable than the natural. So
+far did infatuation lead the victims, that they actually caused the
+whole region to be sounded, and, having ascertained the precise
+locality of the thinnest portion of the crust, John Jaw, and all the
+most zealous of his followers, removed to the spot, where they
+established the seat of their government in triumph. All this time
+nature rested upon her arms, in the quiet of conscious force. It was
+not long, however, before our ancestors began to perceive the
+consequences of their act, in the increase of the cold, in the scarcity
+of fruits, and in the rapid augmentation of the ice. The monikin
+enthusiasm is easily awakened in favor of any plausible theory, but it
+invariably yields to physical pressure. No doubt the human race, better
+furnished with the material of physical resistance, does not exhibit so
+much of this weakness, but—”
+
+“Do not flatter us with the exception, Doctor. I find so many points of
+resemblance between us, that I really begin to think we must have had
+the same origin; and if you would only admit that man is of the
+secondary formation, and the monikins of the primary, I would accept
+the whole of your philosophy without a moment’s delay.”
+
+“As such an admission would be contrary to both fact and doctrine, I
+trust, my dear sir, you will see the utter impossibility of a Professor
+in the University of Leaphigh making the concession, even in this
+remote part of the world. As I was about to observe, the people began
+to betray uneasiness at the increasing and constant inclemency of the
+weather; and Mr. John Jaw found it necessary to stimulate their
+passions by a new development of his principles. His friends and
+partisans were all assembled in the great square of the new capital,
+and the following resolutions were, to use the language of a handbill
+that is still preserved in the archives of the Leaphigh Historical
+Society (for it would seem they were printed before they were passed),
+‘unanimously, enthusiastically, and finally adopted,’ viz.:
+
+“‘Resolved, That this meeting has the utmost contempt for steam.’”
+
+“‘Resolved, That this meeting defies snow, and sterility, and all other
+natural disadvantages.’”
+
+“‘Resolved, That we will live forever.’”
+
+“‘Resolved, That we will henceforward go naked, as the most effectual
+means of setting the frost at defiance.’”
+
+“‘Resolved, That we are now over the thinnest part of the earth’s crust
+in the polar regions.’”
+
+“‘Resolved, That henceforth we will support no monikin for any public
+trust, who will not give a pledge to put out all his fires, and to
+dispense with cooking altogether.’”
+
+“‘Resolved, That we are animated by the true spirit of patriotism,
+reason, good faith, and firmness.’”
+
+“‘Resolved, That this meeting now adjourn sine die.’”
+
+“We are told that the last resolution was just carried by acclamation,
+when nature arose in her might, and took ample vengeance for all her
+wrongs. The great boiler of the earth burst with a tremendous
+explosion, carrying away, as the thinnest part of the workmanship, not
+only Mr. John Jaw, and all his partisans, but forty thousand square
+miles of territory. The last that was seen of them was about thirty
+seconds after the occurrence of the explosion, when the whole mass
+disappeared near the northern horizon, going at a rate a little
+surpassing that of a cannon ball which has just left its gun.”
+
+“King!” exclaimed Noah; “that is what we sailors call ‘to cut and
+run.’”
+
+“Was nothing ever heard of Mr. Jaw and his companions, my good Doctor?”
+
+“Nothing that could be depended on. Some of our naturalists assume that
+the monkeys which frequent the other parts of the earth are their
+descendants, who, stunned by the shock, have lost their reasoning
+powers, while, at the same time, they show glimmerings of their origin.
+This is, in truth, the better opinion of our savans; and it is usual
+with us, to distinguish all the human species of monkeys by the name of
+‘the lost monikins.’ Since my captivity, chance has thrown me in the
+way of several of these animals, who were equally under the control of
+the cruel Savoyards; and in conversing with them, in order to inquire
+into their traditions and to trace the analogies of language, I have
+been led to think there is some foundation for the opinion. Of this,
+however, hereafter.”
+
+“Pray, Dr. Reasono, what became of the forty thousand square miles of
+territory?”
+
+“Of that we have a better account; for one of our vessels, which was
+far to the northward, on an exploring expedition, fell in with it in
+longitude 2 degrees from Leaphigh, latitude 6 degrees S., and by her
+means it was ascertained that divers islands had been already formed by
+falling fragments; and, judging by the direction of the main body when
+last seen, the fertility of that part of the world, and various
+geological proofs, we hold that the great western archipelago is the
+deposit of the remainder.”
+
+“And the monikin region, sir—what was the consequence of this
+phenomenon to that part of the world?”
+
+“Awful—sublime—various—and durable! The more important, or the personal
+consequences, shall be mentioned first. Fully one-third of the monikin
+species were scalded to death. A great many contracted asthmas and
+other diseases of the lungs, by inhaling steam. Most of the bridges
+were swept away by the sudden melting of the snows, and large stores of
+provisions were spoiled by the unexpected appearance and violent
+character of the thaw. These may be enumerated among the unpleasant
+consequences. Among the pleasant, we esteem a final and agreeable
+melioration of the climate, which regained most of its ancient
+character, and a rapid and distinct elongation of our caudtz, by a
+sudden acquisition of wisdom.
+
+“The secondary, or the terrestrial consequences, were as follows:—By
+the suddenness and force with which so much steam rushed into space,
+finding its outlet several degrees from the pole, the earth was canted
+from its perpendicular attitude, and remained fixed, with its axis
+having an inclination of 23 degrees 27′ to the plane of its orbit. At
+the same time the orb began to move in vacuum, and, restrained by
+antagonistic attractions, to perform what is called its annual
+revolution.”
+
+“I can very well understand, friend Reasono,” observed Noah, “why the
+’arth should heel under so sudden a flaw, though a well-ballasted ship
+would right again when the puff was over; but I cannot understand how a
+little steam leaking out at one end of a craft should set her agoing at
+the rate we are told this world travels?”
+
+“If the escape of the steam were constant, the diurnal motion giving it
+every moment a new position, the earth would not be propelled in its
+orbit, of a certainty, Captain Poke; but as, in fact, this escape of
+the steam has the character of pulsation, being periodical and regular,
+nature has ordained that it shall occur but once in the twenty-four
+hours, and this at such a time as to render its action uniform, and its
+impulsion always in the same direction. The principle on which the
+earth receives this impetus, can be easily illustrated by a familiar
+experiment. Take, for instance, a double-barrelled fowling-piece, load
+both barrels with extra quantities of powder, introduce a ball and two
+wads into each barrel, place the breech within 4 628/1000 inches of the
+abdomen, and take care to fire both barrels at once. In this case, the
+balls will give an example of the action of the forty thousand square
+miles of territory, and the person experimenting will not fail to
+imitate the impulsion, or the backward movement of the earth.”
+
+“While I do not deny that such an experiment would be likely to set
+both parties in motion, friend Reasono, I do not see why the ’arth
+should not finally stop, as the man would be sure to do, after he had
+got through with hopping, and kicking, and swearing.”
+
+“The reason why the earth, once set in motion in vacuum, does not stop,
+can also be elucidated by experiment, as follows:—Take Captain Noah
+Poke, provided as he is by nature with legs and the power of motion;
+lead him to the Place Vendome; cause him to pay three sous, which will
+gain him admission to the base of the column; let him ascend to the
+summit; thence let him leap with all his energy, in a direction at
+right angles with the shaft of the column, into the open air; and it
+will be found that, though the original impulsion would not probably
+impel the body more than ten or twelve feet, motion would continue
+until it had reached the earth. Corollary: hence it is proved that all
+bodies in which the vis inertia has been overcome will continue in
+motion, until they come in contact with some power capable of stopping
+them.”
+
+“King!—Do you not think, Mr. Reasono, that the ’arth makes its circuit,
+as much owing to this said steam of yours shoving, as it were, always a
+little on one side, acting thereby in some fashion as a rudder, which
+causes her to keep waring as we seamen call it, and as big crafts take
+more room than small ones in waring, why, she is compelled to run so
+many millions of miles, before, as it were, she comes up to the wind
+ag’in? Now, there is reason in such an idee; whereas, I never could
+reconcile it to my natur’, that these little bits of stars should keep
+a craft like the ’arth in her course, with such a devil of a way on
+her, as we know in reason she must have, to run so far in a
+twelvemonth. Why, the smallest yaw—and, for a hooker of her keel, a
+thousand miles wouldn’t be a broader yaw than a hundred feet in a
+ship—the smallest yaw would send her aboard of the Jupiter, or the
+Marcury, when there would be a smashing of out-board work such as
+mortal never before witnessed!”
+
+“We rather lean to the opinion of the efficacy of attraction, sir; nor
+do I see that your proposition would at all obviate your own
+objection.”
+
+“Then, sir, I will just explain myself. Let us suppose there was a
+steamer with a hundred miles of keel; let us suppose the steam up, and
+the craft with a broad offing; let us suppose her helm lash’d hard
+aport, and she going at the rate of ten thousand knots the hour,
+without bringing up or shortening sail for years at a time. Now, all
+this being admitted, what would be her course? Why, sir, any child
+could tell you, she would keep turning in a circle of some fifty or a
+hundred thousand miles in circumference; and such, it appears to me, it
+is much more rational to suppose is the natur’ of the ’arth’s
+traversing, than all this steering small among stars and attractions.”
+
+“There is truly something very plausible, Captain Poke, in your
+suggestion; and I propose that you shall profit by the first occasion
+to lay your opinions on the subject, more at large, before the Academy
+of Leaphigh.”
+
+“With all my heart, Doctor; for I hold that knowledge, like good
+liquor, is given to be passed round from one to another, and not to be
+gulped in a corner by any particular individle. And now I’m throwing
+out hints of this natur’ I will just intimate another that you may add
+to your next demonstration, by way of what you call a corollary; which
+is this—that is to say—if all you tell us about the bursting of the
+boiler, and the polar kick be true, then is the ’arth the first
+steamboat that was ever invented, and the boastings of the French, and
+the English, and the Spaniards, and the Italians, on this point, are no
+more than so much smoke.”
+
+“And of the Americans, too, Captain Poke,” I ventured to observe.
+
+“Why, Sir John, that is as it may happen. I don’t well see how Fulton
+could have stolen the idee, seeing that he did not know the Doctor, and
+most probably never heard of Leaphigh in his life.”
+
+We all smiled, even to the amiable Chatterissa, at the nicety of the
+navigator’s distinctions; and the philosopher’s lecture, in its more
+didactic form, being now virtually at an end, a long and desultory
+conversation took place, in which a multitude of ingenious questions
+were put by Captain Poke and myself, and which were as cleverly
+answered by the Doctor and his friends.
+
+At length, Dr. Reasono, who, philosopher as he was, and much as he
+loved science, had not given himself all this trouble without a view to
+what are called ulterior considerations, came out with a frank expose
+of his wishes. Accident had apparently combined all the means for
+gratifying the burning desire I betrayed to be let into further details
+of the monikin polity, morals, philosophy, and all the other great
+social interests of the part of the world they inhabit. I was wealthy
+beyond bounds, and the equipment of a proper vessel would be an
+expenditure of no moment; both the Doctor and Lord Chatterino were good
+practical geographers, after they were once within the parallel of 77
+degrees south, and Captain Poke, according to his own account of
+himself, had passed half his life in poking about among the sterile and
+uninhabited islands of the frozen ocean. What was there to prevent the
+most earnest wishes of all present from being gratified? The captain
+was out of employment, and no doubt would be glad to get the command of
+a good tight sea-boat; the strangers pined for home, and it was my most
+ardent wish to increase my stake in society, by taking a further
+interest in monikins.
+
+On this hint, I frankly made a proposal to the old sealer to undertake
+the task of restoring these amiable and enlightened strangers to their
+own firesides and families. The Captain soon began to discover a little
+of his Stunin’tun propensity; for the more I pressed the matter on him,
+the more readily he found objections. The several motives he urged for
+declining the proposal, may be succinctly given as follows:—
+
+It was true that he wanted employment, but then he wanted to see
+Stunin’tun too; he doubted whether monkeys would make good sailors; it
+was no joke to run in among the ice, and it might be still less of one
+to find our way back again; he had seen the bodies of dead seals and
+bears that were frozen as hard as stone, and which might, for anything
+he knew, have lain in that state a hundred years, and, for his part, he
+should like to be buried when he was good for nothing else. How did he
+know these monikins might not catch the men, when they had once fairly
+got them in their country, and strip them, and make them throw
+summersets, as the Savoyards had compelled the Doctor, and even the
+Lady Chatterissa to do?—he knew he should break his neck the very first
+flap-jack; if he were ten years younger, perhaps he should like the
+frolic; he did not believe the right sort of craft could be found in
+England, and for his part, he liked sailing under the stars and
+stripes; he didn’t know but he might go if he had a crew of
+Stunin’tunners; he always knew how to get along with such people; he
+could scare one by threatening to tell his marm how he behaved, and
+bring another to reason by hinting that the gals would shy him if he
+wasn’t more accommodating; then there might be no such place as
+Leaphigh, after all; or, if there was, he might never find it; as for
+wearing a bison-skin under the equator, it was quite out of the
+question, a human skin being a heavy load to carry in the calm
+latitudes; and finally that he didn’t exactly see what he was to get by
+it.
+
+These objections were met, one by one, reversing the order in which
+they were made, and commencing with the last.
+
+I offered a thousand pounds sterling as the reward. This proposal
+brought a gleam of satisfaction into Noah’s eyes, though he shook his
+head, as if he thought it very little. It was then suggested that there
+was no doubt we should discover certain islands that were well stored
+with seals, and that I would waive all claims as owner, and that
+hereafter he might turn these discoveries to his own private account.
+At this bait he nibbled, and, at one time, I thought he was about to
+suffer himself to be caught. But he remained obstinate. After trying
+all our united rhetoric, and doubling the amount of the pecuniary
+offer, Dr. Reasono luckily bethought him of the universal engine of
+human weakness, and the old sealer, who had resisted money—an influence
+of known efficacy at Stunin’tun—ambition, the secret of new sealing
+grounds, and all the ordinary inducements that might be thought to have
+weight with men of his class, was, in the end, hooked by his own
+vanity!
+
+The philosopher cunningly expatiated on the pleasure there would be in
+reading a paper before the Academy of Leaphigh, on the subject of the
+captain’s peculiar views touching the earth’s annual revolution, and of
+the virtue of sailing planets, with their helms lashed hard aport, when
+all the dogmatical old navigator’s scruples melted away like snow in a
+thaw.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+A CHAPTER OF PREPARATIONS—DISCRIMINATION IN CHARACTER—A TIGHT FIT, AND
+OTHER CONVENIENCES, WITH SOME JUDGMENT.
+
+
+I shall pass lightly over the events of the succeeding month. During
+this time, the whole party were transferred to England, a proper ship
+had been bought and equipped, the family of strangers were put in quiet
+possession of their cabins, and I had made all ray arrangements for
+being absent from England for the next two years. The vessel was a
+stout-built, comfortable ship of about three hundred tons burden, and
+had been properly constructed to encounter the dangers of the ice. Her
+accommodations were suitably arranged to meet all the exigencies of
+both monikin and human wants, the apartments of the ladies being very
+properly separated from those of the gentlemen, and otherwise rendered
+decorous and commodious. The Lady Chatterissa very pleasantly called
+their private room the gynecee, which, as I afterwards ascertained, was
+a term for the women’s apartment, obtained from the Greek, the monikins
+being quite as much addicted as we are ourselves, to showing their
+acquirements by the introduction of words from foreign tongues.
+
+Noah showed great care in the selection of the ship’s company, the
+service being known to be arduous, and the duties of a very responsible
+character. For this purpose, he made a journey expressly to Liverpool
+(the ship lying in the Greenland Dock at London), where he was
+fortunate enough to engage five Yankees, as many Englishmen, two
+Norwegians, and a Swede, all of whom had been accustomed to cruising as
+near the poles as ordinary men ever succeeded in reaching. He was also
+well suited in his cook and mates; but I observed that he had great
+difficulty in finding a cabin-boy to his mind. More than twenty
+applicants were rejected, some for the want of one qualification, and
+some for the want of another. As I was present at several examinations
+of different candidates for the office, I got a little insight into his
+manner of ascertaining their respective merits.
+
+The invariable practice was, first, to place a bottle of rum and a
+pitcher of water before the lad, and to order him to try his hand at
+mixing a glass of grog. Four applicants were incontinently rejected for
+manifesting a natural inaptitude at hitting the juste milieu, in this
+important part of the duty of a cabin-boy. Most of the candidates,
+however, were reasonably expert in the art; and the captain soon came
+to the next requisite, which was, to say “Sir,” in a tone, as Noah
+expressed it, somewhere between the snap of a steel-trap and the
+mendicant whine of a beggar. Fourteen were rejected for deficiencies on
+this score, the captain remarking that most of them “were the sa’ciest
+blackguards” he had ever fallen in with. When he had, at length, found
+one who could mix a tumbler of grog, and answer “Sir,” to his liking,
+he proceeded to make experiments on their abilities in carrying a
+soup-tureen over a slushed plank; in wiping plates without a napkin,
+and without using their shirt-sleeves; in snuffing candles with their
+fingers; in making a soft bed with few materials besides boards; in
+mixing the various compounds of burgoo, lobscouse, and dough, (which he
+affectedly pronounced duff); in fattening pigs on beef-bones, and ducks
+on the sweepings of the deck; in looking at molasses without licking
+his lips; and in various other similar accomplishments, which he
+maintained were as familiar to the children of Stunin’tun, as their
+singing-books and the ten commandments. The nineteenth candidate, to my
+uninstructed eyes, seemed perfect; but Noah rejected him for the want
+of a quality that he declared was indispensable to the quiet of the
+ship. It appeared that he was too bony about an essential part of his
+anatomy, a peculiarity that was very dangerous to a captain, as he
+himself was once so unfortunate as to put his great toe out of joint,
+by kicking one of those ill-formed youngsters with unpremeditated
+violence; a thing that was very apt to happen to a man in a hurry.
+Luckily, No. twenty passed, and was immediately promoted to the vacant
+berth. The very next day the ship put to sea, in good condition, and
+with every prospect of a fortunate voyage.
+
+I will here state that a general election occurred the week before we
+sailed; and I ran down to Householder and got myself returned, in order
+to protect the interests of those who had a natural right to look up to
+me for that small favor.
+
+We discharged the pilot when we had the Scilly Islands over the
+taffrail, and Mr. Poke took command of the vessel in good earnest.
+Coming down channel, he had done little more than rummage about in the
+cabin, examine the lockers, and make his foot acquainted with the
+anatomy of poor Bob, as the cabin-boy was called; who, judging from the
+amount of the captain’s practice, was admirably well suited for his
+station, in the great requisite of a kickee. But, the last hold of the
+land loosened by the departure of the pilot, our navigator came forth
+in his true colors, and showed the stuff of which he was really made.
+The first thing he did was to cause a pull to be made on every halyard,
+bowline, and brace in the ship; he then rattled off both mates, in
+order to show them (as he afterwards told me in confidence) that he was
+captain of his own vessel; gave the people to understand he did not
+like to speak twice on the same subject and on the same occasion, which
+he said was a privilege he very willingly left to Congressmen and
+women; and then he appeared satisfied with himself and all around him.
+
+A week after we had taken our departure, I ventured to ask Captain Poke
+if it might not be well enough to take an observation, and to resort to
+some means in order to know where the ship was. Noah treated this idea
+with great disrespect. He could see no use in wearing out quadrants
+without any necessity for it. Our course was south, we knew, for we
+were bound to the south pole; all we had to do was to keep America on
+the starboard, and Africa on the larboard hand. To be sure, there was
+something to be said about the trades, and a little allowance to be
+made for currents now and then; but he and the ship would get to be
+better acquainted before a great while, and then all would go on like
+clockwork. A few days after this conversation, I was on deck just as
+day dawned, and to my surprise Noah, who was in his berth, called out
+to the mate, through the skylight, to let him know exactly how the land
+bore. No one had yet seen any land; but at this summons we began to
+look about us, and sure enough there was an island dimly visible on the
+eastern board! Its position by compass was immediately communicated to
+the captain, who seemed well satisfied with the result. Renewing his
+admonition to the officer of the deck to take care and keep Africa on
+the larboard hand, he turned over in his bed to resume his nap.
+
+I afterwards understood from the mates, that we had made a very capital
+fall upon the trades, and that we were getting on wonderfully well,
+though it was quite as great a mystery to them as it was to me, how the
+captain could know where the ship was; for he had not touched his
+quadrant, except to wipe it with a silk handkerchief, since we left
+England. About a fortnight after we had passed the Cape de Verds, Noah
+came on deck in a great rage, and began to storm at the mate and the
+man at the wheel for not keeping the ship her course. To this the
+former answered with spirit, that the only order he had received in a
+fortnight, was “to keep her jogging south, allowing for variation,” and
+that she was heading at that moment according to orders. Hereupon, Noah
+gave Bob, who happened to pass him just then, a smart application a
+posteriori, and swore “that the compass was as big a fool as the mate;
+that the ship was two points off her course; that south was hereaway,
+and not thereaway; that he knew by the feel of the wind that it had no
+northin’ in it, and we had got it away on the quarter, whereas it ought
+to be for’ard of the beam; that we were running for Rio instead of
+Leaphigh, and that if we ever expected to get to the latter country, we
+must haul up on a good taut bowline.” The mate, to my surprise,
+suddenly acquiesced, and immediately brought the ship by the wind. He
+afterwards told me, in a half-whisper, that the second mate having been
+sharpening some harpoons, had unwittingly left them much too close to
+the binnacle; and that, in fact, the magnet had been attracted by them,
+so as to deceive the man at the wheel and himself, fully twenty degrees
+as to the real points of the compass. I must say this little occurrence
+greatly encouraged me, leaving no doubt about our eventual and safe
+arrival as far, at least, as the boundary of ice which separates the
+human from the monikin region. Profiting by this feeling of security, I
+now began to revive the intercourse with the strangers, which had been
+partially interrupted by the novel and disagreeable circumstances of a
+sea life.
+
+The Lady Chatterissa and her companion, as is much the case with
+females at sea, rarely left the gynecee; but as we drew near the
+equator, the philosopher and the young peer passed most of their time
+on deck, or aloft. Dr. Reasono and I spent half of the mild nights in
+discussing subjects connected with my future travels; and as soon as we
+were well clear of the rain and the thunder and lightning of the calm
+latitudes, Captain Poke, Robert, and myself began to study the language
+of Leaphigh. The cabin-boy was included in this arrangement, Noah
+intimating we should find it convenient to take him on shore with us,
+since a wish to conceal my destination had induced me to bring no
+servant along. Luckily for us, the monikin ingenuity had greatly
+diminished the labor of the acquisition. The whole language was spoken
+and written on a system of decimals, which rendered it particularly
+easy, after the elementary principles were once acquired. Thus, unlike
+most human tongues, in which the rule usually forms the exception, no
+departure from its laws was ever allowed, under the penalty of the
+pillory. This provision, the captain protested, was the best rule of
+them all, and saved a vast deal of trouble; for, as he knew by
+experience, a man might be a perfect adept in the language of
+Stunin’tun, and then be laughed at in New York for his pains. The
+comprehensiveness of the tongue was also another great advantage;
+though, like all other eminent advantages or excessive good, it was the
+next-door neighbor to as great an evil. Thus, as my Lord Chatterino
+obligingly explained, “we-witch-it-me-cum” means “Madam, I love you
+from the crown of my head to the tip of my tail; and as I love no other
+half as well, it would make me the happiest monikin on earth, if you
+would consent to become my wife, that we might be models of domestic
+propriety before all eyes, from this time henceforth and forever.” In
+short, it was the usual and most solemn expression for asking in
+marriage; and, by the laws of the land, was binding on the proposer
+until as formally declined by the other party. But, unluckily, the word
+“we-switch-it-me-cum” means “Madam, I love you from the crown of my
+head to the tip of my tail; and, if I did not love another better, it
+would make me the happiest monikin on earth, if you would consent to
+become my wife, that we might be models of domestic propriety before
+all eyes, from this time henceforth and forever.” Now this distinction,
+subtle and insignificant as it was to the eye and the ear, caused a
+vast deal of heart-burning and disappointment among the young people of
+Leaphigh. Several serious lawsuits had grown out of this cause, and two
+great political parties had taken root in the unfortunate mistake of a
+young monikin of quality, who happened to lisp, and who used the fatal
+word indiscreetly. That feud, however, was now happily appeased, having
+lasted only a century, but it would be wise, as we were all three
+bachelors, to take note of the distinction. Captain Poke said he
+thought, on the whole, he was perfectly safe, as he was much accustomed
+to the use of the word “switchel”; but he thought it might be very well
+to go before some consul as soon as the ship anchored, and enter a
+formal protest of our ignorance of all these niceties, lest some
+advantage should be taken of us by the reptiles of lawyers; that he in
+particular was not a bachelor, and that Miss Poke would be as furious
+as a hurricane, if by accident, he should happen to forget himself. The
+matter was deferred for future deliberation.
+
+About this time, too, I had some more interesting communications with
+Dr. Reasono, on the subject of the private histories of all the party
+of which he was the principal member. It would seem that the
+philosopher, though rich in learning, and the proprietor of one of the
+best developed caudce in the entire monikin world, was poor in the more
+vulgar attributes of monikin wealth. While he bestowed freely,
+therefore, from the stores of his philosophy, and through the medium of
+the academy of Leaphigh, on all his fellows, he was obliged to seek an
+especial recipient for his surplus knowledge, in the shape of a pupil,
+in order to provide for the small remains of the animal that still
+lingered in his habits. Lord Chatterino, the orphan heritor of one of
+the noblest and wealthiest, as well as one of the most ancient houses
+of Leaphigh, had been put under his instruction at a very tender age,
+as had my Lady Chatterissa under that of Mrs. Lynx, with very much the
+same objects. This young and accomplished pair had early distinguished
+each other, in monikin society, for their unusual graces of person,
+general attainments, mutual amiableness of disposition, harmony of
+thought, and soundness of principles. Everything was propitious to the
+gentle flame which was kindled in the vestal bosom of Chatterissa, and
+which was met by a passion so ardent and so respectful, as that which
+glowed in the heart of young No. 8 purple. The friends of the
+respective parties, so soon as the budding sympathy between them was
+observed, in order to prevent the blight of wishes so appropriate, had
+called in the aid of the matrimonial surveyor-general of Leaphigh, an
+officer especially appointed by the king in council, whose duty it is
+to take cognizance of the proprieties of all engagements that are
+likely to assume a character as grave and durable as that of marriage.
+Dr. Reasono showed me the certificate issued from the Marriage
+Department on this occasion, and which, in all his wanderings, he had
+contrived to conceal within the lining of the Spanish hat the Savoyards
+had compelled him to wear, and which he still preserved as a document
+that was absolutely indispensable on his return to Leaphigh; else he
+would never be permitted to travel afoot in company with two young
+people of birth and of good estates, who were of the different sexes. I
+translate the certificate, as literally as the poverty of the English
+language will allow.
+
+Extract from the Book of Fitness, Marriage Department, Leaphigh, season
+of nuts, day of brightness.
+
+Vol. 7243, p. 82.
+
+Lord Chatterino: Domains; 126,952 3/4 acres of land; meadow, arable and
+wood in just proportions.
+
+Lady Chatterissa: Domains; 115,999 1/2 acres of land; mostly arable.
+
+Decree, as of record; it is found that the lands of my Lady Chatterissa
+possess in quality what they want in quantity.
+
+Lord Chatterino: Birth; sixteen descents pure; one bastardy—four
+descents pure—a suspicion—one descent pure—a certainty.
+
+Lady Chatterissa: Birth; six descents pure—three bastardies—eleven
+descents pure—a certainty—a suspicion—unknown.
+
+Decree as of record; it is found that the advantage is on the side of
+my Lord Chatterino, but the excellence of the estate on the other side
+is believed to equalize the parties.
+
+(Signed) No. 6 ermine. A true copy.
+
+(Counter signed) No. 1,000,003 ink-color.
+
+Ordered, that the parties make the Journey of Trial together, under the
+charge of Socrates Reasono, Professor of Probabilities in the
+University of Leaphigh, LL.D., F. U. D. G. E., and of Mrs. Vigilance
+Lynx, licensed duenna.
+
+The Journey of Trial is so peculiar to the monikin system, and it might
+be so usefully introduced into our own, that it may be well to explain
+it. Whenever it is found that a young couple are agreeable (to use a
+peculiar anglicized anglicism), in all the more essential requisites of
+matrimony, they are sent on the journey in question, under the care of
+prudent and experienced mentors, with a view to ascertain how far they
+may be able to support, in each other’s society, the ordinary
+vicissitudes of life. In the case of candidates of the more vulgar
+classes, there are official overseers, who usually drag them through a
+few mud-puddles, and then set them to work at some hard labor that is
+especially profitable to the public functionaries, who commonly get the
+greater part of their own year’s work done in this manner. But, as the
+moral provisions of all laws are invented less for those who own
+126,952 3/4 acres of land, divided into meadow, arable and wood, in
+just proportions, than for those whose virtues are more likely to yield
+to the fiery ordeal of temptation, the rich and noble, after making a
+proper and useful manifestation of their compliance with the usage,
+ordinarily retire to their country seats, where they pass the period of
+probation as agreeably as they can; taking care to cause to be inserted
+in the Leaphigh gazette, however, occasional extracts from their
+letters describing the pains and hardships they are compelled to endure
+for the consolation and edification of those who have neither birth nor
+country houses. In a good many instances the journey is actually
+performed by proxy But the case of my Lord Chatterino and my Lady
+Chatterissa formed an exception even to these exceptions. It was
+thought by the authorities that the attachment of a pair so illustrious
+offered a good occasion to distinguish the Leaphigh impartiality; and
+on the well-known principle which induces us sometimes to hang an earl
+in England, the young couple were commanded actually to go forth with
+all useful eclat (secret orders being given to their guardians to allow
+every possible indulgence, at the same time), in order that the lieges
+might see and exult in the sternness and integrity of their rulers.
+
+Dr. Reasono had accordingly taken his departure from the capital for
+the mountains, where he instructed his wards in a practical commentary
+of the ups and downs of life, by exposing them on the verges of
+precipices and in the delights of the most fertile valleys (which, as
+he justly observed, was the greater danger of the two), leading them
+over flinty paths, hungry and cold, in order to try their tempers; and
+setting up establishments with the most awkward peasants for servants,
+to ascertain the depth of Chatterissa’s philosophy; with a variety of
+similar ingenious devices, that will readily suggest themselves to all
+who have any matrimonial experience, whether they live in palaces or
+cottages. When this part of the trial was successfully terminated (the
+result having shown that the gentle Chatterissa was of proof, so far as
+mere temper was concerned), the whole party were ordered off to the
+barrier of ice, which divides the monikin from the human region, with a
+view to ascertain whether the warmth of their attachment was of a
+nature likely to resist the freezing collisions of the world. Here,
+unfortunately, (for the truth must be said), an unlucky desire of Dr.
+Reasono, who was already F. U. D. G. E., but who had a devouring
+ambition to become also M. O. R. E., led him into the extreme
+imprudence of pushing through an opening, where he had formerly
+discovered an island, on an ancient expedition of the same sort; and on
+which island he thought he saw a rock, that formed a stratum of what he
+believed to be a portion of the forty thousand square miles that were
+discomposed by the great eruption of the earth’s boiler. The
+philosopher foresaw a thousand interesting results that were dependent
+on the ascertaining of this important fact; for all the learning of
+Leaphigh having been exhausted, some five hundred years before, in
+establishing the greatest distance to which any fragment had been
+thrown on that memorable occasion, great attention had latterly been
+given to the discovery of the least distance any fragment had been
+hurled. Perhaps I ought to speak tenderly of the consequences of a
+learned zeal, but it was entirely owing to this indiscretion that the
+whole party fell into the hands of certain mariners who were sealing on
+the northern shores of this very island, (friends and neighbors, as it
+afterwards appeared, of Captain Poke), who remorselessly seized upon
+the travellers, and sold them to a homeward-bound India-man, which they
+afterwards fell in with near the island of St. Helena—St. Helena! the
+tomb of him who is a model to all posterity, for the moderation of his
+desires, the simplicity of his character, a deep veneration for truth,
+profound reverence for justice, unwavering faith, and a clear
+appreciation of all the nobler virtues.
+
+We came in sight of the island in question, just as Dr. Reasono
+concluded his interesting narrative; and, turning to Captain Poke, I
+solemnly asked that discerning and shrewd seaman,—
+
+“If he did not think the future would fully avenge itself of the
+past—if history would not do ample justice to the mighty dead—if
+certain names would not be consigned to everlasting infamy for chaining
+a hero to a rock; and whether HIS country, the land of freemen, would
+ever have disgraced itself, by such an act of barbarism and vengeance?”
+
+The captain heard me very calmly; then deliberately helping himself to
+some tobacco, he replied,—
+
+“Harkee, Sir John. At Stunin’tun, when we catch a ferocious critter’,
+we always put it in a cage. I’m no great mathematician, as I’ve often
+told you; if my dog bites me once, I kick him—twice, I beat him—thrice,
+I chain him.”
+
+Alas! there are minds so unfortunately constituted, that they have no
+sympathies with the sublime. All their tendencies are direct and
+common-sense like. To such men, Napoleon appears little better than one
+who lived among his fellows more in the character of a tiger than in
+that of a man. They condemn him because he could not reduce his own
+sense of the attributes of greatness to the level of their home-bred
+morality. Among this number, it would now seem, was to be classed
+Captain Noah Poke.
+
+A wish to relate the manner in which Dr. Reasono and his companions
+fell into human hands, has caused me to overlook one or two matters of
+lighter moment, that should not, in justice to myself, however, be
+entirely omitted.
+
+When we had been at sea two days, a very agreeable surprise for the
+monikin party was prepared and executed. I had caused a certain number
+of jackets and trousers to be made of the skins of different animals,
+such as dogs, cats, sheep, tigers, leopards, hogs, etc., etc., with the
+proper accompaniments of snouts, hoofs, and claws; and, when the ladies
+came on deck, after breakfast, their eyes were no longer offended by
+our rude innovations upon nature, but the whole crew were flying about
+the rigging, like so many animals of the different species named. Noah
+and myself appeared in the characters of sea-lions, the former having
+intimated that he understood the nature of that beast better than any
+other. Of course, this delicate attention was properly appreciated, and
+handsomely acknowledged.
+
+I had taken the precaution to order imitation-skins to be made of
+cotton, which were worn in the low latitudes; and, as we got near the
+Falkland Islands, the real skins were resumed, with promptitude, and I
+might add, with pleasure.
+
+Noah had, at first, raised some strong objections to the scheme, saying
+that he should not feel safe in a ship manned and officered altogether
+by wild beasts; but, at last, he came to enjoy the thing as a good
+joke, never failing to hail the men, not by their names as formerly,
+but, as he expressed it himself, “by their natur’s”; calling out “You
+cat, scratch this”; “You tiger, jump here”; “You hog, out of that
+dirt”; “You dog, scamper there”; “You horse, haul away,” and divers
+other similar conceits, that singularly tickled his fancy. The men
+themselves took up the ball, which they kept rolling, embellished with
+all sorts of nautical witticisms; their surname—they had but one, viz.
+Smith—being entirely dropped for the new appellations. Thus, the sounds
+of “Tom Dog,” “Jack Cat,” “Bill Tiger,” “Sam Hog,” and “Dick Horse,”
+were flying about the deck from morning to night.
+
+Good humor is a great alleviator of bodily privation. From the time the
+ship lost sight of Staten Land, we had heavy weather, with hard gales
+from the southward and westward; and we had the utmost difficulty in
+making our southing. Observations now became a very difficult matter,
+the sun being invisible for a week at a time. The marine instinct of
+Noah, at this crisis, was of the last importance to all on board. He
+gave us the cheering assurance, however, from time to time, that we
+were going south, although the mates declared that they knew not where
+the ship was, or whither she was running; neither sun, moon, nor star
+having now been seen for more than a week.
+
+We had been in this state of anxiety and doubt for about a fortnight,
+when Captain Poke suddenly appeared on deck, and called for the
+cabin-boy, in his usual stentorian and no-denial voice, by the name of
+“You Bob Ape”; for the duty of Robert requiring that he should be much
+about the persons of the monikins, I had given him a dress of apes’
+skins, as a garb that would be more congenial to their tastes than that
+of a pig, or a weasel. Bob Ape was soon forthcoming, and, as he
+approached his master, he quietly turned his face from him, receiving,
+as a matter of course, three or four smart admonitory hints, by way of
+letting him know that he was to be active in the performance of the
+duty on which he was about to be sent. On this occasion I made an odd
+discovery. Bob had profited by the dimensions of his lower garment,
+which had been cut for a much larger boy (one of those who had broken
+down in essaying the true Doric of “Sir”), by stuffing it with an old
+union-jack-a sort of “sarvice,” as he afterwards told me, that saved
+him a good deal of wear and tear of skin. To return to passing events,
+however; when Robert had been duly kicked, he turned about manfully,
+and demanded the captain’s pleasure. He was told to bring the largest
+and fairest pumpkin he could find, from the private stores of Mr. Poke,
+that navigator never going to sea without a store of articles that he
+termed “Stunin’tun food.” The captain took the pumpkin between his
+legs, and carefully peeled off the whole of its greenish-yellow coat,
+leaving it a globe of a whitish color. He then asked for the
+tar-bucket, and, with his fingers, traced various marks, which were
+pretty accurate outlines of the different continents and the larger
+islands of the world. The region near the south pole, however, he left
+untouched; intimating that it contained certain sealing islands, which
+he considered pretty much as the private property of the
+Stunin’tunners.
+
+“Now, Doctor,” he said, pointing to the pumpkin, “there is the ’arth,
+and here is the tar-pot—just mark down the position of your island of
+Leaphigh, if you please, according to the best accounts your academy
+has of the matter. Make a dab here and there, if you happen to know of
+any rocks and shoals. After that, you can lay down the island where you
+were captured, giving a general idee of its headlands and of the
+trending of the coast.”
+
+Dr. Reasono took a fid, and with its end he traced all the desired
+objects with great readiness and skill. Noah examined the work, and
+seemed satisfied that he had fallen into the hands of a monikin who had
+very correct notions of bearings and distances, one, in short, on whose
+local knowledge it might do to run even in the night. He then projected
+the position of Stunnin’tun, an occupation in which he took great
+delight, actually designing the meeting-house and the principal tavern;
+after which, the chart was laid aside.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+HOW TO STEER SMALL—HOW TO RUN THE GAUNTLET WITH A SHIP—HOW TO GO
+CLEAR—A NEW-FASHIONED SCREW—DOCK, AND CERTAIN MILE-STONES.
+
+
+Captain Poke no longer deliberated about the course we were to steer.
+With his pumpkin for a chart, his instinct for an observation, and his
+nose for a compass, the sturdy sealer stood boldly to the southward;
+or, at least, he ran dead before a stiff gale, which, as he more than
+once affirmed, was as true a norther as if bred and born in the
+Canadas.
+
+After coursing over the billows at a tremendous rate for a day and a
+night, the captain appeared on deck, with a face of unusual meaning,
+and a mind loaded with its own reflections, as was proved by his
+winking knowingly whenever he delivered himself of a sentiment; a habit
+that he had most probably contracted, in early youth, at Stunin’tun,
+for it seemed to be quite as inveterate as it was thoroughbred.
+
+“We shall soon know, Sir John,” he observed, hitching the sea-lion skin
+into symmetry, “whether it is sink or swim!”
+
+“Pray explain yourself, Mr. Poke,” cried I, in a little alarm. “If
+anything serious is to happen, you are bound to give timely notice.”
+
+“Death is always untimely to some critturs, Sir John.”
+
+“Am I to understand, sir, that you mean to cast away the ship?”
+
+“Not if I can help it, Sir John; but a craft that is foreordained to be
+a wrack, will be a wrack, in spite of reefing and bracing. Look ahead,
+you Dick Lion—ay, there you have it!”
+
+There we had it, sure enough! I can only compare the scene which now
+met my eyes, to a sudden view of the range of the Oberland Alps, when
+the spectator is unexpectedly placed on the verge of the precipice of
+the Weissenstein. There he would see before him a boundless barrier of
+glittering ice, broken into the glorious and fantastic forms of
+pinnacles, walls, and valleys; while here, we saw all that was sublime
+in such a view heightened by the fearful action of the boisterous
+ocean, which beat upon the impassable boundary in ceaseless violence.
+
+“Good God! Captain Poke,” I exclaimed, the instant I caught a glimpse
+of the formidable danger that menaced us, “you surely do not mean to
+continue madly on, with such a warning of the consequences in plain
+view?”
+
+“What would you have, Sir John? Leaphigh lies on the t’other side of
+these ice-islands!”
+
+“But you need not run the ship against them—why not go round them?”
+
+“Because they go round the ’arth, in this latitude. Now is the time to
+speak, Sir John. If we are bound to Leaphigh, we have the choice of
+three pretty desperate chances; to go through, to go under, or to go
+over that there ice. If we are to put back, there is not a moment to
+lose, for it may be even now questioned whether the ship would claw
+off, as we are, with a sending sea, and this heavy norther.”
+
+I believe I would, at that moment, gladly have given up all my social
+stakes to be well rid of the adventure. Still pride, that substitute
+for so many virtues, the greatest and the most potent of all
+hypocrites, forbade my betraying the desire to retreat. I deliberated,
+while the ship flew; and when, at length, I turned to the captain to
+suggest a doubt that might, at an earlier notice, possibly have changed
+the whole aspect of affairs, he bluntly told me it was too late. It was
+safer to proceed than to return, if indeed, return were possible, in
+the present state of the winds and waves. Making a merit of necessity,
+I braced my nerves to meet the crisis, and remained a submissive, and,
+apparently, a calm spectator of that which followed.
+
+The Walrus (such was the name of our good ship) by this time was under
+easy canvas, and yet, urged by the gale, she rolled down with alarming
+velocity towards the boundary of foam where the congealed and the still
+liquid element held their strife. The summits of the frozen crags waved
+in their glittering glory in a way just to show that they were afloat;
+and I remembered to have heard that, at times, as their bases melted,
+entire mountains had been known to roll over, engulfing all that lay
+beneath. To me it seemed but a moment, before the ship was fairly
+overshadowed by these shining cliffs, which, gently undulating, waved
+their frozen summits nearly a thousand feet in air. I looked at Noah,
+in alarm, for it appeared to me that he intentionally precipitated us
+to destruction. But, just as I was about to remonstrate, he made a sign
+with his hand, and the vessel was brought to the wind. Still retreat
+was impossible; for the heave of the sea was too powerful, and the wind
+too heavy, to leave us any hope of long keeping the Walrus from
+drifting down upon the ragged peaks that bristled in icy glory to
+leeward. Nor did Captain Poke himself seem to entertain any such
+design; for, instead of hugging the gale, in order to haul off from the
+danger, he had caused the yards to be laid perfectly square, and we
+were now running, at a great rate, in a line nearly parallel with the
+frozen coast, though gradually setting upon it.
+
+“Keep full! Let her go through water, you Jim Tiger,” said the old
+sealer, whose professional ardor was fairly aroused. “Now, Sir John,
+unluckily, we are on the wrong side of these ice mountains, for the
+plain reason that Leaphigh lies to the south’ard of them. We must be
+stirring, therefore, for no craft that was ever launched could keep off
+these crags with such a gale driving home upon them, for more than an
+hour or two. Our great concern, at present, is to look out for a hole
+to run into.”
+
+“Why have you come so close to the danger, with your knowledge of the
+consequences?”
+
+“To own the truth, Sir John, natur’ is natur’, and I’m getting to be a
+little near-sighted as I grow old; besides, I’m not so sartain that the
+danger is the more dangerous, for taking a good, steady look plump in
+its face.”
+
+Noah raised his hand, as much as to say he wished no answer, and both
+of us were immediately occupied in gazing anxiously to leeward. The
+ship was just opening a small cove in the ice, which might have been a
+cable’s length in depth, and a quarter of a mile across its outer, or
+the widest part. Its form was regular, being that of a semicircle; but,
+at its bottom, the ice, instead of forming a continued barrier, like
+all the rest we had yet passed, was separated by a narrow opening, that
+was bounded on each side by a frowning precipice. The two bergs were
+evidently drawing nearer to each other, but there was still a strait,
+or a watery gorge between them, of some two hundred feet in width. As
+the ship plunged onward, the pass was opened, and we caught a glimpse
+of the distant view to leeward. It was merely a glimpse—the impatient
+Walrus allowing us but a moment for examination—but it appeared
+sufficient for the purposes of the old sealer. We were already across
+the mouth of the cove, and within a cable’s length of the ice again;
+for as we drew near what may be called the little cape, we found
+ourselves once more in closer proximity to the menacing mountain. It
+was a moment when all depended on decision; and fortunately, our
+sealer, who was so wary and procrastinating in a bargain, never had
+occasion to make two drafts on his thoughts, in situations of
+emergency. As the ship cleared the promontory on the eastern side of
+the cove, we again opened a curvature of the ice, which gave a little
+more water to leeward. Tacking was impossible, and the helm was put
+hard aweather. The bow of the Walrus fell off, and as she rose on the
+next wave, I thought its send would carry us helplessly down upon the
+berg. But the good craft, obedient to her rudder, whirled round, as if
+sensible herself of the danger, and, in less time than I had ever
+before known her to wear, we felt the wind on the other quarter. Our
+cats and dogs bestirred themselves, for there was no one there, Captain
+Noah Poke excepted, whose heart did not beat quick and hard. In much
+less time than usual, the yards were braced up on the other tack, and
+the ship was ploughing heavily against the sea, with her head to the
+westward. It is impossible to give one who has never been in such a
+situation, a just idea of the feverish impatience, the sinking and
+mounting of hope, as we watch the crablike movement of a vessel that is
+clawing off a lee-shore, in a gale. In the present case, it being well
+known that the sea was fathomless, we had run so near the danger that
+not even the smallest of its horrors was veiled from sight.
+
+While the ship labored along, I saw the clouds fast shutting in to
+windward, by the interposition of the promontory of ice—the certain
+sign that our drift was rapid—and, as we drew nearer to the point,
+breathing became labored and even audible. Here Noah took a chew of
+tobacco, I presume on the principle of enjoying a last quid, should the
+elements prove fatal; and then he went to the wheel in person.
+
+“Let her go through the water,” he said, easing the helm a little—“let
+her jog ahead, or we shall lose command of her in this devil’s-pot!”
+
+The vessel felt the slight change, and drew faster through the foaming
+brine, bringing us, with increasing velocity, nearer to the dreaded
+point. As we came up to the promontory the water fell back in spray on
+the decks, and there was an instant when it appeared as if the wind was
+about to desert us. Happily the ship had drawn so far ahead as to feel
+the good effects of a slight change of current that was caused by the
+air rushing obliquely into the cove; and, as Noah, by easing the helm
+still more, had anticipated this alteration, which had been felt
+adversely but a moment before, while struggling to the eastward of the
+promontory, we drew swiftly past the icy cape, opening the cove
+handsomely, with the ship’s head falling off fast towards the gorge.
+
+There was but a minute or two, for squaring the yards and obtaining the
+proper position to windward of the narrow strait. Instead of running
+down in a direct line for the latter, Captain Poke kept the ship on
+such a course as to lay it well open, before her head was pointed
+towards the passage. By this time, the two bergs had drawn so near each
+other as actually to form an arch across its mouth; and this, too, at a
+part so low as to render it questionable whether there was sufficient
+elevation to permit the Walrus to pass beneath. But retreat was
+impossible, the gale urging the ship furiously onwards. The width of
+the passage was now but little more than a hundred feet, and it
+actually required the nicest steerage to keep our yard-arms clear of
+the opposite precipices, as the vessel dashed, with foaming bows, into
+the gorge. The wind drew through the opening with tremendous violence,
+fairly howling as if in delight at discovering a passage by which it
+might continue its furious career. We may have been aided by the
+sucking of the wind and the waves, both of which were irresistibly
+drawn towards the pass, or it is quite probable that the skill of
+Captain Poke did us good service on this awful occasion; but, owing to
+the one or the other, or to the two causes united, the Walrus shot into
+the gorge so accurately as to avoid touching either of the lateral
+margins of the ice. We were not so fortunate, however, with the loftier
+spars; for scarcely was the vessel beneath the arch, when she lifted on
+a swell, and her main-top-gallant-mast snapped off in the cap. The ice
+groaned and cracked over our heads, and large fragments fell both ahead
+and astern of us, several of them even tumbling upon our decks. One
+large piece came down within an inch of the extremity of Dr. Reasono’s
+tail, just escaping the dire calamity of knocking out the brains of
+that profound and philo-monikin philosopher. In another instant the
+ship was through the pass, which completely closed, with the crash of
+an earthquake, as soon as possible afterwards.
+
+Still driven by the gale, we ran rapidly towards the south, along a
+channel less than a quarter of a mile in width, the bergs evidently
+closing on each side of us, and the ship, as if conscious of her
+jeopardy, doing her utmost, with Captain Poke still at the wheel. In a
+little more than an hour, the worst was over—the Walrus issuing into an
+open basin of several leagues in extent, which was, however, completely
+encircled by the frozen mountains. Here Noah took a look at the
+pumpkin, after which he made no ceremony in plumply telling Dr. Reasono
+that he had been greatly mistaken in laying down the position of
+Captivity Island, as he himself had named the spot where the amiable
+strangers had fallen into human hands. The philosopher was a little
+tenacious of his opinion; but what is argument in the face of facts?
+Here was the pumpkin, and there were the blue waters! The captain now
+quite frankly declared that he had great doubts whether there was any
+such place as Leaphigh at all; and as the ship had a capital position
+for such an object, he bluntly, though privately proposed to me, that
+we should throw all the monikins overboard, project the entire polar
+basin on his chart as being entirely free from islands, and then go
+a-sealing. I rejected the propositions, firstly, as premature;
+secondly, as inhuman; thirdly, as inhospitable; fourthly, as
+inconvenient; and lastly, as impracticable.
+
+There might have arisen a disagreeable controversy between us on this
+point; for Mr. Poke had begun to warm, and to swear that one good seal,
+of the true quality of fur, was worth a hundred monkeys; when most
+happily the panther at the masthead cried out that two of the largest
+mountains, to the southward of us, were separating, and that he could
+discern a passage into another basin. Hereupon Captain Poke
+concentrated his oaths, which he caused to explode like a bomb, and
+instantly made sail again in the proper direction. By three o’clock,
+P.M., we had run the gauntlet of the bergs a second time, and were at
+least a degree nearer the pole, in the basin just alluded to.
+
+The mountains had now entirely disappeared in the southern board; but
+the sea was covered, far as the eye could reach, with field-ice. Noah
+stood on, without apprehension; for the water had been smooth ever
+since we entered the first opening, the wind not having rake enough to
+knock up a swell. When about a mile from the margin of the frozen and
+seemingly interminable plain, the ship was brought to the wind, and
+hove-to.
+
+Ever since the vessel left the docks, there had been six sets of spars
+of a form so singular, lying among the booms, that they had often been
+the subject of conversation between the mates and myself, neither of
+the former being able to tell their uses. These sticks were of no great
+length, some fifteen feet at the most, of sound English oak. Two or
+three pairs were alike, for they were in pairs, each pair having one of
+the sides of a shape resembling different parts of the ship’s bottom,
+with the exception that they were chiefly concave, while the bottom of
+a vessel is mainly convex. At one extremity each pair was firmly
+connected by a short, massive, iron link, of about two feet in length;
+and, at its opposite end, a large eye-bolt was driven into each stick,
+where it was securely forelocked. When the Walrus was stationary, we
+learned, for the first time, the uses of these unusual preparations. A
+pair of the timbers, which were of great solidity and strength, were
+dropped over the stern, and, sinking beneath the keel, their upper
+extremities were separated by means of lanyards turned into the
+eye-bolts. The lanyards were then brought forward to the bilge of the
+vessel, where, by the help of tackles, the timbers were rowsed up in
+such a manner that the links came close to the false keel, and the
+timbers themselves were laid snug against each side of the ship. As
+great care had been taken, by means of marks on the vessel, as well as
+in forming the skids themselves, the fit was perfect. No less than five
+pairs were secured in and near the bilge, and as many more were
+distributed forwards and aft, according to the shape of the bottom.
+Fore-and-aft pieces, that reached from one skid to the other, were then
+placed between those about the bilge of the ship, each of them having a
+certain number of short ribs, extending upwards and downwards. These
+fore-and-aft pieces were laid along the waterline, their ends entering
+the skids by means of mortices and tenons, where they were snugly
+bolted. The result of the entire arrangement was, to give the vessel an
+exterior protection against the field-ice, by means of a sort of
+network of timber, the whole of which had been so accurately fitted in
+the dock, as to bear equally on her frame. These preparations were not
+fairly completed before ten o’clock on the following morning, when Noah
+stood directly for an opening in the ice before us, which just about
+that time began to be apparent.
+
+“We sha’nt go so fast for our armor,” observed the cautious old sealer;
+“but what we want in heels, we’ll make up in bottom.”
+
+For the whole of that day we worked our devious course, by great labor
+and at uncertain intervals, to the southward; and at night we fastened
+the Walrus to a floe, in waiting for the return of light. Just as the
+day dawned, however, I heard a tremendous grating sound against the
+side of the vessel; and rushing on deck, I found that we were
+completely caught between two immense fields, which seemed to be
+attracted towards each other for no other apparent purpose than to
+crush us. Here it was that the expedient of Captain Poke made manifest
+its merits. Protected by the massive timbers and false ribs, the bilge
+of the ship resisted the pressure; and as, under such circumstances,
+something must yield, luckily nothing but the attraction of gravitation
+was overcome. The skids, through their inclination, acted as wedges,
+the links pressing against the keel; and in the course of an hour the
+Walrus was gradually lifted out of the water, maintaining her upright
+position, in consequence of the powerful nip of the floes. No sooner
+was this experiment handsomely effected, than Mr. Poke jumped upon the
+ice, and commenced an examination of the ship’s bottom.
+
+“Here’s a dry-dock for you, Sir John!” exclaimed the old sealer,
+chuckling. “I’ll have a patent for this, the moment I put foot ag’in in
+Stunin’tun.”
+
+A feeling of security, to which I had been a stranger ever since we
+entered the ice, was created by the composure of Noah, and by his
+self-congratulation at what he called his project to get a look at the
+Walrus’s bottom. Notwithstanding all the fine declarations of
+exultation and success, however, that he flourished among us who were
+not mariners, I was much disposed to think that, like other men of
+extraordinary genius, he had blundered on the grand result of his
+“ice-screws,” and that it was not foreseen and calculated. Let this be
+as it may, however, all hands were soon on the floe, with brooms,
+scrapers, hammers, and nails, and the opportunity of repairing and
+cleaning was thoroughly improved.
+
+For four-and-twenty hours the ship remained in the same attitude, still
+as a church, and some of us began to entertain apprehensions that she
+might be kept on her frozen blocks forever. The accident had happened,
+according to the statements of Captain Poke, in lat. 78 degrees 13′
+26″—although I never knew in what manner he ascertained the important
+particular of our precise situation. Thinking it might be well to get
+some more accurate ideas on this subject, after so long and ticklish a
+run, I procured the quadrant from Bob Ape, and brought it down upon the
+ice, where I made it a point, as an especial favor, the weather being
+favorable and the proper hour near, that our commander would correct
+his instinct by a solar observation. Noah protested that your old
+seaman, especially if a sealer and a Stunin’tunner, had no occasion for
+such geometry operations, as he termed them; that it might be well
+enough, perhaps necessary, for your counting-house, silk-gloved
+captains, who run between New York and Liverpool, to be rubbing up
+their glasses and polishing their sextants, for they hardly ever knew
+where they were, except at such times; but as for himself, he had
+little need of turning star-gazer at his time of life, and that as he
+had already told me, he was getting to be near-sighted, and had some
+doubts whether he could discern an object like the sun, that was known
+to be so many thousands of millions of miles from the earth. These
+scruples, however, were overcome by my cleaning the glasses, preparing
+a barrel for him to stand on, that he might be at the customary
+elevation above his horizon, and putting the instrument into his hands,
+the mates standing near, ready to make the calculations when he gave
+the sun’s declination.
+
+“We are drifting south’ard, I know,” said Mr. Poke before he commenced
+his sight—“I feel it in my bones. We are at this moment in 79 degrees
+36′ 14″.—having made a southerly drift of more than eighty miles since
+yesterday noon. Now mind my words, and see what the sun will say about
+it.”
+
+When the calculations were made, our latitude was found to be 79
+degrees 35′ 47″. Noah was somewhat puzzled by the difference, for which
+he could in no plausible way account, as the observation had been
+unusually good and certain. But an opinionated and an ingenious man is
+seldom at a loss to find a sufficient reason to establish his own
+correctness, or to prove the mistakes of others.
+
+“Ay, I see how it is,” he said, after a little cogitation, “the sun
+must be wrong—it should be no wonder if the sun did get a little out of
+his track in these high, cold latitudes. Yes, yes; the sun must be
+wrong.”
+
+I was too much delighted at being certain we were going on our course
+to dispute the point, and the great luminary was abandoned to the
+imputation of sometimes being in error. Dr. Reasono took occasion to
+say, in my private ear, that there was a sect of philosophers in
+Leaphigh, who had long distrusted the accuracy of the planetary system,
+and who had even thrown out hints that the earth, In its annual
+revolution, moved in a direction absolutely contrary to that which
+nature had contemplated when she gave the original polar impulse; but
+that, as regarded himself, he thought very little of these opinions, as
+he had frequent occasion to observe that there was a large class of
+monikins whose ideas always went uphill.
+
+For two more days and as many nights, we continued to drift with the
+floes to the southward, or as near as might be, towards the haven of
+our wishes. On the fourth morning, there was a suitable change in the
+weather; both thermometer and barometer rose; the air became more
+bland, and most of our cats and dogs, notwithstanding we were still
+surrounded by the ice, began to cast their skins. Dr. Reasono noted
+these signs, and stepping on the floe, he brought back with him a
+considerable fragment of the frozen element. This was carried to the
+camboose, where it was subjected to the action of fire, which, within a
+given number of minutes, pretty much as a matter of course, as I
+thought, caused it to melt. The whole process was watched with an
+anxiety the most intense, by the whole of the monikins, however; and
+when the result was announced, the amiable and lovely Chatterissa
+clapped her pretty little pattes with joy, and gave all the other
+natural indications of delight, which characterize the emotions of that
+gentle sex of which she was so bright an ornament. Dr. Reasono was not
+backwards in explaining the cause of so much unusual exhilaration, for
+hitherto her manner had been characterized by the well-bred and
+sophisticated restraint which marks high training. The experiment had
+shown, by the infallible and scientific tests of monikin chemistry,
+that we were now within the influence of a steam-climate, and there
+could no longer be any rational doubt of our eventual arrival in the
+polar basin.
+
+The result proved that the philosopher was right. About noon the floes,
+which all that day had begun to assume what is termed a “sloppy
+character,” suddenly gave way, and the Walrus settled down into her
+proper element, with great equanimity and propriety. Captain Poke lost
+no time in unshipping the skids; and a smacking breeze, that was well
+saturated with steam, springing up from the westward, we made sail. Our
+course was due south, without regard to the ice, which yielded before
+our bows like so much thick water, and just as the sun set, we entered
+the open sea, rioting in the luxuriance of its genial climate, in
+triumph.
+
+Sail was carried on the ship all that night; and just as the day
+dawned, we made the first mile-stone, a proof, not to be mistaken, that
+we were now actually within the monikin region. Dr. Reasono had the
+goodness to explain to us the history of these aquatic phenomena. It
+would seem that when the earth exploded, its entire crust, throughout
+the whole of this part of the world, was started upwards in such a way
+as to give a very uniform depth to the sea, which in no place exceeds
+four fathoms. It follows, as a consequence, that no prevalence of
+northerly winds can force the icebergs beyond 78 degrees of south
+latitude, as they invariably ground on reaching the outer edge of the
+polar bank. The floes, being thin, are melted of course; and thus, by
+this beneficent prevention, the monikin world is kept entirely free
+from the very danger to which a vulgar mind would be the most apt to
+believe it is the most exposed.
+
+A congress of nations had been held, about five centuries since, which
+was called the Holy-philo-marine-safety-and-find-the-way Alliance. At
+this congress the high contracting parties agreed to name a commission
+to make provision, generally, for the secure navigation of the seas.
+One of the expedients of this commission, which, by the way, is said to
+have been composed of very illustrious monikins, was to cause massive
+blocks of stone to be laid down, at measured distances, throughout the
+whole of the basin, and in which other stone uprights were secured. The
+necessary inscriptions were graved on proper tablets, and as we
+approached the one already named, I observed that it had the image of a
+monikin, carved also in stone, with his tail extended in a right line,
+pointing, as Mr. Poke assured me, S. and by W. half W. I had made
+sufficient progress in the monikin language to read, as we glided past
+this watermark—“To Leaphigh,—15 miles.” One monikin mile, however, we
+were next told, was equal to nine English statute miles; and,
+consequently, we were not so near our port as was at first supposed. I
+expressed great satisfaction at finding ourselves so fairly on the
+road, however, and paid Dr. Reasono some well-merited compliments on
+the high state of civilization to which his species had evidently
+arrived. The day was not distant, I added, when it was reasonable to
+suppose, our own seas would have floating restaurants and cafes, with
+suitable pot-houses for the mariners; though I did not well see how we
+were to provide a substitute for their own excellent organization of
+mile-stones. The Doctor received my compliments with becoming modesty,
+saying that he had no doubt mankind would do all that lay in their
+power to have good eating and drinking-houses, whereever they could be
+established; but as to the marine milestones, he agreed with me, that
+there was little hope of their being planted, until the crust of the
+earth should be driven upwards, so as to rise within four fathoms of
+the surface of the water. On the other hand, Captain Poke held this
+latter improvement very cheap. He affirmed it was no sign of
+civilization at all, for, as a man became civilized, he had less need
+of primers and finger-boards; and, as for Leaphigh, any tolerable
+navigator could see it bore S. by W. half W. allowing for variation,
+distant 135 English miles. To these objections I was silent, for I had
+frequent occasion to observe that men very often underrate any
+advantage of which they have come into the enjoyment by a providential
+interposition.
+
+Just as the sun was in the meridian, the cry of “land ahead” was heard
+from aloft. The monikins were all smiles and gratitude; the crew were
+excited by admiration and wonder; and as for myself, I was literally
+ready to jump out of my skin, not only with delight, but, in some
+measure also, from the exceeding warmth of the atmosphere. Our cats and
+dogs began to uncase; Bob was obliged to unmask his most exposed
+frontier, by removing the union-jack; and Noah himself fairly appeared
+on deck in his shirt and night-cap. The amiable strangers were too much
+occupied to be particular, and I slipped into my state-room to change
+my toilet to a dress of thin silk, that was painted to resemble the
+skin of a polar bear—a contradiction between things that is much too
+common in our species ever to be deemed out of fashion.
+
+We neared the land with great rapidity, impelled by a steam-breeze, and
+just as the sun sank in the horizon our anchor was let go, in the outer
+harbor of the city of Aggregation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+AN ARRIVAL—FORMS OF RECEPTION—SEVERAL NEW CHRISTENINGS—AN OFFICIAL
+DOCUMENT, ND TERRA FIRMA.
+
+
+It is always agreeable to arrive safe, at the end of a long, fatiguing,
+and hazardous journey. But the pleasure is considerably augmented when
+the visit is paid to a novel region, with a steam-climate, and which is
+peopled by a new species. My own satisfaction, too was coupled with the
+reflection that I had been of real service to four very interesting and
+well-bred strangers, who had been cast, by an adverse fortune, into the
+hands of humanity, and who owed to me a boon far more precious than
+life itself—a restoration to their natural and acquired rights, their
+proper stations in society, and sacred liberty! The reader will judge,
+therefore, with what inward self-congratulation I now received the
+acknowledgments of the whole monikin party, and listened to their most
+solemn protestations ever to consider, not only all they might jointly
+and severally possess in the way of estates and dignities, at my entire
+disposal, but their persons as my slaves. Of course, I made as light as
+possible of any little service I might have done them, protesting in my
+turn, that I looked upon the whole affair more in the light of a party
+of pleasure than a tax, reminding them that I had not only obtained an
+insight into a new philosophy, but that I was already, thanks to the
+decimal system, a tolerable proficient in their ancient and learned
+language. These civilities were scarcely well over, before we were
+boarded by the boat of the port-captain.
+
+The arrival of a human ship was an event likely to create excitement in
+a monikin country; and as our approach had been witnessed for several
+hours, preparations had been made to give us a proper reception. The
+section of the academy to whom is committed the custody of the “Science
+of Indications,” was hastily assembled by order of the king, who, by
+the way, never speaks except through the mouth of his oldest male first
+cousin, who, by the fundamental laws of the realm, is held responsible
+for all his official acts (in private, the king is allowed almost as
+many privileges as any other monikin), and who, as is due to him in
+simple justice, is permitted to exercise, in a public point of view,
+the functions of the eyes, ears, nose, conscience, and tail of the
+monarch. The savans were active, and as they proceeded with method, and
+on well-established principles, their report was quickly made. It
+contained, as we afterwards understood, seven sheets of premises,
+eleven of argument, sixteen of conjecture, and two lines of deduction.
+This heavy draft on the monikin intellect was duly achieved by dividing
+the work into as many parts as there were members of the section
+present, viz., forty. The substance of their labors was, to say that
+the vessel in sight was a strange vessel; that it came to a strange
+country, on a strange errand, being manned by strangers; and that its
+objects were more likely to be peaceful than warlike, since the glasses
+of the academy did not enable them to discover any means of annoyance,
+with the exception of certain wild beasts, who appeared, however, to be
+peaceably occupied in working the ship. All this was sententiously
+expressed in the purest monikin language. The effect of the report was,
+to cause all hostile preparations to be abandoned.
+
+No sooner did the boat of the port-captain return to the shore with the
+news that the strange ship had arrived with my Lord Chatterino, my Lady
+Chatterissa and Dr. Reasono than there was a general burst of joy along
+the strand. In a very short time the king—alias his eldest first cousin
+of the male gender—ordered the usual compliments to be paid to his
+distinguished subjects. A deputation of young lords the hopes of
+Leaphigh came off to receive their colleague; whilst a bevy of
+beautiful maidens of noble birth crowded around the smiling and
+graceful Chatterissa, gladdening her heart with their caressing manners
+and felicitations. The noble pair left us in separate boats, each
+attended by an appropriate escort. We overlooked the little neglect of
+forgetting to take leave of us, for joy had quite set them both beside
+themselves. Next came a long procession composed of high numbers, all
+of the “brown-study color.” These learned and dignified persons were a
+deputation from the academy, which had sent forth no less than forty of
+its number to receive Dr. Reasono. The meeting between these loving
+friends of monikinity and of knowledge, was conducted on the most
+approved principles of reason. Each section (there are forty in the
+academy of Leaphigh) made an address, to all of which the Doctor
+returned suitable replies, always using exactly the same sentiments,
+but varying the subject by transpositions, as dictionaries are known to
+be composed by the ingenious combinations of the twenty-six letters of
+the alphabet. Dr. Reasono withdrew with his coadjutors, to my surprise
+paying not a whit more attention to Captain Poke and myself, than would
+be paid in any highly-civilized country of Christendom, on a similar
+occasion, by a collection of the learned, to the accidental presence of
+two monkeys. I thought this augured badly, and began to feel as became
+Sir John Goldencalf, Bart., of Householder Hall, in the kingdom of
+Great Britain, when my sensations were nipped in the bud by the arrival
+of the officers of registration and circulation. It was the duty of the
+latter to give us the proper passports to enter into and to circulate
+within the country, after the former had properly enregistered our
+numbers and colors, in such a way as to bring us within the reach of
+taxation. The officer of registration was very expeditious from long
+practice. He decided, at once, that I formed a new class by myself; of
+which, of course, I was No. 1. The captain and his two mates formed
+another, Nos. 1, 2, and 3. Bob had a class also to himself, and the
+honors of No. 1; and the crew formed a fresh class, being numbered
+according to height, as the register deemed their merits to be
+altogether physical. Next came the important point of color, on which
+depended the quality of the class or caste, the numbers merely
+indicating our respective stations in the particular divisions. After a
+good deal of deliberation, and many interrogatories, I was enregistered
+as No. 1, flesh-color. Noah as No. 1, sea-water color, and his mates 2
+and 3, accordingly. Bob as No. 1, smut-color, and the crew as Nos. 1,
+2, 3, etc., tar-color. The officer now called upon an assistant to come
+forth with a sort of knitting-needle heated red-hot, in order to affix
+the official stamp to each in succession. Luckily for us all, Noah
+happened to be the first to whom the agent of the stamp-office applied,
+to uncase and to prepare for the operation. The result was one of those
+bursts of eloquent and logical vituperation, and of remonstrating
+outcries, to which any new personal exaction never failed to give birth
+in the sealer. His discourse on this occasion might be divided into the
+several following heads, all of which were very ingeniously embellished
+by the usual expletives and imagery:—“He was not a beast to be branded
+like a horse, nor a slave to be treated like a Congo nigger; he saw no
+use in applying the marks to men, who were sufficiently distinguished
+from monkeys already; Sir John had a handle before his name, and if he
+liked it, he might carry his name behind his body, by way of
+counterpoise, but for his part, he wanted no outriggers of the sort,
+being satisfied with plain Noah Poke; he was a republican, and it was
+anti-republican for a man to carry about with him graven images; he
+thought it might be even flying in the face of the Scriptures, or what
+was worse, turning his back on them; he said that the Walrus had her
+name, in good legible characters on her starn, and that might answer
+for both of them; he protested, d—n his eyes, that he wouldn’t be
+branded like a thief; he incontinently wished the keeper of the privy
+seal to the d—-l; he insisted there was no use in the practice, unless
+one threw all aback, and went starn foremost into society, a rudeness
+at which human natur’ revolted; he knew a man in Stunin’tun who had
+five names, and he should like to know what they would do with him, if
+this practice should come into fashion there; he had no objection to a
+little paint, but no red-hot knitting-needle should make acquaintance
+with his flesh, so long as he walked his quarter-deck.”
+
+The keeper of the seals listened to this remonstrance with singular
+patience and decorum; a forbearance that was probably owing to his not
+understanding a word that had been said. But there is a language that
+is universal, and it is not less easy to comprehend when a man is in a
+passion, than it is to comprehend any other irritated animal. The
+officer of the registration department, on this hint, politely inquired
+of me, if some part of his official duties were not particularly
+disagreeable to No. 1, sea-water color. On my admitting that the
+captain was reluctant to be branded, he merely shrugged his shoulders,
+and observed that the exactions of the public were seldom agreeable,
+but that duty was duty, that the stamp act was peremptory, and not a
+foot of ours could touch Leaphigh until we were all checked off in this
+manner, in exact conformity with the registration. I was much puzzled
+what to do, by this indomitable purpose to perform his duty in the
+officer; for, to own the truth, my own cuticle had quite as much
+aversion to the operation, as of Captain Poke himself. It was not the
+principle so much as the novelty of its application which distressed
+me; for I had travelled too much not to know that a stranger rarely
+enters a civilized country without being more or less skinned, the
+merest savages only permitting him to pass unscathed. It suddenly came
+to my recollection that the monikins had left all the remains of their
+particular stores on board, consisting of an ample supply of delicious
+nuts. Sending for a bag of the best of them, I ordered it to be put
+into the register’s boat, informing him at the same time, that I was
+conscious they were quite unworthy of him, but that I hoped, such as
+they were, he would allow me to make an offering of them to his wife.
+This attention was properly felt and received; and a few minutes
+afterwards, a certificate in the following words was put into my hands,
+viz.:
+
+“Leaphigh, season of promise, day of performance: Whereas, certain
+persons of the human species have lately presented themselves to be
+enregistered, according to the statute ‘for the promotion of order and
+classification, and for the collection of contributions’; and whereas,
+these persons are yet in the second class of the animal probation, and
+are more subject to bodily impressions than the higher, or monikin
+species: Now, know all monikins, etc., that they are stamped in paint,
+and that only by their numbers; each class among them being easily to
+be distinguished from the others, by outward and indelible proofs.
+
+“Signed,
+
+“No. 8,020 office-color.”
+
+I was told that all we had to do now was to mark ourselves with paint
+or tar, as we might choose, the latter being recommended for the crew;
+taking no further trouble than to number ourselves; and when we went
+ashore, if any of the gens-d’armes inquired why we had not the legal
+impression on our persons, which quite possibly would be the case, as
+the law was absolute in its requisitions, all we had to do was to show
+the certificate; but if the certificate was not sufficient, we were men
+of the world, and understood the nature of things so well, that we did
+not require to be taught so simple a proposition in philosophy, as that
+which says, “like causes produce like effects”; and he presumed I could
+not have so far overrated his merits, as to have sent the whole of my
+nuts into his boat. I avow that I was not very sorry to hear the
+officer throw out these hints, for they convinced me that my journey
+through Leaphigh would be accompanied with less embarrassment than I
+had anticipated, since I now plainly perceived that monikins act on
+principles that are not very essentially different from those of the
+human race in general.
+
+The complaisant register and the keeper of the privy seal took their
+departure together, when we forthwith proceeded to number ourselves in
+compliance with his advice. As the principle was already settled, we
+had no difficulty with its application, Noah, Bob, myself, and the
+largest of the seamen being all Nos. 1, and the rest ranking in order.
+By this time it was night. The guard-boats began to appear on the
+water, and we deferred disembarking until morning.
+
+All hands were early afoot. It had been arranged that Captain Poke and
+myself, attended by Bob, as a domestic, were to land, in order to make
+a journey through the island, while the Walrus was to be left in charge
+of the mates and the crew; the latter having permission to go ashore,
+from time to time, as is the practice with all seamen in port. There
+was a great deal of preliminary scrubbing and shaving, before the whole
+party could appear on deck, properly attired for the occasion. Mr. Poke
+wore a thin dress of linen, admirably designed to make him look like a
+sea-lion; a conceit that he said was not only agreeable to his feelings
+and habits, but which had a cool and pleasant character that was
+altogether suited to a steam-climate. For my own part, I agreed with
+the worthy sealer, seeing but little difference between his going in
+this garb, and his going quite naked. My dress was made, on a design of
+my own, after the social-stake system; or, in other words, it was so
+arranged as to take an interest in half of the animals of Exeter
+Change, to which MENAGERIE the artist by whom it had been painted was
+sent expressly, in order to consult nature. Bob wore the effigy, as his
+master called it, of a turnspit.
+
+The monikins were by far too polished to crowd about us when we landed,
+with an impertinent and troublesome curiosity. So far from this, we
+were permitted to approach the capital itself without let or hindrance.
+As it is less my intention to describe physical things than to dwell
+upon the philosophy and the other moral aspects of the Leaphigh world,
+little more will be said of their houses, domestic economy, and other
+improvements in the arts, than may be gathered incidentally, as the
+narrative shall proceed. Let it suffice to say on these heads, that the
+Leaphigh monikins, like men, consult, or think they consult—which, so
+long as they know no better, amounts to pretty much the same
+thing—their own convenience in all things, the pocket alone excepted;
+and that they continue very laudably to do as their fathers did before
+them, seldom making changes, unless they may happen to possess the
+recommendation of being exotics; when, indeed, they are sometimes
+adopted, probably on account of their possessing the merit of having
+been proved suitable to another state of things.
+
+Among the first persons we met, on entering the great square of
+Aggregation, as the capital of Leaphigh is called when rendered into
+English, was my Lord Chatterino. He was gayly promenading with a
+company of young nobles, who all seemed to be enjoying their youth,
+health, rank, and privileges with infinite gusto. We met this party in
+a way to render an escape from mutual recognition impossible. At first
+I thought, from his averted eye, that it was the intention of our late
+shipmate to consider our knowledge of each other as one of those
+accidental acquaintances which, it is known, we all form at
+watering-places, on journeys, or in the country, and which it is
+ill-mannered to press upon others in town; or, as Captain Poke
+afterwards expressed it, like the intimacy between an Englishman and a
+Yankee, that has been formed in the house of the latter, on better wine
+than is met with anywhere else, and which was never yet known to
+withstand the influence of a British fog. “Why, Sir John,” the sealer
+added, “I once tuck (he meant to say TOOK, not TUCKED) a countryman of
+yours under my wing, at Stunin’tun, during the last war. He was a
+prisoner, as we make prisoners; that is, he went and did pretty much as
+he pleased; and the fellow had the best of everything—molasses that a
+spoon would stand up in, pork that would do to slush down a topmast,
+and New England rum, that a king might set down to, but could not get
+up from—well, what was the end on’t? Why, as sure as we are among these
+monkeys, the fellow BOOKED me. Had I BOOKED but the half of what he
+guzzled, the amount, I do believe, would have taken the transaction out
+of any justice’s court in the state. He said my molasses was meagre,
+the pork lean, and the liquor infernal. There were truth and gratitude
+for you! He gave the whul account, too, as a specimen of what he called
+American living!”
+
+Hereupon I reminded my companion, that an Englishman did not like to
+receive even favors on compulsion; that when he meets a stranger in his
+own country, and is master of his own actions, no man understands
+better what true hospitality is, as I hoped one day to show him, at
+Householder Hall; as to his first remark, he ought to remember that an
+Englishman considered America as no more than the country, and that it
+would be ill-mannered to press an acquaintance made there.
+
+Noah, like most other men, was very reasonable on all subjects that did
+not interfere with his prejudices or his opinions; and he very readily
+admitted the general justice of my reply.
+
+“It’s pretty much as you say, Sir John,” he continued; “in England you
+may press men, but it won’t do to press hospitality. Get a volunteer in
+this way, and he is as good a fellow as heart can wish. I shouldn’t
+have cared so much about the chap’s book, if he had said nothin’ ag’in
+the rum. Why, Sir John, when the English bombarded Stunin’tun with
+eighteen pounders, I proposed to load our old twelve with a gallon out
+of the very same cask, for I do think it would have huv’ the shot the
+best part of a mile!”
+
+—But this digression is leading me from the narrative. My Lord
+Chatterino turned his head a little on one side as we were passing, and
+I was deliberating whether, under the circumstances, it would be
+well-bred to remind him of our old acquaintance, when the question was
+settled by the decision of Captain Poke, who placed himself in such a
+position that it was no easy matter to get round him, through him, or
+over him—or who laid himself what he called “athwart hawse.”
+
+“Good morning, my lord,” said the straightforward seaman, who generally
+went at a subject as he went at a seal. “A fine warm day; and the smell
+of the land, after so long a passage, is quite agreeable to the nose,
+whatever its ups and downs may be to the legs.”
+
+The companions of the young peer looked amazed; and some of them, I
+thought, notwithstanding gravity and earnestness are rather
+characteristic of the monikin physiognomy, betrayed a slight
+disposition to laugh. Not so with my Lord Chatterino himself.
+
+He examined us a moment through a glass, and then seemed suddenly, and
+on the whole, agreeably struck at seeing us.
+
+“How, Goldencalf!” he cried in surprise, “you in Leaphigh! This is
+indeed an unexpected satisfaction; for it will now be in my power to
+prove some of the facts that I am telling my friends, by actual
+observation. Here are two of the humans, gents, of whom I was but this
+moment giving you some account—”
+
+Observing a disposition to merriment in his associates, he continued,
+looking exceedingly grave:—
+
+“Restrain yourselves, gentlemen, I pray you. These are very worthy
+people, I do assure you, in their own way, and are not at all to be
+ridiculed. I scarcely know, even in our own marine, a better or a
+bolder navigator than this honest seaman; and as for the one in the
+parti-colored skin, I will take upon myself to say, that he is really a
+person of some consideration in his own little circle. He is, I
+believe, a member of par—par—par—am I right, Sir John?—a member of—”
+
+“Parliament, my lord—an M.P.”
+
+“Ay—I thought I had it—an M.P., or a member of Parliament, in his own
+country, which, I dare say now, is some such thing among his people, as
+a public proclaimer of those laws which come from his majesty’s eldest
+first cousin of the masculine gender, may be among us. Some such
+thing—eh—now—eh—is it not, Sir John?”
+
+“I dare say it is, my lord.”
+
+“All very true, Chatterino,” put in one of the young monikins, with a
+very long, elaborated tail, which he carried nearly perpendicular—“but
+what would be even a lawmaker—to say nothing of law-BREAKERS like
+ourselves—among men! You should remember, my dear fellow, that a mere
+title, or a profession, is not the criterion of true greatness; but
+that the prodigy of a village may be a very common monikin in town.”
+
+“Poh-poh”—interrupted Lord Chatterino, “thou art ever for refining,
+Hightail—Sir John Goldencalf is a very respectable person in the island
+of—a—a—a—what do you call that said island of yours, Goldencalf?—a—a—”
+
+“Great Britain, my lord.”
+
+“Ay, Great Breeches sure enough; yet, he is a respectable person—I can
+take it upon myself to say, with confidence, a very respectable person
+in Great Breeches. I dare say he owns no small portion of the island
+himself. How much, now, Sir John, if the truth were told?”
+
+“Only the estate and village of Householder, my lord, with a few
+scattered manors here and there.”
+
+“Well, that is a very pretty thing, there can be no doubt—then you have
+money at use?”
+
+“And who is the debtor?” sneeringly inquired the jack-a-napes Hightail.
+
+“No other, my Lord Hightail, than the realm of Great Britain.”
+
+“Exquisite, that, egad! A noble’s fortune in the custody of the realm
+of a—Greek—a—”
+
+“Great Breeches,” interrupted my Lord Chatterino, who, notwithstanding
+he swore he was excessively angry with his friend for his obstinate
+incredulity, very evidently had to exercise some forbearance to keep
+from joining in the general laugh. “It is a very respectable country, I
+do protest; and I scarcely remember to have tasted better gooseberries
+than they grow in that very island.”
+
+“What! have they really gardens, Chatterino?”
+
+“Certainly—after a fashion—and houses, and public conveyances—and even
+universities.”
+
+“You do not mean to say, certainly, that they have a system!”
+
+“Why, as to system, I believe they are a little at sixes and sevens. I
+really can’t take it upon myself to say that they have a system.”
+
+“Oh, yes, my lord—of a certainty we have one—the social stake system.”
+
+“Ask the creature,” whispered audibly the filthy coxcomb Hightail, “if
+he himself, now, has any income.”
+
+“How is it, Sir John—have you an income?”
+
+“Yes, my lord, of one hundred and twelve thousand sovereigns a year.”
+
+“Of what?—of what?” demanded two or three voices, with well-bred,
+subdued eagerness.
+
+“Of sovereigns—why that means kings!”
+
+It would appear that the Leaphighers, while they obey only the king’s
+eldest first cousin of the masculine gender, perform all their official
+acts in the name of the sovereign himself, for whose person and
+character they pretty uniformly express the profoundest veneration;
+just as we men express admiration for a virtue that we never practise.
+My declaration, therefore, produced a strong sensation, and I was soon
+required to explain myself. This I did, by simply stating the truth.
+
+“Oh, gold, yclept sovereigns!” exclaimed three or four, laughing
+heartily. “Why then, your famous Great Breeches people, after all,
+Chatterino, are so little advanced in civilization as to use gold!
+Harkee, Signior—a—a—Boldercraft, have you no currency in ‘promises’?”
+
+“I do not know, sir, that I rightly comprehend the question.”
+
+“Why, we poor barbarians, sir, who live as you see us, only in a state
+of simplicity and nature,”—there was irony in every syllable the
+impudent scoundrel uttered—“we poor wretches, or rather our ancestors,
+made the discovery, that for the purposes of convenience, having, as
+you perceive, no pockets, it might be well to convert all our currency
+into ‘promises.’ Now, I would ask if you have any of that coin?”
+
+“Not as coin, sir, but as collateral to coin, we have plenty.”
+
+“He speaks of collaterals in currency, as if he were discussing a
+pedigree! Are you really, Mynherr Shouldercalf, so little advanced in
+your country, as not to know the immense advantages of a currency of
+‘promises’?”
+
+“As I do not understand exactly what the nature of this currency is,
+sir, I cannot answer as readily as I could wish.”
+
+“Let us explain it to him; for, I vow, I am really curious to hear his
+answer. Chatterino, do you, who have some knowledge of the thing’s
+habits, be our interpreter.”
+
+“The matter is thus, Sir John. About five hundred years ago, our
+ancestors, having reached that pass in civilization when they came to
+dispense with the use of pockets, began to find it necessary to
+substitute a new currency for that of the metals, which it was
+inconvenient to carry, of which they might be robbed, and which also
+was liable to be counterfeited. The first expedient was to try a
+lighter substitute. Laws were passed giving value to linen and cotton,
+in the raw material; then compounded and manufactured; next, written
+on, and reduced in bulk, until, having passed through the several
+gradations of wrapping-paper, brown-paper, foolscap and blotting-paper,
+and having set the plan fairly at work, and got confidence thoroughly
+established, the system was perfected by a coup de main,—‘promises’ in
+words were substituted for all other coin. You see the advantage at a
+glance. A monikin can travel without pockets or baggage, and still
+carry a million; the money cannot be counterfeited, nor can it be
+stolen or burned.”
+
+“But, my lord, does it not depreciate the value of property?”
+
+“Just the contrary;—an acre that formerly could be bought for one
+promise, would now bring a thousand.”
+
+“This, certainly, is a great improvement, unless frequent failures—”
+
+“Not at all; there has not been a bankruptcy in Leaphigh since the law
+was passed making promises a legal tender.”
+
+“I wonder no chancellor of the exchequer ever thought of this, at
+home!”
+
+“So much for your Great Breeches, Chatterino!” And then there was
+another and a very general laugh. I never before felt so deep a sense
+of national humility.
+
+“As they have universities,” cried another coxcomb, “perhaps this
+person has attended one of them.”
+
+“Indeed, sir,” I answered, “I am regularly graduated.”
+
+“It is not easy to see what he has done with his knowledge—for, though
+my sight is none of the worst, I cannot trace the smallest sign of a
+cauda about him.”
+
+“Ah!” Lord Chatterino good-naturedly exclaimed, “the inhabitants of
+Great Breeches carry their brains in their heads.”
+
+“Their heads!”
+
+“Heads!”
+
+“That’s excellent, by his majesty’s prerogative! Here’s civilization,
+with a vengeance!”
+
+I now thought that the general ridicule would overwhelm me. Two or
+three came closer, as if in pity or curiosity; and, at last, one cried
+out that I actually wore clothes.
+
+“Clothes—the wretch! Chatterino, do all your human friends wear
+clothes?”
+
+The young peer was obliged to confess the truth; and then there arose
+such a clamor as may be fancied took place among the peacocks, when
+they discovered the daw among them in masquerade. Human nature could
+endure no more; and bowing to the company, I wished Lord Chatterino,
+very hurriedly, good-morning, and proceeded towards the tavern.
+
+“Don’t forget to step into Chatterino House, Goldencalf, before you
+sail,” cried my late fellow-traveller, looking over his shoulder, and
+nodding in quite a friendly way towards me.
+
+“King!” exclaimed Captain Poke. “That blackguard ate a whole
+bread-locker-full of nuts on our outward passage, and now he tells us
+to step into his Chatterino House, before we sail!”
+
+I endeavored to pacify the sealer, by an appeal to his philosophy. It
+was true that men never forgot obligations, and were always excessively
+anxious to repay them; but the monikins were an exceedingly instructed
+species; they thought more of their minds than of their bodies, as was
+plain by comparing the smallness of the latter with the length and
+development of the seat of reason; and one of his experience should
+know that good-breeding is decidedly an arbitrary quality, and that we
+ought to respect its laws, however opposed to our own previous
+practices.
+
+“I dare say, friend Noah, you may have observed some material
+difference in the usages of Paris, for instance, and those of
+Stunin’tun.”
+
+“That I have, Sir John, that I have; and altogether to the advantage of
+Stunin’tun be they.”
+
+“We are all addicted to the weakness of believing our own customs best;
+and it requires that we should travel much, before we are able to
+decide on points so nice.”
+
+“And do you not call me a traveller! Haven’t I been sixteen times
+a-sealing, twice a-whaling, without counting my cruise overland, and
+this last run to Leaphigh!”
+
+“Ay, you have gone over much land and much water, Mr. Poke; but your
+stay in any given place has been just long enough to find fault. Usages
+must be worn, like a shoe, before one can judge of the fit.”
+
+It is possible Noah would have retorted, had not Mrs. Vigilance Lynx,
+at that moment, come wriggling by, in a way to show she was much
+satisfied with her safe return home. To own the truth, while striving
+to find apologies for it, I had been a little contraire, as the French
+term it, by the indifference of my Lord Chatterino, which, in my secret
+heart, I was not slow in attributing to the manner in which a peer of
+the realm of Leaphigh regarded, de haut en bas, a mere baronet of Great
+Britain—or Great Breeches, as the young noble so pertinaciously
+insisted on terming our illustrious island. Now as Mrs. Vigilance was
+of “russet-color,” a caste of an inferior standing, I had little doubt
+that she would be as glad to own an intimacy with Sir John Goldencalf
+of Householder Hall, as the other might be willing to shuffle it off.
+
+“Good-morrow, good Mrs. Vigilance,” I said familiarly, endeavoring to
+wriggle in a way that WOULD have shaken a tail, had it been my good
+fortune to be the owner of one—“Good-morrow, good Mrs. Vigilance—I’m
+glad to meet you again on shore.”
+
+I do not remember that Mrs. Vigilance, during the whole period of our
+acquaintance, was particularly squeamish, or topping in her deportment.
+On the contrary, she had rather made herself remarkable for a modest
+and commendable reserve. But on the present occasion, she disappointed
+all reasonable expectation, by shrinking on one side, uttering a slight
+scream, and hurrying past as if she thought we might bite her. Indeed,
+I can only compare her deportment to that of a female of our own, who
+is so full of vanity as to fancy all eyes on her, and who gives herself
+airs about a dog or a spider, because she thinks they make her look so
+much the more interesting. Conversation was quite out of the question;
+for the duenna hurried on, bending her head downwards, as if heartily
+ashamed of an involuntary weakness.
+
+“Well, good madam,” said Noah, whose stern eye followed her movements
+until she was quite lost in the crowd, “you would have had a sleepless
+v’yage, if I had foreimagined this! Sir John, these people stare at us
+as if we were wild beasts!”
+
+“I cannot say I am of your way of thinking, Captain Poke. To me they
+seem to take no more notice of us, than we should take of two curs in
+the streets of London.”
+
+“I begin now to understand what the parsons mean when they talk of the
+lost condition of man. It’s ra’ally awful to witness to what a state of
+unfeelingness a people can be abandoned! Bob, get out of the way, you
+grinning blackguard.”
+
+Hereupon Bob received a salutation which would have demolished his
+stern-frame, had it not been for the unionjack. Just then I was glad to
+see Dr. Reasono advancing towards us, surrounded by a group of
+attentive listeners, all of whom, by their years, gravity, and
+deportment, I made no question were savants. As he drew near, I found
+he was discoursing of the marvels of his late voyage. When within six
+feet of us the whole party stopped, the Doctor continuing to descant
+with a very proper gesticulation, and in a way to show that his subject
+was of infinite interest to his listeners. Accidentally turning his eye
+in our direction, he caught a glimpse of our figures, and making a few
+hurried apologies to those around him, the excellent philosopher came
+eagerly forward, with both hands extended. Here was a difference,
+indeed, between his treatment and that of Lord Chatterino and the
+duenna! The salutation was warmly returned; and the Doctor and myself
+stepped a little apart, as he lost no time in informing me he wished to
+say a word in private.
+
+“My dear Sir John,” the philosopher began, “our arrival has been the
+most happily-timed thing imaginable! All Leaphigh, by this time, is
+filled with the subject; and you can scarcely conceive the importance
+that is attached to the event. New sources of trade, scientific
+discoveries, phenomena both moral and physical, and results that it is
+thought may serve to raise the monikin civilization still higher than
+ever! Fortunately, the academy holds its most solemn meeting of the
+year this very day, and I have been formally requested to give the
+assembly an outline of those events which have lately passed before my
+eyes. The king’s eldest first cousin of the masculine gender is to
+attend openly; and it is even conjectured, in a way to be quite
+authentic, that the king himself will be present in his own royal
+person.”
+
+“How!” I exclaimed, “have you a mode, in Leaphigh, of rendering
+conjectures certain?”
+
+“Beyond a doubt, sir, or what would our civilization be worth? As to
+the king’s majesty, we always deal in the most direct ambiguities. Now
+as respects many of our ceremonies, the sovereign is known morally to
+be present, when he may be actually and physically eating his dinner at
+the other extremity of the island; this important illustration of the
+royal ubiquity is effected by means of a legal fiction. On the other
+hand, the king often indulges his natural propensities, such as
+curiosity, love of fun, or detestation of ennui, by coming in person,
+when, by the court fiction, he is thought to be seated on his throne,
+in his own royal palace. Oh! as to all these little accomplishments and
+graces in the art of truths, we are behind no people in the universe!”
+
+“I beg pardon, Doctor—so his majesty is expected to be at the academy
+this morning?”
+
+“In a private box. Now this affair is of the last importance to me as a
+savant, to you as a human being—for it will have a tendency to raise
+your whole species in the monikin estimation—and, lastly, to learning.
+It will be indispensably necessary that you should attend, with as many
+of your companions as possible, more especially the better specimens. I
+was coming down to the landing in the hope of meeting you; and a
+messenger has gone off to the ship to require that the people be sent
+ashore forthwith. You will have a tribune to yourselves; and, really, I
+do not like to express beforehand what I think concerning the degree of
+attention you will all receive; but this much I think I can say—you
+will see.”
+
+“This proposition, Doctor, has taken me a little by surprise, and I
+hardly know what answer to give.”
+
+“You cannot say no, Sir John; for should his majesty hear that you have
+refused to come to a meeting at which he is to be present, it would
+seriously, and, I might add, justly offend him, nor could I answer for
+the consequences.”
+
+“Why, I was told that all the power was in the hands of his majesty’s
+eldest first cousin of the masculine gender; in which case I thought I
+might snap my fingers at his majesty himself.”
+
+“Not in opinion, Sir John, which is one of the three estates of the
+government. Ours is a government of three estates—viz., the law,
+opinion, and practice. By law the king rules, by practice his cousin
+rules, and by opinion the king again rules. Thus, is the strong point
+of practice balanced by law and opinion. This it is that constitutes
+the harmony and perfection of the system. No, it would never do to
+offend his majesty.”
+
+Although I did not very well comprehend the Doctor’s argument, yet, as
+I had often found in human society, theories political, moral,
+theological, and philosophical, that everybody had faith in, and which
+nobody understood, I thought discussion useless, and gave up the point
+by promising the Doctor to be at the academy in half an hour, which was
+the time named for our appearance. Taking the necessary directions to
+find the place, we separated; he to hasten to make his preparations,
+and I to reach the tavern, in order to deposit our baggage, that no
+decency might be overlooked on an occasion so solemn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+AN INN—DEBTS PAID IN ADVANCE, AND A SINGULAR TOUCH OF HUMAN NATURE
+FOUND CLOSELY INCORPORATED WITH MONIKIN NATURE
+
+
+We soon secured rooms, ordered dinner, brushed our clothes, and made
+the other little arrangements that it was necessary to observe for the
+credit of the species. Everything being ready, we left the inn, and
+hurried towards the “Palais des Arts et des Sciences.” We had not got
+out of sight of the inn, however, before one of its garçons was at our
+heels with a message from his mistress. He told us, in very respectful
+tones, that his master was out, and that he had taken with him the key
+of the strong-box; that there was not actually money enough in the
+drawer to furnish an entertainment for such great persons as ourselves,
+and she had taken the liberty to send us a bill receipted, with a
+request that we would make a small advance, rather than reduce her to
+the mortification of treating such distinguished guests in an unworthy
+manner. The bill read as follows:—
+
+  No. 1 parti-color and friends,
+
+  To No. 82,763 grape-color.                              Dr.
+  To use of apartments, with meals and lights, as per
+  agreement, _p.p._ 300 per diem--one day,              _p.p._ 300
+  By cash advanced,                                             50
+                                                              ----
+                                           Balance due, _p.p._ 250
+
+“This seems all right,” I observed to Noah; but I am, at this moment,
+as penniless as the good woman herself. I really do not see what we are
+to do, unless Bob sends her back his store of nuts—”
+
+“Harkee, my nimble-go-hop,” put in the seaman, “what is your pleasure?”
+
+The waiter referred to the bill, as expressing his mistress’s wants.
+
+“What are these p. p. that I find noted in the bill—play or pay, hey?”
+
+“Promises, of course, your honor.”
+
+“Oh! then you desire fifty promises, to provide our dinner.”
+
+“Nothing more, sir. With that sum you shall dine like noblemen—ay, sir,
+like aldermen.”
+
+I was delighted to find that this worthy class of beings have the same
+propensities in all countries.
+
+“Here, take a hundred,” answered Noah, snapping his fingers, “and make
+no bones of it. And harkee, my worthy—lay out every farthing of them in
+the fare. Let there be good cheer, and no one will grumble at the bill.
+I am ready to buy the inn, and all it holds, at need.”
+
+The waiter departed well satisfied with these assurances, and
+apparently in the anticipation of good vails for his own trouble.
+
+We soon got into the current that was setting towards our place of
+destination. On reaching the gate, we found that we were anxiously
+expected; for there was an attendant in waiting, who instantly
+conducted us to the seats that were provided for our special reception.
+It is always agreeable to be among the privileged, and I must own that
+we were all not a little flattered, on finding that an elevated tribune
+had been prepared for us, in the centre of the rotunda in which the
+academy held its sittings, so that we could see, and be seen by, every
+individual of the crowded assembly. The whole crew, even to the negro
+cook, had preceded us; an additional compliment, that I did not fail to
+acknowledge by suitable salutations to all the members present. After
+the first feelings of pleasure and surprise were a little abated, I had
+leisure to look about me and to survey the company.
+
+The academicians occupied the whole of the body of the rotunda, the
+space taken up by the erection of our temporary tribune alone excepted,
+while there were sofas, chairs, tribunes, and benches arranged for the
+spectators, in the outer circles, and along the side-walls of the hall.
+As the edifice itself was very large, and mind had so essentially
+reduced matter in the monikin species, there could not have been less
+than fifty thousand tails present. Just before the ceremonies
+commenced, Dr. Reasono approached our tribbune, passing from one to
+another of the party, saying a pleasant and encouraging word to each,
+in a way to create high expectations in us all as to what was to
+follow. We were so very evidently honored and distinguished, that I
+struggled hard to subdue any unworthy feeling of pride, as unbecoming
+human meekness, and in order to maintain a philosophical equanimity
+under the manifestations of respect and gratitude that I knew were
+about to be lavished upon even the meanest of our party. The Doctor was
+yet in the midst of his pointed attentions, when the king’s eldest
+first cousin of the masculine gender entered, and the business of the
+meeting immediately began. I profited by a short pause, however, to say
+a few words to my companions. I told them that there would soon be a
+serious demand on their modesty. We had performed a great and generous
+exploit, and it did not become us to lessen its merit by betraying a
+vainglorious self-esteem. I implored them all to take pattern by me;
+promising, in the end, that their new friends would trebly prize their
+hardihood, self-denial, and skill.
+
+There was a new member of the academy of Latent Sympathies to be
+received and installed. A long discourse was read by one of this
+department of the monikin learning, which pointed out and enlarged on
+the rare merits of the new academician. He was followed by the latter;
+who in a very elaborate production, that consumed just fifty-five
+minutes in the reading, tried all he could to persuade the audience
+that the defunct was a loss to the world, that no accident or
+application would ever repair, and that he himself was precisely the
+worst person who could have been selected to be his successor. I was a
+little surprised at the perfect coolness with which the learned body
+listened to a reproach that was so very distinctly and perseveringly
+thrown, as it were, into their very teeth. But a more intimate
+acquaintance with monikin society satisfied me, that any one might say
+just what he pleased, so long as he allowed that every one else was an
+excellent fellow, and he himself the poorest devil going. When the new
+member had triumphantly established his position, and just as I thought
+the colleagues were bound, in common honesty, to reconsider their vote,
+he concluded, and took his seat among them with quite as much assurance
+as the best philosopher of them all.
+
+After a short pause, and an abundance of felicitations on his excellent
+and self-abasing discourse, the newly admitted member again rose, and
+began to read an essay on some discoveries he had made in the science
+of Latent Sympathies. According to his account of the matter, every
+monikin possessed a fluid which was invisible, like the animalcula
+which pervade nature, and which required only to be brought into
+command, and to be reduced into more rigid laws, to become the
+substitute for the senses of sight, touch, taste, hearing, and
+smelling. This fluid was communicable; and had already been so far
+rendered subject to the will, as to make it of service in seeing in the
+dark, in smelling when the operator had a bad cold, in tasting when the
+palate was down, and in touching by proxy. Ideas had been transmitted,
+through its agency, sixty-two leagues in one minute and a half. Two
+monikins, who were afflicted with diseased tails, had during the last
+two years, been insulated and saturated, and had then lost those
+embellishments, by operations; a quantity of the fluid having been
+substituted in their places so happily, that the patients fancied
+themselves more than ever conspicuous for the length and finesse of
+their caudce. An experiment had also been successfully tried on a
+member of the lower house of parliament, who, being married to a
+monikina of unusual mind, had for a long time been supplied with ideas
+from this source, although his partner was compelled to remain at home,
+in order to superintend the management of their estate, forty-two miles
+from town, during the whole session. He particularly recommended to
+government the promotion of this science, as it might be useful in
+obtaining evidence for the purposes of justice, in detecting
+conspiracies, in collecting the taxes, and selecting candidates for
+trusts of a responsible nature. The suggestion was well received by the
+king’s cousin, more especially those parts that alluded to sedition and
+the revenue.
+
+This essay was also perfectly well received by the savans, for I
+afterwards found very little came amiss to the academy; and the members
+named a committee forthwith, to examine into “the facts concerning
+invisible and unknown fluids, their agency, importance, and relations
+to monikin happiness.”
+
+We were next favored with a discussion on the different significations
+of the word gorstchwzyb; which, rendered into English, means “eh!” The
+celebrated philologist who treated the subject, discovered amazing
+ingenuity in expatiating on its ramifications and deductions. First he
+tried the letters by transpositions, by which he triumphantly proved
+that it was derived from all the languages of the ancients; the same
+process showed that it possessed four thousand and two different
+significations; he next reasoned most ably and comprehensively for ten
+minutes, backwards and forwards, using no other word but this, applied
+in its various senses; after which, he incontrovertibly established
+that this important part of speech was so useful as to be useless, and
+he concluded by a proposition, in which the academy coincided by
+acclamation, that it should be forever and incontinently expunged from
+the Leaphigh vocabulary. As the vote was carried by acclamation, the
+king’s cousin arose, and declared that the writer who should so far
+offend against good taste, as hereafter to make use of the condemned
+word, should have two inches cut off the extremity of his tail. A
+shudder among the ladies, who, I afterwards ascertained, loved to carry
+their caudae as high as our women like to carry their heads, proved the
+severity of the decree.
+
+An experienced and seemingly much respected member now arose to make
+the following proposal. He said it was known that the monikin species
+were fast approaching perfection; that the increase of mind and the
+decrease of matter were so very apparent as to admit of no denial;
+that, in his own case, he found his physical powers diminish daily,
+while his mental acquired new distinctness and force; that he could no
+longer see without spectacles, hear without a tube, or taste without
+high seasoning; from all this he inferred that they were drawing near
+to some important change, and he wished that portion of the science of
+Latent Sympathies which was connected with the unknown fluid just
+treated on, might be referred to a committee on the whole, in order to
+make some provision for the wants of a time when monikins should
+finally lose their senses. There was nothing to say against a
+proposition so plausible, and it was accepted nemine contradicente,
+with the exception of a few in the minority.
+
+There was now a good deal of whispering, much wagging of tails, and
+other indications that the real business of the meeting was about to be
+touched upon. All eyes were turned on Dr. Reasono, who, after a
+suitable pause, entered a tribune prepared for solemn occasions, and
+began his discourse.
+
+The philosopher, who, having committed his essay to memory, spoke
+extempore, commenced with a beautiful and most eloquent apostrophe to
+learning, and to the enthusiasm which glows in the breasts of all her
+real votaries, rendering them alike indifferent to their personal ease,
+their temporal interests, danger, suffering, and tribulations of the
+spirit. After this exordium, which was pronounced to be unique for its
+simplicity and truth, he entered at once on the history of his own
+recent adventures.
+
+First alluding to the admirable character of that Leaphigh usage which
+prescribes the Journey of Trial, our philosopher spoke of the manner in
+which he had been selected to accompany my lord Chatterino on an
+occasion so important to his future hopes. He dwelt on the physical
+preparations, the previous study, and the moral machinery that he had
+employed with his pupil, before they quitted town; all of which, there
+is reason to think, were well fitted to their objects, as he was
+constantly interrupted by murmurs of applause. After some time spent in
+dilating on these points, I had, at length, the satisfaction to find
+him, Mrs. Lynx, and their two wards, fairly setting out on a journey
+which, as he very justly mentioned, proved “to be pregnant with events
+of so much importance to knowledge in general, to the happiness of the
+species, and to several highly interesting branches of monikin science,
+in particular.” I say the satisfaction, for, to own the truth, I was
+eager to witness the effect that would be made on the monikin
+sensibilities, when he came to speak of my own discernment in detecting
+their real characters beneath the contumely and disgrace in which it
+had been my good fortune to find them, the promptitude with which I had
+stepped forward to their relief, and the liberality and courage with
+which I had furnished the means and encountered the risks that were
+necessary to restore them to their native land. The anticipation of
+this human triumph could not but diffuse a general satisfaction in our
+own tribune—even the common mariners, as they recalled the dangers
+through which they had passed, feeling a consciousness of deserving,
+mingled with that soothing sentiment which is ever the companion of a
+merited reward. As the philosopher drew nearer to the time when it
+would be necessary to speak of us, I threw a look of triumph at Lord
+Chatterino, which, however, failed of its intended effect—the young
+peer continuing to whisper to his noble companions with just is much
+self-importance and coolness as if he had not been one of the rescued
+captives.
+
+Dr. Reasono was justly celebrated, among his colleagues, for ingenuity
+and eloquence. The excellent morals that he threw into every possible
+opening of his subject, the beauty of the figures with which they were
+illustrated, and the masculine tendencies of his argument, gave general
+delight to the audience. The Journey of Trial was made to appear, what
+it had been intended to be by the fathers and sages of the Leaphigh
+institutions, a probation replete with admonitions and instruction. The
+aged and experienced, who had grown callous by time, could not conceal
+their exultation; the mature and suffering looked grave and full of
+meditation; while the young and sanguine fairly trembled, and for once,
+doubted. But, as the philosopher led his party from precipice to
+precipice in safety, as rocks were scaled and seductive valleys
+avoided, a common feeling of security began to extend itself among the
+audience; and we all followed him in his last experiment among the ice,
+with that sort of blind confidence which the soldier comes, in time, to
+entertain in the orders of a tried and victorious general.
+
+The Doctor was graphic in his account of the manner in which he and his
+wards plunged among these new trials. The lovely Chatterissa (for all
+his travelling companions were present) bent aside her head and
+blushed, as the philosopher alluded to the manner in which the pure
+flame that glowed in her gentle bosom resisted the chill influence of
+that cold region; and when he recited an ardent declaration that my
+lord Chatterino had made on the centre of a floe, and the kind and
+amorous answer of his mistress, I thought the applause of the old
+academicians would have actually brought the vaulted dome clattering
+about our ears.
+
+At length he reached the point in the narrative where the amiable
+wanderers fell in with the sealers, on that unknown island to which
+chance and an adverse fortune had unhappily led them, in their
+pilgrimage. I had taken measures secretly to instruct Mr. Poke and the
+rest of my companions, as to the manner in which it became us to demean
+ourselves, while the Doctor was acquainting the academy with that first
+outrage committed by human cupidity, or the seizure of himself and
+friends. We were to rise, in a body, and, turning our faces a little on
+one side, veil our eyes in sign of shame. Less than this, it struck me,
+could scarcely be done, without manifesting an improper indifference to
+monikin rights; and more than this, might have been identifying
+ourselves with the particular individuals of the species who had
+perpetrated the wrong. But there was no occasion to exhibit this
+delicate attention to our learned hosts. The Doctor, with a refinement
+of feeling that did credit, indeed, to monikin civilization, gave an
+ingenious turn to the whole affair, which at once removed all cause of
+shame from our species; and which, if it left reason for any to blush,
+by a noble act of disinterestedness, threw the entire onus of the
+obligation on himself. Instead of dwelling on the ruthless manner in
+which he and his friends had been seized, the worthy Doctor very
+tranquilly informed his listeners, that, finding himself, by hazard,
+brought in contact with another species, and that the means of pushing
+important discoveries were unexpectedly placed in his power; conscious
+it had long been a desideratum with the savans to obtain a nearer view
+and more correct notions of human society; believing he had a
+discretion in the matter of his wards, and knowing that the inhabitants
+of Leaplow, a republic which all disliked, were seriously talking of
+sending out an expedition for this very purpose, he had promptly
+decided to profit by events, to push inquiry to the extent of his
+abilities, and to hazard all in the cause of learning and truth, by at
+once engaging the vessel of the sealers, and sailing, without dread of
+consequences, forthwith into the very bosom of the world of man!
+
+I have listened with awe to the thunder of the tropics—I have held my
+breath as the artillery of a fleet vomited forth its fire, and rent the
+air with sudden concussions—I have heard the roar of the tumbling river
+of the Canadas, and I have stood aghast at the crashing of a forest in
+a tornado;—but never before did I feel so life-stirring, so thrilling
+an emotion of surprise, alarm, and sympathy, as that which arose within
+me, at the burst of commendation and delight with which this
+announcement of self-devotion and enterprise was received by the
+audience. Tails waved, pattes met each other in ecstasy, voice whistled
+to voice, and there was one common cry of exultation, of rapture and of
+glorification, at this proof, not of monikin, for that would have been
+frittering away the triumph, but at this proof of Leaphigh courage.
+
+During the clamor, I took an opportunity to express my satisfaction at
+the handsome manner in which our friend the Doctor had passed over an
+acknowledged human delinquency, and the ingenuity with which he had
+turned the whole of the unhappy transaction to the glory of Leaphigh.
+Noah answered that the philosopher had certainly shown a knowledge of
+human natur’, and he presumed of monikin natur’, in the matter; no one
+would now dispute his statement, since, as he knew by experience, no
+one was so likely to be set down as a liar, as he who endeavored to
+unsettle the good opinion that either a community or an individual
+entertained of himself. This was the way at Stunin’tun, and he believed
+this was pretty much the way at New York, or he might say with the
+whole ’arth from pole to pole. As for himself, however, he owned he
+should like to have a few minutes’ private conversation with the sealer
+in question, to hear his account of the matter; he didn’t know any
+owner in his part of the world, who would bear a captain out, should he
+abandon a v’yage in this way, on no better security than the promises
+of a monkey, and of a monkey, too, who must, of necessity, be an utter
+stranger to him.
+
+When the tumult of applause had a little abated, Dr. Reasono proceeded
+with his narrative. He touched lightly on the accommodations of the
+schooner, which he gave us reason to think were altogether of a quality
+beneath the condition of her passengers; and he added that, falling in
+with a larger and fairer vessel, which was making a passage between
+Bombay and Great Britain, he profited by the occasion, to exchange
+ships. This vessel touched at the island of St. Helena, where,
+according to the Doctor’s account of the matter, he found means to pass
+the greater part of a week on shore.
+
+Of the island of St. Helena he gave a long, scientific, and certainly
+an interesting account. It was reported to be volcanic, by the human
+savans, he said, but a minute examination and a comparison of the
+geological formation, etc., had quite satisfied him that their own
+ancient account, which was contained in the mineralogical works of
+Leaphigh, was the true one; or, in other words, that this rock was a
+fragment of the polar world that had been blown away at the great
+eruption, and which had become separated from the rest of the mass at
+this spot, where it had fallen and become a fixture of the ocean. Here
+the Doctor produced certain specimens of rock, which he submitted to
+the learned present, inviting their attention to its character, and
+asking, with great mineralogical confidence, if it did not intimately
+resemble a well-known stratum of a mountain, within two leagues of the
+very spot they were in? This triumphant proof of the truth of his
+proposition was admirably received; and the philosopher was in
+particular rewarded by the smiles of all the females present; for
+ladies usually are well pleased with any demonstration that saves them
+the trouble of comparison and reflection.
+
+Before quitting this branch of his subject, the Doctor observed that,
+interesting as were these proofs of the accuracy of their histories,
+and of the great revolutions of inanimate nature, there was another
+topic connected with St. Helena, which, he felt certain, would excite a
+lively emotion in the breasts of all who heard him. At the period of
+his visit, the island had been selected as a prison for a great
+conqueror and disturber of his fellow-creatures; and public attention
+was much drawn to the spot by this circumstance, few men coming there
+who did not permit all their thoughts to be absorbed by the past acts
+and the present fortunes of the individual in question. As for himself,
+there was, of course, no great attraction in any events connected with
+mere human greatness, the little struggles and convulsions of the
+species containing no particular interest for a devotee of the monikin
+philosophy; but the manner in which all eyes were drawn in one
+direction, afforded him a liberty of action that he had eagerly
+improved, in a way that, he humbly trusted, would not be thought
+altogether unworthy of their approbation. While searching for minerals
+among the cliffs, his attention had been drawn to certain animals that
+are called monkeys, in the language of those regions; which, from very
+obvious affinities of a physical nature, there was some reason to
+believe might have had a common origin with the monikin species. The
+academy would at once see how desirable it was to learn all the
+interesting particulars of the habits, language, customs, marriages,
+funerals, religious opinions, traditions, state of learning, and
+general moral condition of this interesting people, with a view to
+ascertain whether they were merely one of those abortions, to which, it
+is known, nature is in the practice of giving birth, in the outward
+appearance of their own species, or whether, as several of their best
+writers had plausibly maintained, they were indeed a portion of those
+whom they had been in the habit of designating as the “lost monikins.”
+He had succeeded in getting access to a family of these beings, and in
+passing an entire day in their society. The result of his
+investigations was, that they were truly of the monikin family,
+retaining much of the ingenuity and many of the spiritual notions of
+their origin, but with their intellects sadly blunted, and perhaps
+their improvable qualities annihilated, by the concussion of the
+elements that had scattered them abroad upon the face of the earth,
+houseless, hopeless, regionless wanderers. The vicissitudes of climate,
+and a great alteration of habits, had certainly wrought some physical
+changes; but there still remained sufficient scientific identity to
+prove they were monikins. They even retained, in their traditions, some
+glimmerings of the awful catastrophe by which they were separated from
+the rest of their fellow-creatures; but these necessarily were vague
+and profitless. Having touched on several other points connected with
+these very extraordinary facts, the Doctor concluded by saying that he
+saw but one way in which this discovery could be turned to any
+practical advantage, beyond the confirmation it afforded of the truth
+of their own annals. He suggested the expediency of fitting out
+expeditions to go among these islands and seize upon a number of
+families, which, being transported into Leaphigh, might found a race of
+useful menials, who, while they would prove much less troublesome than
+those who possessed all the knowledge of monikins, would probably be
+found more intelligent and useful than any domestic animal which they
+at present owned. This happy application of the subject met with
+decided commendation. I observed that most of the elderly females put
+their heads together on the spot, and appeared to be congratulating
+each other on the prospect of being speedily relieved from their
+household cares.
+
+Dr. Reasono next spoke of his departure from St. Helena, and of his
+finally landing in Portugal. Here, agreeably to his account, he engaged
+certain Savoyards to act as his couriers and guides during a tour he
+intended to make through Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, France, etc.,
+etc., etc. I listened with admiration. Never before had I so lively a
+perception of the vast difference that is effected in our views of
+matters and things, by the agency of an active philosophy, as was now
+furnished by the narrative of the speaker. Instead of complaining of
+the treatment he had received, and of the degradations to which he and
+his companions had been subjected, he spoke of it all as so much
+prudent submission, on his part, to the customs of the countries in
+which he happened to find himself, and as the means of ascertaining a
+thousand important facts, both moral and physical, which he proposed to
+submit to the academy in a separate memoir another day. At present, he
+was admonished by the clock to conclude, and he would therefore hasten
+his narrative as much as possible.
+
+The Doctor, with great ingenuousness, confessed that he could gladly
+have passed a year or two longer in those distant and highly
+interesting portions of the earth; but he could not forget that he had
+a duty to perform to the friends of two noble families. The Journey of
+Trial had been completed under the most favorable auspices, and the
+ladies naturally became anxious to return home. They had accordingly
+passed into Great Britain, a country remarkable for maritime
+enterprise, where he immediately commenced the necessary preparations
+for their sailing. A ship had been procured under the promise of
+allowing it to be freighted, free of custom-house charges, with the
+products of Leaphigh. A thousand applications had been made to him for
+permission to be of his party, the natives naturally enough wishing to
+see a civilized country; but prudence had admonished him to accept of
+those only who were the most likely to make themselves useful. The king
+of Great Britain, no mean prince in human estimation, had committed his
+only son and heir-apparent to his care, with a view to his improvement
+by travelling; and the lord high admiral himself had asked permission
+to take command of an expedition that was of so much importance to
+knowledge in general, and to his own profession in particular.
+
+Here Dr. Reasono ascended our tribune and presented Bob to the academy
+as the Prince-Royal of Great Britain, and Captain Poke as her lord high
+admiral! He pointed out certain peculiarities about the former, the
+smut in particular, which had become pretty effectually incorporated
+with the skin, as so many signs of royal birth; and ordering the
+youngster to uncase, he drew forth the union-jack that the lad
+carefully kept about his nether part as a fender, and exhibited it as
+his armorial bearings—a modification of its uses that would not have
+been very far out of the way, had another limb been substituted for the
+agent. As for Captain Poke, he requested the academicians to study his
+nautical air in general, as furnishing sufficient proof of his
+pursuits, and of the ordinary appearance of human seamen.
+
+Turning to me, I was then introduced to all present as the travelling
+governor and personal attendant of Bob, and as a very respectable
+person in my way. He added, that he believed, also, I had some
+pretension to be the discoverer of something that was called the
+social-stake system; which, he dared to say, was a very creditable
+discovery for one of my opportunities.
+
+By this prompt substitution of employments, I found I had effectually
+changed places with the cabin-boy; who, instead of waiting on me, was,
+in future, to receive that trifling attention at my hands. The mates
+were presented as two rear-admirals at nurse, and the crew was said to
+be composed of so many post-captains in the navy of Great Britain. To
+conclude, the audience was given to understand that we were all brought
+to Leaphigh, like the minerals from St. Helena, as so many specimens of
+the human species!
+
+I shall not deny that Dr. Reasono had taken a very different view of
+himself and his acts, as well as of me and my acts, from those I had
+all along entertained myself; and yet, on reflection, it is so common
+to consider ourselves in lights very different from those in which we
+are viewed by others that I could not, on the whole, complain as much
+of his representations as I had at first thought it might become me to
+do. At all events, I was completely spared the necessity of blushing
+for my generosity and disinterestedness, and in other respects was
+saved the pain of viewing any part of my own conduct under a
+consciousness of its attracting attention by its singularity on the
+score of merit. I must say, nevertheless, that I was both surprised and
+a little indignant; but the sudden and unexpected turn that had been
+given to the whole affair, threw me so completely off my centre, that
+for the life of me, I could not say a word in my own behalf. To make
+the matter worse, that monkey Chatterino nodded to me kindly, as if he
+would show the spectators that, on the whole, he thought me a very good
+sort of fellow!
+
+After the lecture was over, the audience approached to examine us,
+taking a great many amiable liberties with our persons, and otherwise
+showing that we were deemed curiosities worthy of their study. The
+king’s cousin, too, was not neglectful of us, but he had it announced
+to the assembly that we were entirely welcome to Leaphigh; and that,
+out of respect to Dr. Reasono, we were all promoted to the dignity of
+“honorary monikins,” for the entire period of our stay in the country.
+He also caused it to be proclaimed that, if the boys annoyed us in the
+streets, they should have their tails curled with birch curling-irons.
+As for the Doctor himself, it was proclaimed that, in addition to his
+former title of F. U. D. G. E., he was now perferred* to be even M. O.
+R. E., and that he was also raised to the dignity of an H. O. A. X.,
+the very highest honor to which any savant of Leaphigh could attain.
+[*sic]
+
+At length curiosity was appeased, and we we’re permitted to descend
+from the tribune; the company ceasing to attend to us, in order to pay
+attention to each other. As I had time now to recollect myself, I did
+not lose a moment in taking the two mates aside, to present a
+proposition that we should go, in a body, before a notary, and enter a
+protest against the unaccountable errors into which Dr. Reasono had
+permitted himself to fall, whereby the truth was violated, the rights
+of persons invaded, humanity dishonored, and the Leaphigh philosophy
+misled. I cannot say that my arguments were well received; and I was
+compelled to quit the two rear-admirals, and to go in quest of the
+crew, with the conviction that the former had been purchased. An appeal
+to the reckless, frank, loyal natures of the common seamen, I thought,
+would not fail to meet with better success. Here, too, I was fated to
+encounter disappointment. The men swore a few hearty oaths, and
+affirmed that Leaphigh was a good country. They expected pay and
+rations, as a matter of course, in proportion to their new rank; and
+having tasted the sweets of command, they were not yet prepared to
+quarrel with their good fortune, and to lay aside the silver tankard
+for the tar-pot.
+
+Quitting the rascals, whose heads really appeared to be turned by their
+unexpected elevation, I determined to hunt up Bob, and by dint of Mr.
+Poke’s ordinary application, compel him, at least, in despite of the
+union-jack, to return to a sense of his duty, and to reassume his old
+post as the servitor of my wants. I found the little blackguard in the
+midst of a bevy of monikinas of all ages, who were lavishing their
+attentions on his worthless person, and otherwise doing all they could
+to eradicate everything like humility, or any good quality that might
+happen to remain in him. He certainly gave me a fair opportunity to
+commence the attack, for he wore the union-jack over his shoulder, in
+the manner of a royal mantle, while the females of inferior rank
+pressed about him to kiss its hem! The air with which he received this
+adulation, fairly imposed on even me; and fearful that the monikinas
+might mob me, should I attempt to undeceive them—for monikinas, let
+them be of what species they may, always hug a delusion—I abandoned my
+hostile intentions for the moment, and hurried after Mr. Poke, little
+doubting my ability of bringing one of his natural rectitude of mind to
+a right way of thinking.
+
+The captain heard my remonstrances with a decent respect. He even
+seemed to enter into my feelings with a proper degree of sympathy. He
+very frankly admitted that I had not been well treated by Dr. Reasono,
+and he appeared to think that a private conversation with that
+individual might yet possibly have the effect of bringing him to a more
+reasonable representation of facts. But, as to any sudden and violent
+appeal to public opinion for justice, or an ill-advised recourse to a
+notary, he strenuously objected to both. The purport of his remarks was
+somewhat as follows:—
+
+He was not acquainted with the Leaphigh law of protests, and, in
+consequence, we might spend our money in paying fees, without reaping
+any advantage; the Doctor, moreover, was a philosopher, an F. U. D. G.
+E., and an H. O. A. X., and these were fearful odds to contend against
+in any country, and more especially in a foreign country; he had an
+innate dislike for lawsuits; the loss of my station was certainly a
+grievance, but still it might be borne; as for himself, he never asked
+for the office of lord high admiral of Great Britain, but as it had
+been thrust upon him, why, he would do his best to sustain the
+character; he knew his friends at Stunin’tun would be glad to hear of
+his promotion, for, though in his country there were no lords, nor even
+any admirals, his countrymen were always exceedingly rejoiced whenever
+any of their fellow-citizens were preferred to those stations by
+anybody but themselves, seeming to think an honor conferred on one, was
+an honor conferred on the whole nation; he liked to confer honor on his
+own nation, for no people on ’arth tuck up a notion of this sort and
+divided it among themselves in a way to give each a share, sooner than
+the people of the States, though they were very cautious about leaving
+any portion of the credit in first hands, and therefore he was disposed
+to keep as much as he could while it was in his power; he believed he
+was a better seaman than most of the lord high admirals who had gone
+before him, and he had no fears on that score; he wondered whether his
+promotion made Miss Poke lady high admiral; as I seemed greatly put out
+about my own rank, he would give me the acting appointment of a
+chaplain (he didn’t think I was qualified to be a sea-officer), and do
+doubt I had interest enough at home to get it confirmed; a great
+statesman in his country had said “that few die and none resigned,” and
+he didn’t like to be the first to set new fashions; for his part, he
+rather looked upon Dr. Reasono as his friend, and it was unpleasant to
+quarrel with one’s friends; he was willing to do anything in reason,
+but resign, and if I could persuade the Doctor to say he had fallen
+into a mistake in my particular case, and that I had been sent to
+Leaphigh as a lord high ambassador, lord high priest, or lord high
+anything else, except lord high admiral, why, he was ready to swear to
+it—though he now gave notice, that in the event of such an arrangement,
+he should claim to rank me in virtue of the date of his own commission;
+if he gave up his appointment a minute sooner than was absolutely
+necessary, he should lose his own self-respect, and never dare look
+Miss Poke in the face again—on the whole, he should do no such thing;
+and, finally, he wished me a good morning, as he was about to make a
+call on the lord high admiral of Leaphigh.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+NEW LORDS, NEW LAWS—GYRATION, ROTATION, AND ANOTHER NATION; ALSO AN
+INVITATION.
+
+
+I felt that my situation had now become exceedingly peculiar. It is
+true that my modesty had been unexpectedly spared, by the very
+ingenious turn Dr. Reasono had given to the history of our connection
+with each other; but I could not see that I had gained any other
+advantage by the expedient. All my own species had, in a sense, cut me;
+and I was obliged to turn despondingly, and not without humiliation,
+towards the inn, where the banquet ordered by Mr. Poke waited our
+appearance.
+
+I had reached the great square, when a tap on the knee drew my
+attention to one at my side. The applicant for notice was a monikin,
+who had all the physical peculiarities of a subject of Leaphigh, and
+yet, who was to be distinguished from most of the inhabitants of that
+country, by a longer and less cultivated nap to his natural garment,
+greater shrewdness about the expression of the eyes and the mouth, a
+general air of business, and, for a novelty, a bob-cauda. He was
+accompanied by positively the least well-favored being of the species I
+had yet seen. I was addressed by the former.
+
+“Good morning, Sir John Goldencalf,” he commenced, with a sort of jerk,
+that I afterwards learned was meant for a diplomatic salutation; “you
+have not met with the very best treatment to-day, and I have been
+waiting for a good opportunity to make my condolences, and to offer my
+services.”
+
+“Sir, you are only too good. I do feel a little wronged, and, I must
+say, sympathy is most grateful to my feelings. You will, however, allow
+me to express my surprise at your being acquainted with my real name,
+as well as with my misfortunes?”
+
+“Why, sir, to own the truth, I belong to an examining people. The
+population is very much scattered in my country, and we have fallen
+into a practice of inquiry that is very natural to such a state of
+things. I think you must have observed that in passing along a common
+highway, you rarely meet another without a nod; while thousands are met
+in a crowded street without even a glance of the eye. We develop this
+principle, sir; and never let any fact escape us for the want of a
+laudable curiosity.”
+
+“You are not a subject of Leaphigh, then?”
+
+“God forbid! No, sir, I am a citizen of Leaplow, a great and a glorious
+republic that lies three days’ sail from this island; a new nation,
+which is in the enjoyment of all the advantages of youth and vigor, and
+which is a perfect miracle for the boldness of its conceptions, the
+purity of its institutions, and its sacred respect for the rights of
+monikins. I have the honor to be, moreover, the envoy-extraordinary and
+minister-plenipotentiary of the republic to the king of Leaphigh, a
+nation from which we originally sprung, but which we have left far
+behind us in the race of glory and usefulness. I ought to acquaint you
+with my name, sir, in return for the advantage I possess on this head,
+in relation to yourself.”
+
+Hereupon my new acquaintance put into my hand one of his
+visiting-cards, which contained as follows:—
+
+General-Commodore-Judge-Colonel PEOPLE’S FRIEND:
+
+Envoy-Extraordinary and Minister-Plenipotentiary from the Republic of
+Leaplow, near his Majesty the King of Leaphigh.
+
+“Sir,” said I, pulling off my hat with a profound reverence, “I was not
+aware to whom I had the honor of speaking. You appear to fill a variety
+of employments, and I make no doubt, with equal skill.”
+
+“Yes, sir, I believe I am about as good at one of my professions as at
+another.”
+
+“You will permit me to observe, however, General—a—a Judge—a—a—I
+scarcely know, dear sir, which of these titles is the most to your
+taste?”
+
+“Use which you please, sir—I began with General, but had got as low as
+Colonel before I left home. People’s Friend is the only appellation of
+which I am at all tenacious. Call me People’s Friend, sir, and you may
+call me anything else you find most convenient.”
+
+“Sir, you are only too obliging. May I venture to ask if you have
+really, propria persona, filled all these different stations in life?”
+
+“Certainly, sir—I hope you do not mistake me for an impostor!”
+
+“As far from it as possible.—But a judge and a commodore, for instance,
+are characters whose duties are so utterly at variance in human
+affairs, that I will allow I find the conjunction, even in a monikin, a
+little extraordinary.”
+
+“Not at all, sir. I was duly elected to each, served my time out in
+them all, and have honorable discharges to show in every instance.”
+
+“You must have found some perplexity in the performance of duties so
+very different?”
+
+“Ah—I see you have been long enough in Leaphigh to imbibe some of its
+prejudices! It is a sad country for prejudice. I got my foot mired in
+some of them myself, as soon as it touched the land. Why sir, my card
+is an illustration of what we call, in Leaplow, rotation in office.”
+
+“Rotation in office!”
+
+“Yes, sir, rotation in office; a system that we invented for our
+personal convenience, and which is likely to be firm, as it depends on
+principles that are eternal.”
+
+“Will you suffer me to inquire, colonel, if it has any affinity to the
+social-stake system?”
+
+“Not in the least. That, as I understand it, is a stationary, while
+this is a rotatory system. Nothing is simpler. We have in Leaplow two
+enormous boxes made in the form of wheels. Into one we put the names of
+the citizens, and into the other the names of the offices. We then draw
+forth, in the manner of a lottery, and the thing is settled for a
+twelvemonth.”
+
+“I find this rotatory plan exceedingly simple—pray, sir, does it work
+as well as it promises?”
+
+“To perfection.—We grease the wheels, of course, periodically.”
+
+“And are not frauds sometimes committed by those who are selected to
+draw the tickets?”
+
+“Oh! they are chosen precisely in the same way.”
+
+“But those who draw THEIR tickets?”
+
+“All rotatory—they are drawn exactly on the same principle.”
+
+“But there must be a beginning. Those, again, who draw THEIR
+tickets—they may betray their trusts?”
+
+“Impossible—THEY are always the most patriotic patriots of the land!
+No, no, sir—we are not such dunces as to leave anything to corruption.
+Chance does it all. Chance makes me a commodore to-day—a judge
+to-morrow. Chance makes the lottery boys, and chance makes the
+patriots. It is necessary to see in order to understand how much purer
+and useful is your chance patriot, for instance, than one that is bred
+to the calling.”
+
+“Why, this savors, after all, of the doctrine of descents, which is
+little more than matter of chance.”
+
+“It would be so, sir, I confess, were it not that our chances centre in
+a system of patriots. Our approved patriots are our guarantees against
+abuses—”
+
+“Hem!”—interrupted the companion of Commodore People’s Friend, with an
+awkward distinctness, as if to recall himself to our recollection.
+
+“Sir John, I crave pardon for great remissness—allow me to present my
+fellow-citizen, Brigadier Downright, a gentleman who is on his travels,
+like yourself; and as excellent a fellow as is to be found in the whole
+monikin region.”
+
+“Brigadier Downright, I crave the honor of your acquaintance.—But,
+gentlemen, I too have been sadly negligent of politeness. A banquet
+that has cost a hundred promises is waiting my appearance; and, as some
+of the expected guests are unavoidably absent, if you would favor me
+with your excellent society, we might spend an agreeable hour, in the
+further discussion of these important interests.”
+
+As neither of the strangers made the smallest objection to the
+proposal, we were all soon comfortably situated at the dinner-table.
+The commodore, who, it would seem, was habitually well fed, merely paid
+a little complimentary attention to the banquet; but Mr. Downright
+attacked it tooth and nail, and I had no great reason to regret the
+absence of Mr. Poke. In the meantime, the conversation did not flag.
+
+“I think I understand the outline of your system, Judge People’s
+Friend,” I resumed, “with the exception of the part that relates to the
+patriots. Would it be asking too much to request a little explanation
+on that particular point?”
+
+“Not in the least, sir. Our social arrangement is founded on a hint
+from nature; a base, as you will concede, that is broad enough to
+sustain a universe. As a people, we are a hive that formerly swarmed
+from Leaphigh; and finding ourselves free and independent, we set about
+forthwith building the social system on not only a sure foundation, but
+on sure principles. Observing that nature dealt in duplicates, we
+pursued the hint, as the leading idea—”
+
+“In duplicates, commodore!”
+
+“Certainly, Sir John—a monikin has two eyes two ears, two nostrils, two
+lungs, two arms, two hands, two legs, two feet, and so on to the end of
+the chapter. On this hint, we ordered that there should be drawn,
+morally, in every district of Leaplow, two distinct and separate lines,
+that should run at right angles to each other. These were termed the
+‘political landmarks’ of the country; and it was expected that every
+citizen should range himself along one or the other. All this you will
+understand, however, was a moral contrivance, not a physical one.”
+
+“Is the obligation of this moral contrivance imperative?”
+
+“Not legally, it is true; but then, he who does not respect it is like
+one who is out of fashion, and he is so generally esteemed a poor
+devil, that the usage has a good deal more than the force of a law. At
+first, it was intended to make it a part of the constitution; but one
+of our most experienced statesmen so clearly demonstrated that, by so
+doing, we should not only weaken the nature of the obligation, but most
+probably raise a party against it, that the idea was abandoned. Indeed,
+if anything, both the letter and the spirit of the fundamental law have
+been made to lean a little against the practice; but having been
+cleverly introduced, in the way of construction, it is now bone of our
+bone, and flesh of our flesh. Well, sir, these two great political
+landmarks being fairly drawn, the first effort of one who aspires to be
+thought a patriot is to acquire the practice of ‘toeing the mark’
+promptly and with facility. But should I illustrate my positions by a
+few experiments, you might comprehend the subject all the better.—For
+though, in fact, the true evolutions are purely moral, as I have just
+had the honor to explain, yet we have instituted a physical parallel
+that is very congenial to our habits, with which the neophyte always
+commences.”
+
+Here the commodore took a bit of chalk and drew two very distinct
+lines, crossing each other at right angles, through the centre of the
+room. When this was done, he placed his feet together, and then he
+invited me to examine if it were possible to see any part of the planks
+between the extremities of his toes and the lines. After a rigid look,
+I was compelled to confess it was not.
+
+“This is what we call ‘toeing the mark’; it is social position, No. 1.
+Almost every citizen gets to be expert in practising it, on one or the
+other of the two great political lines. After this, he who would push
+his fortunes further, commences his career on the great rotatory
+principle.”
+
+“Your pardon, commodore, we call the word rotary, in English.”
+
+“Sir, it is not expressive enough for our meaning; and therefore we
+term it ‘rotatory.’ I shall now give you an example of position No. 2.”
+
+Here the commodore made a spring, throwing his body, as a soldier would
+express it, to the “right about,” bringing, at the same time, his feet
+entirely on the other side of the line; always rigidly toeing the mark.
+
+“Sir,” said I, “this was extremely well done; but is this evolution as
+useful as certainly it is dexterous?”
+
+“It has the advantage of changing front, Sir John; a manoeuvre quite as
+useful in politics as in war. Most all in the line get to practise
+this, too, as my friend Downright, there, could show you, were he so
+disposed.”
+
+“I don’t like to expose my flanks, or my rear, more than another,”
+growled the brigadier.
+
+“If agreeable, I will now show you gyration 2d, or position No. 3.”
+
+On my expressing a strong desire to see it, the commodore put himself
+again in position No. 1; and then he threw what Captain Poke was in the
+habit of calling a “flap-jack,” or a summerset; coming down in a way
+tenaciously to toe the mark.
+
+I was much gratified with the dexterity of the commodore, and frankly
+expressed as much; inquiring, at the same time, if many attained to the
+same skill. Both the commodore and the brigadier laughed at the
+simplicity of the question; the former answering that the people of
+Leaplow were exceedingly active and adventurous, and both lines had got
+to be so expert, that, at the word of command, they would throw their
+summersets in as exact time, and quite as promptly, as a regiment of
+guards would go through the evolution of slapping their
+cartridge-boxes.
+
+“What, sir,” I exclaimed, in admiration, “the entire population!”
+
+“Virtually, sir. There is, now and then, a stumbler; but he is
+instantly kicked out of sight, and uniformly counts for nothing.”
+
+“But as yet, commodore, your evolutions are altogether too general to
+admit of the chance selection of patriots, since patriotism is usually
+a monopoly.”
+
+“Very true, Sir John; I shall therefore come to the main point without
+delay. Thus far, it is pretty much an affair of the whole population,
+as you say; few refusing to toe the mark, or to throw the necessary
+flap-jacks, as you have ingeniously termed them. The lines, as you may
+perceive, cross each other at right angles; and there is consequently
+some crowding, and occasionally, a good deal of jostling, at and near
+the point of junction. We begin to term a monikin a patriot when he can
+perform this evolution.”
+
+Here the commodore threw his heels into the air with such rapidity that
+I could not very well tell what he was about, though it was
+sufficiently apparent that he was acting entirely on the rotatory
+principle. I observed that he alighted, with singular accuracy, on the
+very spot where he had stood before, toeing the mark with beautiful
+precision.
+
+“That is what we call gyration 3d, or position No. 4. He who can
+execute it is considered an adept in our politics; and he invariably
+takes his position near the enemy, or at the junction of the hostile
+lines.”
+
+“How, sir, are these lines, then, manned as they are with citizens of
+the same country, deemed hostile?”
+
+“Are cats and dogs hostile, sir?—Certainly. Although standing, as it
+might be, face to face, acting on precisely the same principle, or the
+rotatory impulse, and professing to have exactly the same object in
+view, viz., the common good, they are social, political, and I might
+almost say, the moral antipodes of each other. They rarely intermarry,
+never extol, and frequently refuse to speak to one another. In short,
+as the brigadier could tell you, if he were so disposed, they are
+antagonist, body and soul. To be plain, sir, they are enemies.”
+
+“This is very extraordinary for fellow-citizens!”
+
+“’Tis the monikin nature,” observed Mr. Downright; “no doubt, sir, men
+are much wiser?”
+
+As I did not wish to divert the discourse from the present topic, I
+merely bowed to this remark, and begged the judge to proceed.
+
+“Well, sir,” continued the latter, “you can easily imagine that they
+who are placed near the point where the two lines meet, have no
+sinecures. To speak the truth, they blackguard each other with all
+their abilities, he who manifests the most inventive genius in this
+high accomplishment, being commonly thought the cleverest fellow. Now,
+sir, none but a patriot could, in the nature of things, endure this
+without some other motive than his country’s good, and so we esteem
+them.”
+
+“But the most patriotic patriots, commodore?”
+
+The minister of Leaphigh now toed the mark again, placing himself
+within a few feet of the point of junction between the two lines, and
+then he begged me to pay particular attention to his evolution. When
+all was ready, the commodore threw himself, as it were, invisibly into
+the air, again head over heels, so far as I could discover, and
+alighted on the antagonist line, toeing the mark with a most
+astonishing particularity. It was a clever gyration, beyond a doubt;
+and the performer looked towards me, as if inviting commendation.
+
+“Admirably executed, judge, and in a way to induce one to believe that
+you must have paid great attention to the practice.”
+
+“I have performed this manoeuvre, Sir John, five times in real life;
+and my claim to be a patriotic patriot is founded on its invariable
+success. A single false step might have ruined me; but as you say,
+practice makes perfect, and perfection is the parent of success.”
+
+“And yet I do not rightly understand how so sudden a desertion of one’s
+own side, to go over in this active manner head over heels, I may say,
+to another side, constitutes a fair claim to be deemed so pure a
+character as that of a patriot.”
+
+“What, sir, is not he who throws himself defencelessly into the very
+middle of the ranks of the enemy, the hero of the combat? Now, as this
+is a political struggle, and not a warlike struggle, but one in which
+the good of the country is alone uppermost, the monikin who thus
+manifests the greatest devotion to the cause, must be the purest
+patriot. I give you my honor, sir, all my own claims are founded
+entirely on this particular merit.”
+
+“He is right, Sir John; you may believe every word he says,” observed
+the brigadier, nodding.
+
+“I begin to understand your system, which is certainly well adapted to
+the monikin habits, and must give rise to a noble emulation in the
+practice of the rotatory principle. But I understood you to say,
+colonel, that the people of Leaplow are from the hive of Leaphigh?”
+
+“Just so, sir.”
+
+“How happens it, then, that you dock yourselves of the nobler member,
+while the inhabitants of this country cherish it as the apple of the
+eye—nay, as the seat of reason itself?”
+
+“You allude to our tails?—Why, sir, nature has dealt out these
+ornaments with a very unequal hand, as you may perceive on looking out
+of the window. We agree that the tail is the seat of reason, and that
+the extremities are the most intellectual parts; but, as governments
+are framed to equalize these natural inequalities, we denounce them as
+anti-republican. The law requires, therefore, that every citizen, on
+attaining his majority, shall be docked agreeably to a standard measure
+that is kept in each district. Without some such expedient, there might
+be an aristocracy of intellect among us, and there would be an end of
+our liberties. This is the qualification of a voter, too, and of course
+we all seek to obtain it.”
+
+Here the brigadier leaned across the table and whispered that a great
+patriot, on a most trying occasion, had succeeded in throwing a
+summerset out of his own into the antagonist line, and that, as he
+carried with him all the sacred principles for which his party had been
+furiously contending for many years, he had been unceremoniously
+dragged back by his tail, which unfortunately came within reach of
+those quondam friends on whom he had turned his back; and that the law
+had, in truth, been passed in the interests of the patriots. He added,
+that the lawful measure allowed a longer stump than was commonly used;
+but that it was considered underbred for any one to wear a dock that
+reached more than two inches and three quarters of an inch into
+society, and that most of their political aspirants, in particular,
+chose to limit themselves to one inch and one quarter of an inch, as a
+proof of excessive humility.
+
+Thanking Mr. Downright for his clear and sensible explanation, the
+conversation was resumed.
+
+“I had thought, as your institutions are founded on reason and nature,
+judge,” I continued, “that you would be more disposed ta cultivate this
+member than to mutilate it; and this the more especially, as I
+understand all monikins believe it to be the very quintessence of
+reason.”
+
+“No doubt, sir; we do cultivate our tails, but it is on the vegetable
+principle, or as the skilful gardener lops the branch that it may throw
+out more vigorous shoots. It is true, we do not expect to see the tail
+itself sprouting out anew; but then we look to the increase of its
+reason, and to its more general diffusion in society. The extremities
+of our cauda, as fast as they are lopped, are sent to a great
+intellectual mill, where the mind is extracted from the matter, and the
+former is sold, on public account, to the editors of the daily
+journals. This is the reason our Leaplow journalists are so
+distinguished for their ingenuity and capacity, and the reason, too,
+why they so faithfully represent the average of the Leaplow knowledge.”
+
+“And honesty, you ought to add,” growled the brigadier.
+
+“I see the beauty of the system, judge, and very beautiful it is! This
+essence of lopped tails represents the average of Leaplow brains, being
+a compound of all the tails in the country; and, as a daily journal is
+addressed to the average intellect of the community, there is a
+singular fitness between the readers and the readees. To complete my
+stock of information on this head, however, will you just allow me to
+inquire what is the effect of this system on the totality of Leaplow
+intelligence?”
+
+“Wonderful! As we are a commonwealth, it is necessary to have a unity
+of sentiment on all leading matters, and by thus compounding all the
+extremes of our reasons we get what is called ‘public opinion’; which
+public opinion is uttered through the public journals—”
+
+“And a most patriotic patriot is always chosen to be the inspector of
+the mill,” interrupted the brigadier.
+
+“Better and better! you send all the finer parts of your several
+intellects to be ground up and kneaded together; the compound is sold
+to the journalists, who utter it anew, as the results of the united
+wisdom of the country—”
+
+“Or, as public opinion. We make great account of reason in all our
+affairs, invariably calling ourselves the most enlightened nation on
+earth; but then we are especially averse to anything like an insulated
+effort of the mind, which is offensive, anti-republican, aristocratic
+and dangerous. We put all our trust in this representation of brains,
+which is singularly in accordance with the fundamental base of our
+society, as you must perceive.”
+
+“We are a commercial people, too,” put in the brigadier; “and being
+much accustomed to the laws of insurance, we like to deal in averages.”
+
+“Very true, brother Downright, very true; we are particularly averse to
+anything like inequality. Ods zooks! it is almost as great an offence
+for a monikin to know more than his neighbors, as it is for him to act
+on his own impulses. No—no—we are truly a free and an independent
+commonwealth, and we hold every citizen as amenable to public opinion,
+in all he does, says, thinks, or wishes.”
+
+“Pray, sir, do both of the two great political lines send their tails
+to the same mills, and respect the same general sentiments?”
+
+“No, sir; we have two public opinions in Leaplow.”
+
+“TWO public opinions!”
+
+“Certainly, sir; the horizontal and the perpendicular.”
+
+“This infers a most extraordinary fertility of thought, and one that I
+hold to be almost impossible!”
+
+Here the commodore and the brigadier incontinently both laughed as hard
+as they could; and that, too, directly in my face.
+
+“Dear me, Sir John—why, my dear Sir John! you are really the drollest
+creature!”—gasped the judge, holding his sides—“the very funniest
+question I have ev—ev—ever encountered!” He now stopped to wipe his
+eyes; after which he was better able to express himself. “The same
+public opinion, forsooth!—Dear me—dear me, that I should not have made
+myself understood!—I commenced, my good Sir John, by telling you that
+we deal in duplicates, on a hint from nature; and that we act on the
+rotatory principle. In obedience to the first, we have always two
+public opinions; and, although the great political landmarks are drawn
+in what may be called a stationary sense, they, too, are in truth
+rotatory. One, which is thought to lie parallel to the fundamental law,
+or the constitutional meridian of the country, is termed the
+horizontal, and the other the perpendicular line. Now, as nothing is
+really stationary in Leaplow, these two great landmarks are always
+acting, likewise, on the rotatory principle, changing places
+periodically; the perpendicular becoming the horizontal, and vice
+versa; they who toe their respective marks, necessarily taking new
+views of things as they vary the line of sight. These great revolutions
+are, however, very slow, and are quite as imperceptible to those who
+accompany them, as are the revolutions of our planet to its
+inhabitants.”
+
+“And the gyrations of the patriots, of which the judge has just now
+spoken,” added the brigadier, “are much the same as the eccentric
+movements of the comets that embellish the solar system, without
+deranging it by their uncertain courses.”
+
+“No, sir, we should be poorly off, indeed, if we had but ONE public
+opinion,” resumed the judge. “Ecod, I do not know what would become of
+the most patriotic patriots in such a dilemma!”
+
+“Pray, sir, let me ask, as you draw for places, if you have as many
+places as there are citizens?”
+
+“Certainly, sir. Our places are divided, firstly, into the two great
+subdivisions of the ‘inner’ and the ‘outer.’ Those who toe the mark on
+the most popular line occupy the former, and those who toe the mark on
+the least popular line take all the rest, as a matter of course. The
+first, however, it is necessary to explain, are the only places worth
+having. As great care is had to keep the community pretty nearly
+equally divided—”
+
+“Excuse the interruption—but in what manner is this effected?”
+
+“Why, as only a certain number can toe the mark, we count all those who
+are not successful in getting up to the line, as outcasts; and, after
+fruitlessly hanging about our skirts for a time, they invariably go
+over to the other line; since it is better to be first in a village
+than second in Rome. We thus keep up something like an equilibrium in
+the state, which, as you must know, is necessary to liberty. The
+minority take the outer places, and all the inner are left to the
+majority. Then comes another subdivision of the places; that is to say,
+one division is formed of the honorary, and another of the profitable
+places. The honorary, or about nine-tenths of all the inner places, are
+divided, with great impartiality, among the mass of those who have toed
+the mark on the strongest side, and who usually are satisfied with the
+glory of the victory. The names of the remainder are put into the
+wheels to be drawn for against the prizes, on the rotatory principle.”
+
+“And the patriots, sir;—are they included in this chance medley?”
+
+“Far from it. As a reward for their dangers, they have a little wheel
+to themselves, although they, also, are compelled to submit to the
+rotatory principle. Their cases differ from those of the others, merely
+in the fact that they always get something.”
+
+I would gladly have pursued the conversation, which was opening a flood
+of light upon my political understanding; but just then, a fellow with
+the air of a footman entered, carrying a packet tied to the end of his
+cauda. Turning round, he presented his burden, with profound respect,
+and withdrew. I found that the packet contained three notes with the
+following addresses:
+
+“To His Royal Highness Bob, Prince of Wales, etc., etc., etc.”
+
+“To My Lord High Admiral Poke, etc., etc., etc.”
+
+“To Master Goldencalf, Clerk, etc., etc., etc.”
+
+Apologizing to my guests, the seal of my own note was eagerly opened.
+It read as follows:
+
+“The Right Honorable the Earl of Chatterino, lord of the bed-chamber in
+waiting on his majesty, informs Master John Goldencalf, clerk, that he
+is commanded to attend the drawing-room, this evening, when the nuptial
+ceremony will take place between the Earl of Chatterino and the Lady
+Chatterissa, the first maid of honor to Her Majesty the Queen.
+
+“N. B. The gentlemen will appear full dress.”
+
+On explaining the contents of my note to the judge, he informed me that
+he was aware of the approaching ceremony, as he had also an invitation
+to be present, in his official character. I begged, as a particular
+favor, England having no representative at Leaphigh, that he would do
+me the honor to present me, in his capacity of a foreign minister. The
+envoy made no sort of objection, and I inquired as to the costume
+necessary to be observed; as, so far as I had seen, it was
+good-breeding at Leaphigh to go naked. The envoy had the goodness to
+explain, that, although, in point of mere attire, clothing was
+extremely offensive to the people of both Leaphigh and Leaplow, yet, in
+the former country, no one could present himself at court, foreign
+ministers excepted, without a cauda. As soon as we understood each
+other on these points, we separated, with an understanding that I was
+to be in readiness (together with my companions, of whose interest I
+had not been forgetful) to attend the envoy and the brigadier, when
+they should call for me, at an hour that was named.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+A COURT, A COURT-DRESS, AND A COURTIER—JUSTICE IN VARIOUS ASPECTS, AS
+WELL AS HONOR.
+
+
+My guests were no sooner gone, than I sent for the landlady, to inquire
+if any court-dresses were to be had in the neighborhood. She told me
+plenty might certainly be had, that were suited to the monikin
+dimensions, but she much doubted whether there was a tail in all
+Leaphigh, natural or artificial, that was at all fit for a person of my
+stature. This was vexatious; and I was in a brown study, calling up all
+my resources for the occasion, when Mr. Poke entered the inn, carrying
+in his hand two as formidable ox-tails as I remember ever to have seen.
+Throwing one towards me, he said the lord high admiral of Leaphigh had
+acquainted him that there was an invitation out for the prince and
+himself, as well as for the governor of the former, to be present at
+court within an hour. He had hurried off from what he called a very
+good dinner, considering there was nothing solid (the captain was
+particularly fond of pickled pork), to let me know the honor that was
+intended us; and on the way home, he had fallen in with Dr. Reasono,
+who, on being acquainted with his errand, had not failed to point out
+the necessity of the whole party coming en habit de cour. Here was a
+dilemma, with a vengeance; for the first idea that struck the captain
+was, “the utter impossibility of finding anything in this way, in all
+Leaphigh, befitting a lord high admiral of his length of keel; for, as
+to going in an ordinary monikin queue, why, he should look like a
+three-decked ship, with a brig’s spar stepped for a lower mast!” Dr.
+Reasono, however, had kindly removed the embarrassment, by conducting
+him to the cabinet of natural history, where three suitable appendages
+had been found, viz., two fine relics of oxen, [Footnote: Cauda
+Bovum.—BUF.] and another, a capital specimen, that had formerly been
+the mental lever, or, as the captain expressed it, “the steering oar”
+of a kangaroo. The latter had been sent off, express, with a kind
+consideration for the honor of Great Britain, to Prince Bob, who was at
+a villa of one of the royal family, in the neighborhood of Aggregation.
+
+I was greatly indebted to Noah, for his dexterity in helping me to a
+good fit with my court-dress. There was not time for much
+particularity, for we were in momentary expectation of Judge People’s
+Friend’s return. All we could do, therefore, was to make a belt of
+canvas (the captain being always provided with needles, palm, etc., in
+his bag), and to introduce the smaller end of the tail through a hole
+in the belt, drawing its base tight up to the cloth, which, in its
+turn, was stitched round our bodies. This was but an indifferent
+substitute for the natural appendage, it is true; and the hide had got
+to be so dry and unyielding, that it was impossible for the least
+observant person to imagine there was a particle of brains in it. The
+arrangement had also another disadvantage. The cauda stuck out nearly
+at right angles with the position of the body, and besides occupying
+much more space than would probably be permitted in the royal presence,
+“it gave any jackanapes,” as Noah observed, “the great advantage over
+us, of making us yaw at pleasure, since he might use the outriggers as
+levers.” But a seaman is inexhaustible in expedients. Two “back-stays,”
+or “bob-stays” (for the captain facetiously gave them both
+appellations) were soon “turned in,” and the tails were “stayed in, in
+a way to bring them as upright as trysail masts”; to which spars,
+indeed, according to Noah’s account of the matter, they bore no small
+resemblance.
+
+The envoy-extraordinary of Leaplow, accompanied by his friend,
+Brigadier Downright, arrived just as we were dressed; and a most
+extraordinary figure the former cut, if truth must be said. Although
+obliged to be docked, according to the Leaplow law, to six inches, and
+brought down to a real bob, by both the public opinions of his country,
+for this was one of the few points on which these antagonist sentiments
+were perfectly agreed, he now appeared in just the largest brush I
+remember to have seen appended to a monikin! I felt a strong
+inclination to joke the rotatory republican on this coquetry; but then
+I remembered how sweet any stolen indulgence becomes; and, for the life
+of me, I could not give utterance to a bon-mot. The elegance of the
+minister was rendered the more conspicuous by the simplicity of the
+brigadier, who had contrived to moustache his dock, a very short one at
+the best, in such a manner as to render it nearly invisible. On my
+expressing a doubt to Mr. Downright about his being admitted in such a
+costume, he snapped his fingers, and gave me to understand he knew
+better. He appeared as a brigadier of Leaplow (I found afterwards that
+he was in truth no soldier, but that it was a fashion among his
+countrymen to travel under the title of brigadier), and this was his
+uniform; and he should like to see the chamberlain who would presume to
+call in question the state of his wardrobe! As it was no affair of
+mine, I prudently dropped the subject, and we were soon in the court of
+the palace.
+
+I shall pass over the parade of guards, the state bands, the
+sergeant-trumpeters, the crowd of footmen and pages, and conduct the
+reader at once to the ante-chamber. Here we found the usual throng
+composed of those who live in the smiles of princes. There was a great
+deal of politeness, much bowing and curtseying, and the customary
+amount of genteel empressement to be the first to bask in the sunshine
+of royalty. Judge People’s Friend, in his character of a foreign
+minister, was privileged; and we had enjoyed the private entree, and
+were now, of right, placed nearest to the great doors of the royal
+apartments. Most of the diplomatic corps were already in attendance,
+and, quite as a matter of course, there were a great many cordial
+manifestations, of the ardent attachment that bound them and their
+masters together, in the inviolable bonds of a most sacred amity. Judge
+People’s Friend, according to his own account of the matter,
+represented a great nation—a very great nation—and yet I did not
+perceive that he met with a warm—a very warm—reception. However, as he
+seemed satisfied with himself, and all around him, it would have been
+unkind, not to say rude, in a stranger to disturb his self-esteem; and
+I took especial care, therefore, not to betray, by the slightest hint,
+my opinion that a good many near his person seemed to think him and his
+artificial queue somewhat in the way. The courtiers of Leaphigh, in
+particular, who are an exceedingly exclusive and fastidious corps,
+appeared to regard the privileges of the judge with an evil eye; and
+one or two of them actually held their noses as he flourished his brush
+a little too near their sacred faces, as if they found its odor out of
+fashion. While making these silent observations, a page cried out from
+the lower part of the saloon, “Room for His Royal Highness the Crown
+Prince of Great Britain!” The crowd opened, and that young blackguard
+Bob walked up the avenue, in state. He wore the turnspit garment as the
+base of his toilet; but the superstructure was altogether more in
+keeping with the rascal’s assumed character. The union-jack was thrown
+over his shoulder in the fashion of a mantle, and it was supported by
+the cook and steward of the Walrus (two blacks), both clothed as
+alligators. The kangaroo’s tail was rigged in a way to excite audible
+evidences of envy in the heart of Mr. Poke. The stepping of it, the
+captain whispered, “did the young dog great credit, for it looked as
+natural as the best wig he had ever seen; and then, in addition to the
+bob-stay, it had two guys, which acted like the yoke-lines of a boat,
+or in such a way, that by holding one in each hand, the brush could be
+worked ‘starboard and larboard’ like a rudder.” I have taken this
+description mainly from the mouth of the captain, and most sincerely do
+I hope it may be intelligible to the reader.
+
+Bob appeared to be conscious of his advantages; for, on reaching the
+upper end of the room, he began whisking his tail, and flourishing it
+to the right and left, so as to excite a very perceptible and lively
+admiration in the mind of Judge People’s Friend—an effect that so much
+the more proved the wearer’s address, for that high functionary was
+bound ex officio to entertain a sovereign contempt for all courtly
+vanities. I saw the eye of the captain kindle, however, and when the
+insolent young coxcomb actually had the temerity to turn his back on
+his master, and to work his brush under his very nose, human nature
+could endure no more. The right leg of my lord high admiral slowly
+retired, with somewhat of the caution of the cat about to spring, and
+then it was projected forward, with a rapidity that absolutely lifted
+the crown prince from the floor.
+
+The royal self-possession of Bob could not prevent an exclamation of
+pain, as well as of surprise, and some of the courtiers ran forward
+involuntarily to aid him—for courtiers always ran involuntarily to the
+succor of princes. At least a dozen of the ladies offered their
+smelling-bottles, with the most amiable assiduity and concern. To
+prevent any disagreeable consequences, however, I hastened to acquaint
+the crowd that in Great Britain, it is the usage to cuff and kick the
+whole royal family; and that, in short, it is no more than the
+customary tribute of the subject to the prince. In proof of what I
+said, I took good care to give the saucy young scoundrel a touch of my
+own homage. The monikins, who know that different customs prevail in
+different nations, hastened to compliment the young scion of royalty in
+the same manner; and both the cook and steward relieved their ennui by
+falling into the track of imitation. Bob could not stand the last
+applications; and he was about to beat a retreat, when the master of
+ceremonies appeared, to conduct him to the royal presence.
+
+The reader is not to be misled by the honors that were paid to the
+imaginary crown prince, and to suppose that the court of Leaphigh
+entertained any peculiar respect for that of Great Britain. It was
+merely done on the principle that governed the conduct of our own
+learned sovereign, King James I., when he refused to see the amiable
+Pocahontas of Virginia, because she had degraded royalty by
+intermarrying with a subject. The respect was paid to the caste, and
+not to the individual, to his species, or to his nation.
+
+Let his privileges come from what cause they would, Bob was glad enough
+to get out of the presence of Captain Poke—who had already pretty
+plainly threatened, in the Stunin’tun dialect, to unship his cauda—into
+that of the majesty of Leaphigh. A few minutes afterwards, the doors
+were thrown open, and the whole company advanced into the royal
+apartments.
+
+The etiquette of the court of Leaphigh differs in many essential
+particulars from the etiquette of any other court in the monikin
+region. Neither the king, nor his royal consort, is ever visible to any
+one in the country, so far as is vulgarly known. On the present
+occasion, two thrones were placed at opposite extremities of the salon,
+and a magnificent crimson damask curtain was so closely drawn before
+each, that it was quite impossible to see who occupied it. On the
+lowest step there stood a chamberlain or a lady of the bed-chamber,
+who, severally, made all the speeches, and otherwise enacted the parts
+of the illustrious couple. The reader will understand, therefore, that
+all which is here attributed to either of these great personages, was
+in fact performed by one or the other of the substitutes named, and
+that I never had the honor of actually standing face to face with their
+majesties. Everything that is now about to be related, in short, was
+actually done by deputy, on the part of the monarch and his wife.
+
+The king himself merely represents a sentiment, all the power belonging
+to his eldest first cousin of the masculine gender, and any intercourse
+with him is entirely of a disinterested or of a sentimental character.
+He is the head of the church—after a very secular fashion, however;—all
+the bishops and clergy therefore got down on their knees and said their
+prayers; though the captain suggested that it might be their
+catechisms; I never knew which. I observed, also, that all his law
+officers did the same thing; but as THEY never pray, and do not know
+their catechisms, I presume the genuflections were to beg something
+better than the places they actually filled. After this, came a long
+train of military and naval officers, who, soldier-like, kissed his
+paw. The civilians next had a chance, and then it was our turn to be
+presented.
+
+“I have the honor to present the lord high admiral of Great Britain to
+your majesty,” said Judge People’s Friend, who had waived his official
+privilege of going first, in order to do us this favor in person; it
+having been decided, on a review of all the principles that touched the
+case, that nothing human could take precedence of a monikin at court,
+always making the exception in favor of royalty, as in the case of
+Prince Bob.
+
+“I am happy to see you at my court, Admiral Poke,” the king politely
+rejoined, manifesting the tact of high rank in recognizing Noah by his
+family name, to the great surprise of the old sealer.
+
+“King!”
+
+“You were about to remark?—” most graciously inquired his majesty, a
+little at a loss to understand what his visitor would be at.
+
+“Why, I could not contain my astonishment at your memory, Mr. King,
+which has enabled you to recall a name that you probably never before
+heard!”
+
+There was now a great, and to me, a very unaccountable confusion in the
+circle. It would seem, that the captain had unwittingly trespassed on
+two of the most important of the rules of etiquette, in very mortal
+points. He had confessed to the admission of an emotion as vulgar as
+that of astonishment in the royal presence, and he had intimated that
+his majesty had a memory; a property of the mind which, as it might
+prove dangerous to the liberties of Leaphigh, were it left in the
+keeping of any but a responsible minister, it had long been decided it
+was felony to impute to the king. By the fundamental law of the land,
+the king’s eldest first-cousin of the masculine gender, may have as
+many memories as he please, and he may use them, or abuse them, as he
+shall see fit, either in private or in the public service; but it is
+held to be utterly unconstitutional and unparliamentary, and, by
+consequence, extremely underbred, to insinuate, even in the most remote
+manner, that the king himself has either a memory, a will, a
+determination, a resolution, a desire, a conceit, an intention, or, in
+short, any other intellectual property, that of a “royal pleasure”
+alone excepted. It is both constitutional and parliamentary to say the
+king has a “royal pleasure” provided the context goes to prove that
+this “royal pleasure” is entirely at the disposition of his eldest
+first-cousin of the masculine gender.
+
+When Mr. Poke was made acquainted with his mistake, he discovered a
+proper contrition; and the final decision of the affair was postponed,
+in order to have the opinion of the judges on the propriety of taking
+bail, which I promptly offered to put in, in behalf of my old shipmate.
+This disagreeable little interruption temporarily disposed of, the
+business of the drawing-room went on.
+
+Noah was next conducted to the queen, who was much inclined (always by
+deputy) to overlook the little mistake into which he had fallen with
+her royal consort, and to receive him graciously.
+
+“May it please your majesty, I have the honor to present to your
+majesty’s royal notice the Lord Noah Poke, the lord high admiral of a
+distant and but little known country, called Great Britain,” said the
+gold stick of the evening—Judge People’s Friend being afraid of
+committing Leaplow, and declining to introduce the captain to any one
+else.
+
+“Lord Poke is a countryman of our royal cousin, the Prince Bob!”
+observed the queen, in an exceedingly gracious manner.
+
+“No, marm,” put in the sealer, promptly, “your cousin Bob is no cousin
+of mine; and if it were lawful for your majesty to have a memory, or an
+inclination, or anything else in that way, I should beg the favor of
+you to order the young blackguard to be soundly threshed.”
+
+The majesty of Leaphigh stood aghast, by proxy! It would seem Noah had
+now actually fallen into a more serious error than the mistake he had
+made with the king. By the law of Leaphigh, the queen is not a feme
+couverte. She can sue and be sued in her own name, holds her separate
+estate, without the intervention of trustees, and IS supposed to have a
+memory, a will, an inclination, or anything else in that way, except a
+“royal pleasure,” to which she cannot, of right, lay claim. As to her,
+the king’s first-cousin is a dead letter; he having no more control
+over her conscience than he has over the conscience of an apple-woman.
+In short, her majesty is quite as much the mistress of her own
+convictions and conscience as it probably ever falls to the lot of
+women in such high stations to be the mistress of interests that are of
+so much importance to those around them. Noah, innocently enough, I do
+firmly believe, had seriously wounded all those nice sensibilities
+which are naturally dependent on such an improved condition of society.
+Forbearance could go no further, and I saw, by the dark looks around
+me, that the captain had committed a serious crime. He was immediately
+arrested, and conducted from the presence to an adjoining room, into
+which I obtained admission, after a good deal of solicitation and some
+very strong appeals to the sacred character of the rights of
+hospitality.
+
+It now appeared that, in Leaphigh, the merits of a law are decided on a
+principle very similar to the one we employ in England in judging of
+the quality of our wines, viz., its age. The older a law, the more it
+is to be respected, no doubt because, having proved its fitness by
+outlasting all the changes of society, it has become more mellow, if
+not more palatable. Now, by a law of Leaphigh that is coeval with the
+monarchy, he who offends the queen’s majesty at a levee is to lose his
+head; and he who, under the same circumstances, offends the king’s
+majesty, necessarily the more heinous offence, is to lose his tail. In
+consequence of the former punishment, the criminal is invariably
+buried, and he is consigned to the usual course of monikin regeneration
+and resuscitation; but in consequence of the latter, it is thought that
+he is completely thrown without the pale of reason, and is thereby
+consigned to the class of the retrogressive animals. His mind
+diminishes, and his body increases; the brain, for want of the means of
+development, takes the ascending movement of sap again; his forehead
+dilates; bumps reappear; and, finally, after passing gradually
+downwards in the scale of intellect, he becomes a mass of insensible
+matter. Such, at least, is the theory of his punishment.
+
+By another law, that is even older than the monarchy, any one who
+offends in the king’s palace may be tried by a very summary process,
+the king’s pages acting as his judges; in which case the sentence is to
+be executed without delay.
+
+Such was the dilemma to which Noah, by an indiscretion at court, was
+suddenly reduced; and, but for my prompt interference, he would
+probably have been simultaneously decapitated at both extremities, in
+obedience to an etiquette which prescribes that, under the
+circumstances of a court trial, neither the king’s nor the queen’s
+rights shall be entitled to precedence. In defence of my client I urged
+his ignorance of the usages of the country, and, indeed, of all other
+civilized countries, Stunnin’tun alone excepted. I stated that the
+criminal was an object altogether unworthy of their notice; that he was
+not a lord high admiral at all, but a mere pitiful sealer; I laid some
+stress on the importance of maintaining friendly relations with the
+sealers, who cruise so near the monikin region; I tried to convince the
+judges that Noah meant no harm in imputing moral properties to the
+king, and that so long as he did not impute immoral properties to his
+royal consort, she might very well afford to pardon him. I then quoted
+Shakspeare’s celebrated lines on mercy, which seemed to be well enough
+received, and committed the whole affair to their better judgment.
+
+I should have got along very creditably, and most probably obtained the
+immediate discharge of my friend, had not the attorney-general of
+Leaphigh been drawn by curiosity into the room. Although he had nothing
+to say to the merits of my arguments, he objected to every one of them,
+on the ground of formality. This was too long, and that was too short;
+one was too high, and another too low; a fifth was too broad, and a
+sixth too narrow; in short, there was no figure of speech of this
+nature to which he did not resort, in order to prove their
+worthlessness, with the exception that I do not remember he charged any
+of my reasons with being too deep.
+
+Matters were now beginning to look serious for poor Noah, when a page
+came skipping in to say that the wedding was about to take place, and
+that if his comrades wished to witness it, they must sentence the
+prisoner without delay. Many a man, it is said, has been hanged, in
+order that the judge might dine; but, in the present instance, I do
+believe Captain Poke was spared, in order that his judges might not
+miss a fine spectacle. I entered into recognizance, in fifty thousand
+promises, for the due appearance of the criminal on the following
+morning; and we all returned, in a body, to the presence-chamber,
+treading on each other’s tails, in the eagerness to be foremost.
+
+Any one who has ever been at a human court, must very well know that,
+while it is the easiest thing in the world to throw it into commotion
+by a violation of etiquette, matters of mere life and death are not at
+all of a nature to disturb its tranquillity. There, everything is a
+matter of routine and propriety; and, to judge from experience, nothing
+is so unseemly as to appear to possess human sympathies. The fact is
+not very different at Leaphigh, for the monikin sympathies, apparently,
+are quite as obtuse as those of men; although justice compels me to
+allow, that in the case of Captain Poke, the appeal was made in behalf
+of a creature of a different species. It is also a settled principle of
+Leaphigh jurisprudence, that it would be monstrous for the king to
+interfere in behalf of justice-justice, however, being always
+administered in his name; although it certainly is not held to be quite
+so improper for him to interfere in behalf of those who have offended
+justice.
+
+As a consequence of these nice distinctions, which it requires a very
+advanced stage of civilization fully to comprehend, both the king and
+queen received our whole party, when we came back into the presence,
+exactly as if nothing particular had occurred. Noah wore both head and
+tail erect, like another; and the lord high admiral of Leaphigh dropped
+into a familiar conversation with him, on the subject of ballasting
+ships, in just as friendly a manner as if he were on the best possible
+terms with the whole royal family. This moral sang froid is not to be
+ascribed to phlegm, but is, in fact, the result of high mental
+discipline, which causes the courtier to be utterly destitute of all
+feeling, except in cases that affect himself.
+
+It was high time now that I should be presented. Judge People’s Friend,
+who had witnessed the dilemma of Noah with diplomatic unconcern, very
+politely renewed the offer of his services in my favor, and I went
+forward and stood before the throne.
+
+“Sire, allow me to present a very eminent literary character among men,
+a cunning clerk, by name Goldencalf,” said the envoy, bowing to his
+majesty.
+
+“He is welcome to my court,” returned the king by proxy.
+
+“Pray, Mr. People’s Friend, is not this one of the human beings who
+have lately arrived in my dominions, and who have shown so much
+cleverness in getting Chatterino and his governor through the ice?”
+
+“The very same, please your majesty; and a very arduous service it was,
+and right cleverly performed.”
+
+“This reminds me of a duty.—Let my cousin be summoned.”
+
+I now began to see a ray of hope, and to feel the truth of the saying
+which teaches us that justice, though sometimes slow, never fails to
+arrive at last. I had also, now, and for the first time, a good view of
+the king’s eldest first-cousin of the masculine gender, who drew near
+at the summons; and, while he had the appearance of listening with the
+most profound attention to the instructions of the king of Leaphigh,
+was very evidently telling that potentate what he ought to do. The
+conference ended, his majesty’s proxy spoke in a way to be heard by all
+who had the good fortune to be near the royal person.
+
+“Reasono did a good thing,” he said; “really, a very good thing, in
+bringing us these specimens of the human family. But for his
+cleverness, I might have died without ever dreaming that men were
+gifted with tails.” [Kings never get hold of the truth at the right
+end.] “I wonder if the queen knew it. Pray, did you know, my Augusta,
+that men had tails?”
+
+“Our exemption from state affairs gives us females better opportunities
+than your majesty enjoys, to study these matters,” returned his royal
+consort, by the mouth of her lady of the bed-chamber.
+
+“I dare say I’m very silly—but our cousin, here, thinks it might be
+well to do something for these good people, for it may encourage their
+king himself to visit us some day.”
+
+An exclamation of pleasure escaped the ladies; who declared, one and
+all, it would be delightful to see a real human king—it would be so
+funny!
+
+“Well, well,” added the good-natured monarch, “Heaven knows what may
+happen, for I have seen stranger things. Really, we ought to do
+something for these good people; for, although we owe the pleasure of
+their visit, in a great degree, to the cleverness of Reasono—who, by
+the way, I’m glad to hear is declared an H. O. A. X.—yet he very
+handsomely admits, that but for their exertions—none of our seamikins
+being within reach—it would have been quite impossible to get through
+the ice. I wish I knew, now, which was the cleverest and the most
+useful of their party.”
+
+Here the queen, always thinking and speaking by proxy, suggested the
+propriety of leaving the point to Prince Bob.
+
+“It would be no more than is due to his rank; for though they are men,
+I dare say they have feelings like ourselves.”
+
+The question was now submitted to Bob, who sat in judgment on us all,
+with as much gravity as if accustomed to such duties from infancy. It
+is said that men soon get to be familiar with elevation, and that,
+while he who has fallen never fails to look backwards, he who has risen
+invariably limits his vision to the present horizon. Such proved to be
+the case with the princely Bob.
+
+“This person,” observed the jackanapes, pointing to me, “is a very good
+sort of person, it is true, but he is hardly the sort of person your
+majesty wants just now. There is the lord high admiral, too—but—”
+(Bob’s but was envenomed by a thousand kicks!)—“but—you wish, sire, to
+know which of my father’s subjects was the most useful in getting the
+ship to Leaphigh?”
+
+“That is precisely the fact I desire to know.”
+
+Bob hereupon pointed to the cook; who, it will be remembered, was
+present as one of his train-bearers. “I believe I must say, sire, that
+this is the man. He fed us all; and without food, and that in
+considerable quantities, too, nothing could have been done.”
+
+The little blackguard was rewarded for his impudence, by exclamations
+of pleasure from all around him.—“It was so clever a distinction,”—“it
+showed so much reflection,”—“it was so very profound,”—“it proved how
+much he regarded the base of society;”—in short, “it was evident
+England would be a happy country, when he should be called to the
+throne!” In the meantime the cook was required to come forth, and kneel
+before his majesty.
+
+“What is your name?” whispered the lord of the bed-chamber, who now
+spoke for himself.
+
+“Jack Coppers, your honor.”
+
+The lord of the bed-chamber made a communication to his majesty, when
+the sovereign turned round by proxy, with his back towards Jack, and,
+giving him the accolade with his tail, he bade him rise, as “Sir Jack
+Coppers.”
+
+I was a silent, an admiring, an astounded witness of this act of gross
+and flagrant injustice. Some one pulled me aside, and then I recognized
+the voice of Brigadier Downright.
+
+“You think that honors have alighted where they are least due. You
+think that the saying of your crown prince has more smartness than
+truth, more malice than honesty. You think that the court has judged on
+false principles, and acted on an impulse rather than on reason; that
+the king has consulted his own ease in affecting to do justice; that
+the courtiers have paid a homage to their master, in affecting to pay a
+homage to merit; and that nothing in this life is pure or free from the
+taint of falsehood, selfishness, or vanity. Alas! this is too much the
+case with us monikins, I must allow; though, doubtless, among men you
+manage a vast deal more cleverly.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+ABOUT THE HUMILITY OF PROFESSIONAL SAINTS, A SUCCESSION OF TAILS, A
+BRIDE AND BRIDEGROOM, AND OTHER HEAVENLY MATTERS, DIPLOMACY INCLUDED.
+
+
+Perceiving that Brigadier Downright had an observant mind, and that he
+was altogether superior to the clannish feeling which is so apt to
+render a particular species inimical to all others, I asked permission
+to cultivate his acquaintance; begging, at the same time, that he would
+kindly favor me with such remarks as might be suggested by his superior
+wisdom and extensive travels, on any of those customs or opinions that
+would naturally present themselves in our actual situation. The
+brigadier took the request in good part, and we began to promenade the
+rooms in company. As the Archbishop of Aggregation, who was to perform
+the marriage ceremony, was shortly expected, the conversation very
+naturally turned on the general state of religion in the monikin
+region.
+
+I was delighted to find that the clerical dogmas of this insulated
+portion of the world were based on principles absolutely identical with
+those of all Christendom. The monikins believe that they are a
+miserable lost set of wretches, who are so debased by nature, so eaten
+up by envy, uncharitableness, and all other evil passions, that it is
+quite impossible they can do anything that is good of themselves; that
+their sole dependence is on the moral interference of the great
+superior power of creation; and that the very first, and the one
+needful step of their own, is to cast themselves entirely on this power
+for support, in a proper spirit of dependence and humility. As
+collateral to, and consequent on, this condition of the mind, they lay
+the utmost stress on a disregard of all the vanities of life, a proper
+subjection of the lusts of the flesh, and an abstaining from the pomp
+and vainglory of ambition, riches, power, and the faculties. In short,
+the one thing needful was humility—humility—humility. Once thoroughly
+humbled to a degree that put them above the danger of backsliding, they
+obtained glimpses of security, and were gradually elevated to the hopes
+and the condition of the just.
+
+The brigadier was still eloquently discoursing on this interesting
+topic, when a distant door opened, and a gold stick, or some other sort
+of stick, announced the right reverend father in God, his grace the
+most eminent and most serene prelate, the very puissant and thrice
+gracious and glorified saint, the Primate of All Leaphigh!
+
+The reader will anticipate the eager curiosity with which I advanced to
+get a glimpse of a saint under a system as sublimated as that of the
+great monikin family. Civilization having made such progress as to
+strip all the people, even to the king and queen, entirely of
+everything in the shape of clothes, I did not well see under what new
+mantle of simplicity the heads of the church could take refuge! Perhaps
+they shaved off all the hair from their bodies in sign of supereminent
+self-abasement, leaving themselves naked to the cuticle, that they
+might prove, by ocular evidence, what a poor ungainly set of wretches
+they really were, carnally considered; or perhaps they went on
+all-fours to heaven, in sign of their unfitness to enter into the
+presence of the pure of mind in an attitude more erect and confident.
+Well, these fancies of mine only went to prove how erroneous and false
+are the conclusions of one whose capacity has not been amplified and
+concatenated by the ingenuities of a very refined civilization. His
+grace the most gracious father in God, wore a mantle of extraordinary
+fineness and beauty, the material of which was composed of every tenth
+hair taken from all the citizens of Leaphigh, who most cheerfully
+submitted to be shaved, in order that the wants of his most eminent
+humility might be decently supplied. The mantle, wove from such a warp
+and such a woof, was necessarily very large; and it really appeared to
+me that the prelate did not very well know what to do with so much of
+it, more especially as the contributions include a new robe annually. I
+was now desirous of getting a sight of his tail; for, knowing that the
+Leaphighers take great pride in the length and beauty of that
+appurtenance, I very naturally supposed that a saint who wore so fine
+and glorious a robe, by way of humility, must have recourse to some
+novel expedient to mortify himself on his sensitive subject, at least.
+I found that the ample proportions of the mantle concealed not only the
+person, but most of the movements of the archbishop; and it was with
+many doubts of my success that I led the brigadier behind the episcopal
+train to reconnoitre. The result disappointed expectation again.
+Instead of being destitute of a tail, or of concealing that with which
+nature had supplied him beneath his mantle, the most gracious dignitary
+wore no less than six caudae, viz., his own, and five others added to
+it, by some subtle process of clerical ingenuity that I shall not
+attempt to explain; one “bent on the other,” as the captain described
+them in a subsequent conversation. This extraordinary train was allowed
+to sweep the floor; the only sign of humility, according to my
+uninstructed faculties, I could discern about the person and appearance
+of this illustrious model of clerical self-mortification and humility.
+
+The brigadier, however, was not tardy in setting me right. In the first
+place, he gave me to understand that the hierarchy of Leaphigh was
+illustrated by the order of their tails. Thus, a deacon wore one and a
+half; a curate, if a minister, one and three-quarters, and a rector
+two; a dean, two and a half, an archdeacon, three; a bishop, four; the
+Primate of Leaphigh, five, and the Primate of ALL Leaphigh, six. The
+origin of the custom, which was very ancient, and of course very much
+respected, was imputed to the doctrine of a saint of great celebrity,
+who had satisfactorily proved that as the tail was the intellectual or
+the spiritual part of a monikin, the farther it was removed from the
+mass of matter, or the body, the more likely it was to be independent,
+consecutive, logical, and spiritualized. The idea had succeeded
+astonishingly at first; but time, which will wear out even a cauda, had
+given birth to schisms in the church on this interesting subject; one
+party contending that two more joints ought to be added to the
+archbishop’s embellishment, by way of sustaining the church, and the
+other that two joints ought to be incontinently abstracted, in the way
+of reform.
+
+These explanations were interrupted by the appearance of the bride and
+bridegroom, at different doors. The charming Chatterissa advanced with
+a most prepossessing modesty, followed by a glorious train of noble
+maidens, all keeping their eyes, by a rigid ordinance of hymeneal
+etiquette, dropped to the level of the queen’s feet. On the other hand,
+my lord Chatterino, attended by that coxcomb Hightail, and others of
+his kidney, stepped towards the altar with a lofty confidence, which
+the same etiquette exacted of the bridegroom. The parties were no
+sooner in their places, than the prelate commenced.
+
+The marriage ceremony, according to the formula of the established
+church of Leaphigh, is a very solemn and imposing ceremony. The
+bridegroom is required to swear that he loves the bride and none but
+the bride; that he has made his choice solely on account of her merits,
+uninfluenced even by her beauty; and that he will so far command his
+inclinations as, on no account, ever to love another a jot. The bride,
+on her part, calls heaven and earth to witness, that she will do just
+what the bridegroom shall ask of her; that she will be his bondwoman,
+his slave, his solace and his delight; that she is quite certain no
+other monikin could make her happy, but, on the other hand, she is
+absolutely sure that any other monikin would be certain to make her
+miserable. When these pledges, oaths, and asseverations were duly made
+and recorded, the archbishop caused the happy pair to be wreathed
+together, by encircling them with his episcopal tail, and they were
+then pronounced monikin and monikina. I pass over the congratulations,
+which were quite in rule, to relate a short conversation I held with
+the brigadier.
+
+“Sir,” said I, addressing that person, as soon as the prelate said
+‘amen,’ “how is this? I have seen a certificate, myself, which showed
+that there was a just admeasurement of the fitness of this union, on
+the score of other considerations than those mentioned in the
+ceremony?”
+
+“That certificate has no connection with this ceremony.”
+
+“And yet this ceremony repudiates all the considerations enumerated in
+the certificate?”
+
+“This ceremony has no connection with that certificate.”
+
+“So it would seem; and yet both refer to the same solemn engagement!”
+
+“Why, to tell you the truth, Sir John Goldencalf, we monikins (for in
+these particulars Leaphigh is Leaplow) have two distinct governing
+principles in all that we say or do, which may be divided into the
+theoretical and the practical—moral and immoral would not be
+inapposite—but, by the first we control all our interests, down as far
+as facts, when we immediately submit to the latter. There may possibly
+be something inconsistent in appearance in such an arrangement; but
+then our most knowing ones say that it works well. No doubt among men,
+you get along without the embarrassment of so much contradiction.”
+
+I now advanced to pay my respects to the Countess of Chatterino, who
+stood supported by the countess-dowager, a lady of great dignity and
+elegance of demeanor. The moment I appeared, the elaborate air of
+modesty, vanished from the charming countenance of the bride, in a look
+of natural pleasure; and, turning to her new mother, she pointed me out
+as a man! The courteous old dowager gave me a very kind reception,
+inquiring if I had enough good things to eat, whether I was not much
+astonished at the multitude of strange sights I beheld in Leaphigh,
+said I ought to be much obliged to her son for consenting to bring me
+over, and invited me to come and see her some fine morning.
+
+I bowed my thanks, and then returned to join the brigadier, with a view
+to seek an introduction to the archbishop. Before I relate the
+particulars of my interview with that pious prelate, however, it may be
+well to say that this was the last I ever saw of any of the Chatterino
+set, as they retired from the presence immediately after the
+congratulations were ended. I heard, however, previously to leaving the
+region, which was within a month of the marriage, that the noble pair
+kept separate establishments, on account of some disagreement about an
+incompatibility of temper—or a young officer of the guards—I never knew
+exactly which; but as the estates suited each other so well, there is
+little doubt that, on the whole, the match was as happy as could be
+expected.
+
+The archbishop received me with a great deal of professional
+benevolence, the conversation dropping very naturally into a comparison
+of the respective religious systems of Great Britain and Leaphigh. He
+was delighted when he found we had an establishment; and I believe I
+was indebted to his knowledge of this fact for his treating me more as
+an equal than he might otherwise have done, considering the difference
+in species. I was much relieved by this; for, at the commencement of
+the conversation, he had sounded me a little on doctrine, at which I am
+far from being expert, never having taken an interest in the church,
+and I thought he looked frowning at some of my answers; but, when he
+heard that we really had a national religion, he seemed to think all
+safe, nor did he once, after that, inquire whether we were pagans or
+Presbyterians. But when I told him we had actually a hierarchy, I
+thought the good old prelate would have shaken my hand off, and
+beatified me on the spot!
+
+“We shall meet in heaven some day!” he exclaimed, with holy delight;
+“men or monikins, it can make no great difference, after all. We shall
+meet in heaven; and that, too, in the upper mansions!”
+
+The reader will suppose that, an alien, and otherwise unknown, I was
+much elated by this distinction. To go to heaven in company with the
+Archbishop of Leaphigh was in itself no small favor; but to be thus
+noticed by him at court was really enough to upset the philosophy of a
+stranger. I was sorely afraid, all the while, he would descend to
+particulars, and that he might have found some essential points of
+difference to nip his new-born admiration. Had he asked me, for
+instance, how many caudae our bishops wear, I should have been
+badgered; for, as near as I could recollect, their personal
+illustration was of another character. The venerable prelate, however,
+soon gave me his blessing, pressed me warmly to come to his palace
+before I sailed, promised to send some tracts by me to England, and
+then hurried away, as he said, to sign a sentence of excommunication
+against an unruly presbyter, who had much disturbed the harmony of the
+church, of late, by an attempt to introduce a schism that he called
+“piety.”
+
+The brigadier and myself discussed the subject of religion at some
+length, when the illustrious prelate had taken his leave. I was told
+that the monikin world was pretty nearly equally divided into two
+parts, the old and the new. The latter had remained uninhabited, until
+within a few generations, when certain monikins, who were too good to
+live in the old world, emigrated in a body, and set up for themselves
+in the new. This, the brigadier admitted, was the Leaplow account of
+the matter; the inhabitants of the old countries, on the other hand,
+invariably maintaining that they had peopled the new countries by
+sending all those of their own communities there, who were not fit to
+stay at home. This little obscurity in the history of the new world, he
+considers of no great moment, as such trifling discrepancies must
+always depend on the character of the historian. Leaphigh was by no
+means the only country in the elder monikin region. There were among
+others, for instance, Leapup and Leapdown; Leapover and Leapthrough;
+Leaplong and Leapshort; Leapround and Leapunder. Each of these
+countries had a religious establishment, though Leaplow, being founded
+on a new social principle, had none. The brigadier thought, himself, on
+the whole, that the chief consequences of the two systems were, that
+the countries which had establishments had a great reputation for
+possessing religion, and those that had no establishments were well
+enough off in the article itself, though but indifferently supplied on
+the score of reputation.
+
+I inquired of the brigadier if he did not think an establishment had
+the beneficial effect of sustaining truth, by suppressing heresies,
+limiting and curtailing prurient theological fancies, and otherwise
+setting limits to innovations. My friend did not absolutely agree with
+me in all these particulars; though he very frankly allowed that it had
+the effect of keeping TWO truths from falling out, by separating them.
+Thus, Leapup maintained one set of religious dogmas under its
+establishment, and Leapdown maintained their converse. By keeping these
+truths apart, no doubt, religious harmony was promoted, and the several
+ministers of the gospel were enabled to turn all their attention to the
+sins of the community, instead of allowing it to be diverted to the
+sins of each other, as was very apt to be the case when there was an
+antagonist interest to oppose.
+
+Shortly after, the king and queen gave us all our conges. Noah and
+myself got through the crowd without injury to our trains, and we
+separated in the court of the palace; he to go to his bed and dream of
+his trial on the morrow, and I to go home with Judge People’s Friend
+and the brigadier, who had invited me to finish the evening with a
+supper. I was left chatting with the last, while the first went into
+his closet to indite a dispatch to his government, relating to the
+events of the evening.
+
+The brigadier was rather caustic in his comments on the incidents of
+the drawing-room. A republican himself, he certainly did love to give
+royalty and nobility some occasional rubs; though I must do this
+worthy, upright monikin the justice to say, he was quite superior to
+that vulgar hostility which is apt to distinguish many of his caste,
+and which is founded on a principle as simple as the fact that they
+cannot be kings and nobles themselves.
+
+While we were chatting very pleasantly, quite at our ease, and in
+undress as it were, the brigadier in his bob, and I with my tail aside,
+Judge People’s Friend rejoined us, with his dispatch open in his hand.
+He read aloud what he had written, to my great astonishment, for I had
+been accustomed to think diplomatic communications sacred. But the
+judge observed, that in this case it was useless to affect secrecy, for
+two very good reasons; firstly, because he had been obliged to employ a
+common Leaphigh scrivener to copy what he had written—his government
+depending on a noble republican economy, which taught it that, if it
+did get into difficulties by the betrayal of its correspondence, it
+would still have the money that a clerk would cost, to help it out of
+the embarrassment; and, secondly, because he knew the government itself
+would print it as soon as it arrived. For his part, he liked to have
+the publishing of his own works. Under these circumstances, I was even
+allowed to take a copy of the letter, of which I now furnish a
+fac-simile.
+
+“SIR:—The undersigned, envoy-extraordinary and minister-plenipotentiary
+of the North-Western Leaplow Confederate Union, has the honor to inform
+the secretary of state, that our interests in this portion of the earth
+are, in general, on the best possible footing; our national character
+is getting every day to be more and more elevated; our rights are more
+and more respected, and our flag is more and more whitening every sea.
+After this flattering and honorable account of the state of our general
+concerns, I hasten to communicate the following interesting
+particulars.
+
+“The treaty between our beloved North-Western Confederate Union and
+Leaphigh, has been dishonored in every one of its articles; nineteen
+Leaplow seamen have been forcibly impressed into a Leapthrough vessel
+of war; the king of Leapup has made an unequivocal demonstration with a
+very improper part of his person, at us; and the king of Leapover has
+caused seven of our ships to be seized and sold, and the money to be
+given to his mistress.
+
+“Sir, I congratulate you on this very flattering condition of our
+foreign relations; which can only be imputed to the glorious
+constitution of which we are the common servants, and to the just dread
+which the Leaplow name has so universally inspired in other nations.
+
+“The king has just had a drawing-room, in which I took great care to
+see that the honor of our beloved country should be faithfully attended
+to. My cauda was at least three inches longer than that of the
+representative of Leapup, the minister most favored by nature in this
+important particular; and I have the pleasure of adding, that her
+majesty the queen deigned to give me a very gracious smile. Of the
+sincerity of that smile there can be no earthly doubt, sir; for, though
+there is abundant evidence that she did apply certain unseemly words to
+our beloved country lately, it would quite exceed the rules of
+diplomatic courtesy, and be unsustained by proof, were we to call in
+question her royal sincerity on this public occasion. Indeed, sir, at
+all the recent drawing-rooms I have received smiles of the most sincere
+and encouraging character, not only from the king, but from all his
+ministers, his first-cousin in particular; and I trust they will have
+the most beneficial effects on the questions at issue between the
+Kingdom of Leaphigh and our beloved country. If they would now only do
+us justice in the very important affair of the long-standing and
+long-neglected redress, which we have been seeking in vain at their
+hands for the last seventy-two years, I should say that our relations
+were on the best possible footing.
+
+“Sir, I congratulate you on the profound respect with which the Leaplow
+name is treated, in the most distant quarters of the earth, and on the
+benign influence this fortunate circumstance is likely to exercise on
+all our important interests.
+
+“I see but little probability of effecting the object of my special
+mission, but the utmost credit is to be attached to the sincerity of
+the smiles of the king and queen, and of all the royal family.”
+
+“In a late conversation with his majesty, he inquired in the kindest
+manner after the health of the Great Sachem [this is the title of the
+head of the Leaplow government], and observed that our growth and
+prosperity put all other nations to shame; and that we might, on all
+occasions, depend on his most profound respect and perpetual
+friendship. In short, sir, all nations, far and near, desire our
+alliance, are anxious to open new sources of commerce, and entertain
+for us the profoundest respect, and the most inviolable esteem. You can
+tell the Great Sachem that this feeling is surprisingly augmented under
+his administration, and that it has at least quadrupled during my
+mission. If Leaphigh would only respect its treaties, Leapthrough would
+cease taking our seamen, Leapup have greater deference for the usages
+of good society, and the king of Leapover would seize no more of our
+ships to supply his mistress with pocket-money, our foreign relations
+might be considered to be without spot. As it is, sir, they are far
+better off than I could have expected, or indeed had ever hoped to see
+them; and of one thing you may be diplomatically certain, that we are
+universally respected, and that the Leaplow name is never mentioned
+without all in company rising and waving their caudae.”
+
+“(Signed.) JUDAS PEOPLE’S FRIEND.”
+
+“Hon.————-, etc.”
+
+“P. S. (Private.)”
+
+“Dear Sir:—If you publish this dispatch, omit the part where the
+difficulties are repeated, I beg you will see that my name is put in
+with those of the other patriots, against the periodical rotation of
+the little wheel, as I shall certainly be obliged to return home soon,
+having consumed all my means. Indeed, the expense of maintaining a
+tail, of which our people have no notion, is so very great, that I
+think none of our missions should exceed a week in duration.
+
+“I would especially advise that the message should dilate on the
+subject of the high standing of the Leaplow character in foreign
+nations; for, to be frank with you, facts require that this statement
+should be made as often as possible.”
+
+When this letter was read, the conversation reverted to religion. The
+brigadier explained that the law of Leaphigh had various peculiarities
+on this subject, that I do not remember to have heard of before. Thus,
+a monikin could not be born without paying something to the church, a
+practice which early initiated him into his duties towards that
+important branch of the public welfare; and, even when he died, he left
+a fee behind him, for the parson, as an admonition to those who still
+existed in the flesh, not to forget their obligations. He added that
+this sacred interest was, in short, so rigidly protected, that,
+whenever a monikin refused to be plucked for a new clerical or
+episcopal mantle, there was a method of fleecing him, by the
+application of red-hot iron rods, which generally singed so much of his
+skin, that he was commonly willing, in the end, to let the
+hair-proctors pick and choose at pleasure.
+
+I confess I was indignant at this picture, and did not hesitate to
+stigmatize the practice as barbarous.
+
+“Your indignation is very natural, Sir John, and is just what a
+stranger would be likely to feel, when he found mercy, and charity, and
+brotherly love, and virtue, and, above all, humility, made the
+stalking-horses of pride, selfishness, and avarice. But this is the way
+with us monikins; no doubt, men manage better.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+A VERY COMMON CASE: OR A GREAT DEAL OF LAW, AND VERY LITTLE
+JUSTICE—HEADS AND TAILS, WITH THE DANGERS OF EACH.
+
+
+I was early with Noah on the following morning. The poor fellow, when
+it is remembered that he was about to be tried for a capital offence,
+in a foreign country, under novel institutions, and before a jury of a
+different species, manifested a surprising degree of fortitude. Still,
+the love of life was strong within him, as was apparent by the way in
+which he opened the discourse.
+
+“Did you observe how the wind was this morning, Sir John, as you came
+in?” the straightforward sealer inquired, with a peculiar interest.
+
+“It is a pleasant gale from the southward.”
+
+“Right off shore! If one knew where all them blackguards of rear
+admirals and post captains were to be found, I don’t think, Sir, John,
+that you would care much about paying those fifty thousand promises?”
+
+“My recognizances?—Not in the least, my dear friend, were it not for
+our honor. It would scarcely be creditable for the Walrus to sail,
+however, leaving an unsettled account of her captain’s behind us. What
+would they say at Stunin’tun—what would your own consort think of an
+act so unmanly?”
+
+“Why, at Stunin’tun, we think him the smartest who gets the easiest out
+of any difficulty; and I don’t well see why Miss Poke should know
+it—or, if she did, why she should think the worse of her husband, for
+saving his life.”
+
+“Away with these unworthy thoughts, and brace yourself to meet the
+trial. We shall, at least, get some insight into the Leaphigh
+jurisprudence. Come, I see you are already dressed for the occasion;
+let us be as prompt as duellists.”
+
+Noah made up his mind to submit with dignity; although he lingered in
+the great square, in order to study the clouds, in a way to show he
+might have settled the whole affair with the fore-topsail, had he known
+where to find his crew. Fortunately for the reputations of all
+concerned, however, he did not; and, discarding everything like
+apprehension from his countenance, the sturdy mariner entered the Old
+Bailey with the tread of a man and the firmness of innocence. I ought
+to have said sooner, that we had received notice early in the morning,
+that the proceedings had been taken from before the pages, on appeal,
+and that a new venue had been laid in the High Criminal Court of
+Leaphigh.
+
+Brigadier Downright met us at the door; where also a dozen grave,
+greasy-looking counsellors gathered about us, in a way to show that
+they were ready to volunteer in behalf of the stranger, on receiving no
+more than the customary fee. But I had determined to defend Noah myself
+(the court consenting) for I had forebodings that our safety would
+depend more on an appeal to the rights of hospitality, than on any
+legal defence it was in our power to offer. As the brigadier kindly
+volunteered to aid me for nothing, I thought proper not to refuse his
+services, however.
+
+I pass over the appearance of the court, the empanelling of the jury,
+and the arraignment; for, in matters of mere legal forms, there is no
+great difference between civilized countries, all of them wearing the
+same semblance of justice. The first indictment, for unhappily there
+were two, charged Noah with having committed an assault, with malice
+prepense, on the king’s dignity, with “sticks, daggers, muskets,
+blunderbusses, air-guns, and other unlawful weapons, more especially
+with the tongue, in that he had accused his majesty, face to face, with
+having a memory, etc., etc.” The other indictment, repeating the
+formula of the first, charged the honest sealer with feloniously
+accusing her majesty the queen, “in defiance of the law, to the injury
+of good morals and the peace of society, with having no memory, etc.,
+etc.” To both these charges the plea of “not guilty,” was entered as
+fast as possible, in behalf of our client.
+
+I ought to have said before, that both Brigadier Downright and myself
+had applied to be admitted of counsel for the accused, under an ancient
+law of Leaphigh, as next of kin; I as a fellow human being, and the
+brigadier by adoption.
+
+The preliminary forms observed, the attorney-general was about to go
+into proof, in behalf of the crown, when my brother Downright arose and
+said that he intended to save the precious time of the court, by
+admitting the facts; and that it was intended to rest the defence
+altogether on the law of the case. He presumed the jury were the judges
+of the law as well as of the facts, according to the rule of Leaplow,
+and that “he and his brother Goldencalf were quite prepared to show
+that the law was altogether with us, in this affair.” The court
+received the admission, and the facts were submitted to the jury, by
+consent, as proven; although the chief-justice took occasion to remark,
+Longbeard dissenting, that, while the jury were certainly judges of the
+law, in one sense, yet there was another sense in which they were not
+judges of the law. The dissent of Baron Longbeard went to maintain that
+while the jury were the judges of the law in the “another sense”
+mentioned, they were not judges of the law in the “one sense” named.
+This difficulty disposed of, Mr. Attorney-General arose and opened for
+the crown.
+
+I soon found that we had one of a very comprehensive and philosophical
+turn of mind against us, in the advocate of the other side. He
+commenced his argument by a vigorous and lucid sketch of the condition
+of the world previously to the subdivisions of its different
+inhabitants into nations, and tribes, and clans, while in the human or
+chrysalis condition. From this statement, he deduced the regular
+gradations by which men become separated into communities, and
+subjected to the laws of civilization, or what is called society.
+Having proceeded thus far, he touched lightly on the different phases
+that the institutions of men had presented, and descended gradually and
+consecutively to the fundamental principles of the social compact, as
+they were known to exist among monikins. After a few general
+observations that properly belonged to the subject, he came to speak of
+those portions of the elementary principles of society that are
+connected with the rights of the sovereign. These he divided into the
+rights of the king’s prerogative, the rights of the king’s person, and
+the rights of the king’s conscience. Here he again generalized a
+little, and in a very happy manner; so well, indeed, as to leave all
+his hearers in doubt as to what he would next be at; when, by a fierce
+logical swoop, he descended suddenly on the last of the king’s rights,
+as the one that was most connected with the subject.
+
+He triumphantly showed that the branch of the royal immunities that was
+chiefly affected by the offence of the prisoner at the bar, was very
+clearly connected with the rights of the king’s conscience. “The
+attributes of royalty,” observed the sagacious advocate, “are not to be
+estimated in the same manner as the attributes of the subject. In the
+sacred person of the king are centred many, if not most, of the
+interesting privileges of monikinism. That royal personage, in
+apolitical sense, can do no wrong: official infallibility is the
+consequence. Such a being has no occasion for the ordinary faculties of
+the monikin condition. Of what use, for instance, is a judgment, or a
+conscience, to a functionary who can do no wrong? The law, in order to
+relieve one on whose shoulders was imposed the burden of the state, had
+consequently placed the latter especially in the keeping of another.
+His majesty’s first-cousin is the keeper of his conscience, as is known
+throughout the realm of Leaphigh. A memory is the faculty of the least
+account to a personage who has no conscience; and, while it is not
+contended that the sovereign is relieved from the possession of his
+memory by any positive statute law, or direct constitutional provision,
+it follows, by unavoidable implication, and by all legitimate
+construction, that, having no occasion to possess such a faculty, it is
+the legal presumption he is altogether without it.
+
+“That simplicity, lucidity and distinctness, my lords,” continued Mr.
+Attorney-General, “which are necessary to every well-ordered mind,
+would be impaired, in the case of his majesty, were his intellectual
+faculties unnecessarily crowded in this useless manner, and the state
+would be the sufferer. My lords, the king reigns, but he does not
+govern. This is a fundamental principle of the constitution; nay, it is
+more—it is the palladium of our liberties! My lords, it is an easy
+matter to reign in Leaphigh. It requires no more than the rights of
+primogeniture, sufficient discretion to understand the distinction
+between reigning and governing, and a political moderation that is
+unlikely to derange the balance of the state. But it is quite a
+different thing to govern. His majesty is required to govern nothing,
+the slight interests just mentioned excepted; no, not even himself. The
+case is far otherwise with his first-cousin. This high functionary is
+charged with the important trust of governing. It had been found, in
+the early ages of the monarchy, that one conscience, or indeed one set
+of faculties generally, scarcely sufficed for him whose duty it was
+both to reign and to govern. We all know, my lords, how insufficient
+for our personal objects are our own private faculties; how difficult
+we find it to restrain even ourselves, assisted merely by our own
+judgments, consciences, and memories; and in this fact do we perceive
+the great importance of investing him who governs others, with an
+additional set of these grave faculties. Under a due impression of the
+exigency of such a state of things, the common law—not statute law, my
+lords, which is apt to be tainted with the imperfections of monikin
+reason in its isolated or individual state, usually bearing the impress
+of the single cauda from which it emanated—but the common law, the
+known receptacle of all the common sense of the nation—in such a state
+of things, then, has the common law long since decreed that his
+majesty’s first-cousin should be the keeper of his majesty’s
+conscience; and, by necessary legal implication, endowed with his
+majesty’s judgment, his majesty’s reason, and finally, his majesty’s
+memory.
+
+“My lords, this is the legal presumption. It would, in addition, be
+easy for me to show, in a thousand facts, that not only the sovereign
+of Leaphigh, but most other sovereigns, are and ever have been,
+destitute of the faculty of a memory. It might be said to be
+incompatible with the royal condition to be possessed of this obtrusive
+faculty. Were a prince endowed with a memory, he might lose sight of
+his high estate, in the recollection that he was born, and that he is
+destined, like another, to die; he might be troubled with visions of
+the past; nay, the consciousness of his very dignity might be unsettled
+and weakened by a vivid view of the origin of his royal race. Promises,
+obligations, attachments, duties, principles, and even debts, might
+interfere with the due discharge of his sacred trusts, were the
+sovereign invested with a memory; and it has, therefore, been decided,
+from time immemorial, that his majesty is utterly without the
+properties of reason, judgment, and memory, as a legitimate inference
+from his being destitute of a conscience.”
+
+Mr. Attorney-General now directed the attention of the court and jury
+to a statute of the 3d of Firstborn 6th, by which it was enacted that
+any person attributing to his majesty the possession of any faculty,
+with felonious intent, that might endanger the tranquillity of the
+state, should suffer decaudization, without benefit of clergy. Here he
+rested the case on behalf of the crown.
+
+There was a solemn pause, after the speaker had resumed his seat. His
+argument, logic, and above all, his good sense and undeniable law, made
+a very sensible impression; and I had occasion to observe that Noah
+began to chew tobacco ravenously. After a decent interval, however,
+Brigadier Downright—who, it would seem, in spite of his military
+appellation, was neither more nor less than a practising attorney and
+counsellor in the city of Bivouac, the commercial capital of the
+Republic of Leaplow—arose, and claimed a right to be heard in reply.
+The court now took it into its head to start the objection, for the
+first time, that the advocate had not been duly qualified to plead, or
+to argue, at their bar. My brother Downright instantly referred their
+lordships to the law of adoption, and to that provision of the criminal
+code which permitted the accused to be heard by his next of kin.
+
+“Prisoner at the bar,” said the chief-justice, “you hear the statement
+of counsel. Is it your desire to commit the management of your defence
+to your next of kin?”
+
+“To anybody, your honors, if the court please,” returned Noah,
+furiously masticating his beloved weed; “to anybody who will do it
+well, my honorables, and do it cheap.”
+
+“And do you adopt, under the provisions of the statute in such cases
+made and provided, Aaron Downright as one of your next of kin, and if
+so, in what capacity?”
+
+“I do—I do—my lords and your honors—I do, body and soul—if you please,
+I adopt the brigadier as my father; and my fellow human being and tried
+friend, Sir John Goldencalf, here, I adopt him as my mother.”
+
+The court now formally assenting, the facts were entered of record, and
+my brother Downright was requested to proceed with the defence.
+
+The counsel for the prisoner, like Dandin, in Racine’s comedy of Les
+Plaideurs, was disposed to pass over the deluge, and to plunge
+instantly into the core of his subject. He commenced with a review of
+the royal prerogatives, and with a definition of the words “to reign.”
+Referring to the dictionary of the academy, he showed triumphantly,
+that to reign, was no other than to “govern as a sovereign”; while to
+govern, in the familiar signification, was no more than to govern in
+the name of a prince, or as a deputy. Having successfully established
+this point, he laid down the position, that the greater might contain
+the less, but that the less could not possibly contain the greater.
+That the right to reign, or to govern, in the generic signification of
+the term, must include all the lawful attributes of him who only
+governed, in the secondary signification; and that, consequently, the
+king not only reigned, but governed. He then proceeded to show that
+memory was indispensable to him who governed, since, without one he
+could neither recollect the laws, make a suitable disposition of
+rewards and punishments, nor, in fact, do any other intelligent or
+necessary act. Again, it was contended that by the law of the land the
+king’s conscience was in the keeping of his first-cousin. Now, in order
+that the king’s conscience should be in such keeping, it was clear that
+he must HAVE a conscience, since a nonentity could not be in keeping,
+or even put in commission; and, having a conscience, it followed, ex
+necessitate rei, that he must have the attributes of a conscience, of
+which memory formed one of the most essential features. Conscience was
+defined to be “the faculty by which we judge of the goodness or
+wickedness of our own actions. (See Johnson’s Dictionary, page 162,
+letter C. London edition. Rivington, publisher.) Now, in what manner
+can one judge of the goodness or wickedness of his acts, or of those of
+any other person, if he knows nothing about them? and how can he know
+anything of the past, unless endowed with the faculty of a memory?”
+
+Again; it was a political corollary from the institutions of Leaphigh,
+that the king could do no wrong—
+
+“I beg your pardon, my brother Downright,” interrupted the
+chief-justice, “it is not a corollary, but a proposition—and one, too,
+that is held to be demonstrated. It is the paramount law of the land.”
+
+“I thank you, my lord,” continued the brigadier, “as your lordship’s
+high authority makes my case so much the stronger. It is, then, settled
+law, gentle monikins of the jury, that the sovereign of this realm can
+do no wrong. It is also settled law—their lordships will correct me, if
+I misstate—it is also settled law that the sovereign is the fountain of
+honor, that he can make war and peace, that he administers justice,
+sees the laws executed—”
+
+“I beg your pardon, again, brother Downright,” interrupted the
+chief-justice. “This is not the law, but the prerogative. It is the
+king’s prerogative to be and do all this, but it is very far from being
+law.”
+
+“Am I to understand, my lord, that the court makes a distinction
+between that which is prerogative, and that which is law?”
+
+“Beyond a doubt, brother Downright! If all that is prerogative was also
+law, we could not get on an hour.”
+
+“Prerogative, if your lordship pleases, or prerogativa, is defined to
+be ‘an exclusive or peculiar privilege.’ (Johnson. Letter P, page 139,
+fifth clause from bottom; edition as aforesaid. Speaking slow, in order
+to enable Baron Longbeard to make his notes.) Now, an exclusive
+privilege, I humbly urge, must supersede all enactments, and—”
+
+“Not at all, sir—not at all, sir—not at all, sir,” put in my lord
+chief-justice, dogmatically-looking out of the window at the clouds, in
+a way to show that his mind was quite made up. “Not at all, good sir.
+The king has his prerogatives, beyond a question; and they are sacred—a
+part of the constitution. They are, moreover, exclusive and peculiar,
+as stated by Johnson; but their exclusiveness and peculiarity are not
+to be constructed in the vulgar acceptations. In treating of the vast
+interests of a state, the mind must take a wide range; and I hold,
+brother Longbeard, there is no principle more settled than the fact,
+that prerogativa is one thing, and lex, or the law, another.” The baron
+bowed assent. “By exclusion, in this case, is meant that the
+prerogative touches only his majesty. The prerogative is exclusively
+his property, and he may do what he pleases with it; but the law is
+made for the nation, and is altogether a different matter. Again: by
+peculiar, is clearly meant peculiarity, or that this case is analogous
+to no other, and must be reasoned on by the aid of a peculiar logic.
+No, sir—the king can make peace and war, it is true, under his
+prerogative; but then his conscience is hard and fast in the keeping of
+another, who alone can perform all legal acts.”
+
+“But, my lord, justice, though administered by others, is still
+administered in the king’s name.”
+
+“No doubt, in his name: this is a part of the peculiar privilege. War
+is made in his majesty’s name, too—so is peace. What is war? It is the
+personal conflicts between bodies of men of different nations. Does his
+majesty engage in these conflicts? Certainly not. The war is maintained
+by taxes. Does his majesty pay them? No. Thus we see that while the war
+is constitutionally the king’s, it is practically the people’s. It
+follows, as a corollary—since you quote corollaries, brother
+Downright—that there are two wars—or the war of the prerogative, and
+the war of the fact. Now, the prerogative is a constitutional
+principle—a very sacred one, certainly—but a fact is a thing that comes
+home to every monikin’s fireside; and therefore the courts have
+decided, ever since the reign of Timid II., or ever since they dared,
+that the prerogative was one thing, and the law another.”
+
+My brother Downright seemed a good deal perplexed by the distinctions
+of the court, and he concluded much sooner than he otherwise would have
+done; summing up the whole of his arguments, by showing, or attempting
+to show, that if the king had even these peculiar privileges, and
+nothing else, he must be supposed to have a memory.
+
+The court now called upon the attorney-general to reply; but that
+person appeared to think his case strong enough as it was, and the
+matter, by agreement, was submitted to the jury, after a short charge
+from the bench.
+
+“You are not to suffer your intellects to be confused, gentlemonikins,
+by the argument of the prisoner’s counsel,” concluded the
+chief-justice. “He has done his duty, and it remains for you to be
+equally conscientious. You are, in this case, the judges of the law and
+the fact; but it is a part of my functions to inform you what they both
+are. By the law, the king is supposed to have no faculties. The
+inference drawn by counsel, that, not being capable of erring, the king
+must have the highest possible moral attributes, and consequently a
+memory, is unsound. The constitution says his majesty CAN do no wrong.
+This inability may proceed from a variety of causes. If he can do
+NOTHING, for instance, he can do no wrong. The constitution does not
+say that the sovereign WILL do no wrong—but, that he CAN do no wrong.
+Now, gentlemonikins, when a thing cannot be done, it becomes
+impossible; and it is, of course, beyond the reach of argument. It is
+of no moment whether a person has a memory, if he cannot use it, and,
+in such a case, the legal presumption is, that he is without a memory;
+for, otherwise, nature, who is ever wise and beneficent, would be
+throwing away her gifts.
+
+“Gentlemonikins, I have already said you are the judges, in this case,
+of both the law and the fact. The fate of the prisoner is in your
+hands. God forbid that it should be, in any manner, influenced by me;
+but this is an offence against the king’s dignity, and the security of
+the realm; the law is against the prisoner, the facts are all against
+the prisoner, and I do not doubt that your verdict will be the
+spontaneous decision of your own excellent judgments, and of such a
+nature as will prevent the necessity of our ordering a new trial.”
+
+The jurors put their tails together, and in less than a minute, their
+foremonikin rendered a verdict of guilty. Noah sighed, and took a fresh
+supply of tobacco.
+
+The case of the queen was immediately opened by her majesty’s
+attorney-general; the prisoner having been previously arraigned, and a
+plea entered of “not guilty.”
+
+The queen’s advocate made a bitter attack on the animus of the
+unfortunate prisoner. He described her majesty as a paragon of
+excellences; as the depositary of all the monikin virtues, and the
+model of her sex. “If she, who was so justly celebrated for the gifts
+of charity, meekness, religion, justice, and submission to feminine
+duties, had no memory,” he asked leave to demand, in the name of God,
+who had? “Without a memory, in what manner was this illustrious
+personage to recall her duties to her royal consort, her duties to her
+royal offspring, her duties to her royal self? Memory was peculiarly a
+royal attribute; and without its possession no one could properly be
+deemed of high and ancient lineage. Memory referred to the past, and
+the consideration due to royalty was scarcely ever a present
+consideration, but a consideration connected with the past. We
+venerated the past. Time was divided into the past, present, and
+future. The past was invariably a monarchical interest—the present was
+claimed by republicans—the future belonged to fate. If it were decided
+that the queen had no memory, we should strike a blow at royalty. It
+was by memory, as connected with the public archives, that the king
+derived his title to his throne; it was by memory, which recalled the
+deeds of his ancestors, that he became entitled to our most profound
+respect.”
+
+In this manner did the queen’s attorney-general speak for about an
+hour, when he gave way to the counsel for the prisoner. But, to my
+great surprise, for I knew that this accusation was much the gravest of
+the two, since the head of Noah would be the price of conviction, my
+brother Downright, instead of making a very ingenious reply, as I had
+fully anticipated, merely said a few words, in which he expressed so
+firm a confidence in the acquittal of his client, as to appear to think
+a further defence altogether unnecessary. He had no sooner seated
+himself, than I expressed a strong dissatisfaction with this course,
+and avowed an intention to make an effort in behalf of my poor friend,
+myself.
+
+“Keep silence, Sir John,” whispered my brother Downright; “the advocate
+who makes many unsuccessful applications gets to be disrespected. I
+charge myself with the care of the lord high admiral’s interests; at
+the proper time they shall be duly attended to.”
+
+Having the profoundest respect for the brigadier’s legal attainments,
+and no great confidence in my own, I was fain to submit. In the
+meantime, the business of the court proceeded; and the jury, having
+received a short charge from the bench, which was quite as impartial as
+a positive injunction to convict could very well be, again rendered the
+verdict of “guilty.”
+
+In Leaphigh, although it is deemed indecent to wear clothes, it is also
+esteemed exceedingly decorous for certain high functionaries to adorn
+their persons with suitable badges of their official rank. We have
+already had an account of the hierarchy of tails, and a general
+description of the mantle composed of tenth-hairs; but I had forgotten
+to say that both my lord chief-justice and Baron Longbeard had
+tail-cases made of the skins of deceased monikins, which gave the
+appearance of greater development to their intellectual organs, and
+most probably had some influence in the way of coddling their brains,
+which required great care and attention on account of incessant use.
+They now drew over these tail-cases a sort of box-coat of a very
+bloodthirsty color, which, we were given to understand, was a sign that
+they were in earnest, and about to pronounce sentence; justice in
+Leaphigh being of singularly bloodthirsty habits.
+
+“Prisoner at the bar,” the chief-justice began, in a voice of reproof,
+“you have heard the decision of your peers. You have been arraigned and
+tried on the heinous charge of having accused the sovereign of this
+realm of being in possession of the faculty called ‘a memory,’ thereby
+endangering the peace of society, unsettling the social relations, and
+setting a dangerous example of insubordination and of contempt of the
+laws. Of this crime, after a singularly patient and impartial hearing,
+you have been found guilty. The law allows the court no discretion in
+the case. It is my duty to pass sentence forthwith; and I now solemnly
+ask you, if you have anything to say why sentence of decaudization
+should not be pronounced against you.” Here the chief-justice took just
+time enough to gape, and then proceeded—“You are right in throwing
+yourself altogether on the mercy of the court, which better knows what
+is fittest for you, than you can possibly know for yourself. You will
+be taken, Noah Poke, or No. 1, sea-water-color, forthwith, to the
+centre of the public square, between the hours of sunrise and sunset of
+this day, where your cauda will be cut off; and after it has been
+divided into four parts, a part will be exposed towards each of the
+cardinal points of the compass; and the brush thereof being consumed by
+fire, the ashes will be thrown into your face, and this without benefit
+of clergy. And may the Lord have mercy on your soul!”
+
+“Noah Poke, or No. 1, sea-water-color,” put in Baron Longbeard, without
+giving the culprit breathing-time, “you have been indicted, tried, and
+found guilty of the enormous crime of charging the queen-consort of
+this realm of being wanting in the ordinary, important, and every-day
+faculty of a memory. Have you anything to say why sentence should not
+be forthwith passed against you? No; I am sure you are very right in
+throwing yourself altogether on the mercy of the court, which is quite
+disposed to show you all that is in its power, which happens, in this
+case, to be none at all. I need not dwell on the gravity of your
+offence. If the law should allow that the queen has no memory, other
+females might put in claims to the same privilege, and society would
+become a chaos. Marriage vows, duties, affections, and all our nearest
+and dearest interests would be unhinged, and this pleasant state of
+being would degenerate into a moral, or rather an immoral pandemonium.
+Keeping in view these all-important considerations, and more especially
+the imperativeness of the law, which does not admit of discretion, the
+court sentences you to be carried hence, without delay, to the centre
+of the great square, where your head will be severed from your body by
+the public executioner, without benefit of clergy; after which your
+remains are to be consigned to the public hospitals for the purposes of
+dissection.”
+
+The words were scarcely out of Baron Longbeard’s mouth, before both the
+attorneys-general started up, to move the court in behalf of the
+separate dignities of their respective principals. Mr. Attorney-General
+of the crown prayed the court so far to amend its sentence, as to give
+precedency to the punishment on account of the offence against the
+king; and Mr. Attorney-General for the queen, to pray the court it
+would not be so far forgetful of her majesty’s rights and dignity, as
+to establish a precedent so destructive of both. I caught a glimpse of
+hope glancing about the eyes of my brother Downright, who, waiting just
+long enough to let the two advocates warm themselves over these points
+of law, arose and moved the court for a stay of execution, on the plea
+that neither sentence was legal—that delivered by my lord chief-justice
+containing a contradiction, inasmuch as it ordered the decaudization to
+take place between THE HOURS OF SUNRISE AND SUNSET, and also FORTHWITH;
+and that delivered by Baron Longbeard, on account of its ordering the
+body to be given up to dissection, contrary to the law, which merely
+made that provision in the case of condemned MONIKINS, the prisoner at
+the bar being entirely of another species.
+
+The court deemed all these objections serious, but decided on its own
+incompetency to take cognizance of them. It was a question for the
+twelve judges, who were now on the point of assembling, and to whom
+they referred the whole affair on appeal. In the meantime, justice
+could not be stayed. The prisoner must be carried out into the square,
+and matters must proceed; but, should either of the points be finally
+determined in his favor, he could have the benefit of it, so far as
+circumstances would then allow. Hereupon the court rose, and the
+judges, counsel, and clerks repaired in a body to the hall of the
+twelve judges.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+BETTER AND BETTER—MORE LAW AND MORE JUSTICE—TAILS AND HEADS: THE
+IMPORTANCE OF KEEPING EACH IN ITS PROPER PLACE.
+
+
+Noah was incontinently transferred to the place of execution, where I
+promised to meet him in time to receive his parting sigh, curiosity
+inducing me first to learn the issue on the appeal. The brigadier told
+me in confidence, as we went to the other hall, that the affair was now
+getting to be one of great interest; that hitherto it had been mere
+boy’s play, but it would in future require counsel of great reading and
+research to handle the arguments, and that he flattered himself there
+was a good occasion likely to present itself, for him to show what
+monikin reason really was.
+
+The whole of the twelve wore tail-cases, and altogether they presented
+a formidable array of intellectual development. As the cause of Noah
+was admitted to be one of more than common urgency, after hearing only
+three or four other short applications on behalf of the crown, whose
+rights always have precedence on such occasions, the attorney-general
+of the king was desired to open his case.
+
+The learned counsel spoke, in anticipation, to the objections of both
+his adversaries, beginning with those of my brother Downright.
+Forthwith, he contended, might be at any period of the twenty-four
+hours, according to the actual time of using the term. Thus, forthwith
+of a morning, would mean in the morning; forthwith at noon, would mean
+at noon; and so on to the close of the legal day. Moreover, in a legal
+signification, forthwith must mean between sunrise and sunset, the
+statute commanding that all executions shall take place by the light of
+the sun, and consequently the two terms ratified and confirmed each
+other, instead of conveying a contradiction, or of neutralizing each
+other, as would most probably be contended by the opposite counsel.
+
+To all this my brother Downright, as is usual on such occasions,
+objected pretty much the converse. He maintained that ALL light
+proceeded from the sun; and that the statute, therefore, could only
+mean that there should be no executions during eclipses, a period when
+the whole monikin race ought to be occupied in adoration. Forthwith,
+moreover, did not necessarily mean forthwith, for forthwith meant
+immediately; and “between sunrise and sunset” meant between sunrise and
+sunset; which might be immediately, or might not.
+
+On this point the twelve judges decided, firstly, that forthwith did
+not mean forthwith; secondly, that forthwith did mean forthwith;
+thirdly, that forthwith had two legal meanings; fourthly, that it was
+illegal to apply one of these legal meanings to a wrong legal purpose;
+and fifthly, that the objection was of no avail, as respected the case
+of No. 1, sea-water-color. Ordered, therefore, that the criminal lose
+his tail forthwith.
+
+The objection to the other sentence met with no better fate. Men and
+monikins did not differ more than some men differed from other men, or
+some monikins differed from other monikins. Ordered, that the sentence
+be confirmed, with costs. I thought this decision the soundest of the
+two; for I had often had occasion to observe, that there were very
+startling points of resemblance between monkeys and our own species.
+
+The contest now commenced between the two attorneys-general in earnest;
+and, as the point at issue was a question of mere rank, it excited a
+lively—I may say an engrossing—interest in all the hearers. It was
+settled, however, after a vigorous discussion, in favor of the king,
+whose royal dignity the twelve judges were unanimously of opinion was
+entitled to precedency over that of the queen. To my great surprise, my
+brother Downright volunteered an argument on this intricate point,
+making an exceedingly clever speech in favor of the king’s dignity, as
+was admitted by every one who heard it. It rested chiefly on the point
+that the ashes of the tail were, by the sentence, to be thrown into the
+culprit’s face. It is true this might be done physically after
+decapitation, but it could not be done morally. This part of the
+punishment was designed for a moral effect; and to produce that effect,
+consciousness and shame were both necessary. Therefore the moral act of
+throwing the ashes into the face of the criminal could only be done
+while he was living, and capable of being ashamed.
+
+Meditation, chief-justice, delivered the opinion of the bench. It
+contained the usual amount of legal ingenuity and logic, was esteemed
+as very eloquent in that part which touched on the sacred and
+inviolable character of the royal prerogatives (prerogativae as he
+termed them), and was so lucid in pointing out the general inferiority
+of the queen-consort, that I felt happy her majesty was not present to
+hear herself and sex undervalued. As might have been expected, it
+allowed great weight to the distinction taken by the brigadier. The
+decision was in the following words, viz.: “Rex et Regina versus No. 1,
+sea-water-color: ordered, that the officers of justice shall proceed
+forthwith to decaudizate the defendant before they decapitate him;
+provided he has not been forthwith decapitated before he can be
+decaudizated.”
+
+The moment this mandamus was put into the hands of the proper officer,
+Brigadier Downright caught me by the knee, and led me out of the hall
+of justice, as if both out lives depended on our expedition. I was
+about to reproach him for having volunteered to aid the king’s
+attorney-general, when, seizing me by the root of the tail, for the
+want of a button-hole, he said, with evident satisfaction:
+
+“Affairs go on swimmingly, my dear Sir John! I do not remember to have
+been employed, for some years, in a more interesting litigation. Now
+this cause, which, no doubt, you think is drawing to a close, has just
+reached its pivot, or turning-point; and I see every prospect of
+extricating our client with great credit to myself.”
+
+“How! my brother Downright!” I interrupted; “the accused is finally
+sentenced, if not actually executed!”
+
+“Not so fast, my good Sir John—not so fast, by any means. Nothing is
+final in law, while there is a farthing to meet the costs, or the
+criminal can yet gasp. I hold our case to be in an excellent way; much
+better than I have deemed it at any time since the accused was
+arraigned.”
+
+Surprise left me no other power than that which was necessary to demand
+an explanation.
+
+“All depends on the single fact, dear sir,” continued my brother
+Downright, “whether the head is still on the body of the accused or
+not. Do you proceed, as fast as possible, to the place of execution;
+and, should our client still have a head, keep up his spirits by a
+proper religious discourse, always preparing him for the worst, for
+this is no more than wisdom; but, the instant his tail is separated
+from his body, run hither as fast as you can, to apprise me of the
+fact. I ask but two things of you—speed in coming with the news, and
+perfect certainty that the tail is not yet attached to the rest of the
+frame, by even a hair. A hair often turns the scales of justice!”
+
+“The case seems desperate—would it not be as well for me to run down to
+the palace, at once; demand an audience of their majesties, throw
+myself on my knees before the royal pair, and implore a pardon?”
+
+“Your project is impracticable, for three sufficient reasons: firstly,
+there is not time; secondly, you would not be admitted without a
+special appointment; thirdly, there is neither a king nor a queen!”
+
+“No king in Leaphigh!”
+
+“I have said it.”
+
+“Explain yourself, brother Downright, or I shall be obliged to refute
+what you say, by the evidence of my own senses.”
+
+“Your senses will prove to be false witnesses then. Formerly there was
+a king in Leaphigh, and one who governed, as well as reigned. But the
+nobles and grandees of the country, deeming it indecent to trouble his
+majesty with affairs of state any longer, took upon themselves all the
+trouble of governing, leaving to the sovereign the sole duty of
+reigning. This was done in a way to save his feelings, under the
+pretence of setting up a barrier to the physical force and abuses of
+the mass. After a time, it was found inconvenient and expensive to feed
+and otherwise support the royal family, and all its members were
+privately shipped to a distant region, which had not yet got to be so
+far advanced in civilization, as to know how to keep up a monarchy
+without a monarch.”
+
+“And does Leaphigh succeed in effecting this prodigy?”
+
+“Wonderfully well. By means of decapitations and decaudizations enough,
+even greater exploits may be performed.”
+
+“But am I to understand literally, brother Downright, there is no such
+thing as a monarch in this country?”
+
+“Literally.”
+
+“And the presentations?”
+
+“Are like these trials, to maintain the monarchy.”
+
+“And the crimson curtains?—”
+
+“Conceal empty seats.”
+
+“Why not, then, dispense with so much costly representation?”
+
+“In what way could the grandees cry out that the throne is in danger,
+if there were no throne? It is one thing to have no monarch, and
+another to have no throne. But all this time our client is in great
+jeopardy. Hasten, therefore, and be particular to act as I have just
+instructed you.”
+
+I stopped to hear no more, but in a minute was flying towards the
+centre of the square. It was easy enough to perceive the tail of my
+friend waving over the crowd; but grief and apprehension had already
+rendered his countenance so rueful, that, at the first glance, I did
+not recognize his head. He was, however, still in the body; for,
+luckily for himself, and more especially for the success of his
+principal counsel, the gravity of his crimes had rendered unusual
+preparations necessary for the execution. As the mandate of the court
+had not yet arrived—justice being as prompt in Leaphigh as her
+ministers are dilatory—two blocks were prepared, and the culprit was
+about to get down on his hands and knees between them, just as I forced
+my way through the crowd to his side.
+
+“Ah! Sir John, this is an awful predicament!” exclaimed the rebuked
+Noah; “a ra’ally awful situation for a human Christian to have his
+enemies lying athwart both bows and starn!”
+
+“While there is life there is hope; but it is always best to be
+prepared for the worst—he who is thus prepared never can meet with a
+disagreeable surprise. Messrs. Executioners”—for there were two, that
+of the king, and that of the queen, or one at each end of the unhappy
+criminal—“Messrs. Executioners, I pray you to give the culprit a moment
+to arrange his thoughts, and to communicate his last requests in behalf
+of his distant family and friends!”
+
+To this reasonable petition neither of the higher functionaries of the
+law made any objection, although both insisted if they did not
+forthwith bring the culprit to the last stages of preparation, they
+might lose their places. They did not see, however, but a man might
+pause for a moment on the brink of the grave. It would seem that there
+had been a little misunderstanding between the executioners themselves
+on the point of precedency, which had been one cause of the delay, and
+which had been disposed of by an arrangement that both should operate
+at the same instant. Noah was now brought down to his hands and knees,
+“moored head and starn,” as that unfeeling blackguard Bob, who was in
+the crowd, expressed it, between the two blocks, his neck lying on one
+and his tail on the other. While in this edifying attitude, I was
+permitted to address him.
+
+“It may be well to bethink you of your soul, my dear captain,” I said;
+“for, to speak truth, these axes have a very prompt and sanguinary
+appearance.”
+
+“I know it, Sir John, I know it; and, not to mislead you, I will own
+that I have been repenting with all my might, ever since that first
+vardict. That affair of the lord high admiral, in particular, has given
+me a good deal of consarn; and I now humbly ask your pardon for being
+led away by such a miserable deception, which is all owing to that
+riptyle Dr. Reasono, who, I hope, will yet meet with his desarts. I
+forgive everybody, and hope everybody will forgive me. As for Miss
+Poke, it will be a hard case; for she is altogether past expecting
+another consort, and she must be satisfied to be a relic the rest of
+her days.”
+
+“Repentance, repentance, my dear Noah—repentance is the one thing
+needful for a man in your extremity.”
+
+“I do—I do, Sir John, body and soul—I repent, from the bottom of my
+heart, ever having come on this v’y’ge—nay, I don’t know but I repent
+ever having come outside of Montauk Point. I might, at this moment,
+have been a school-master or a tavern-keeper in Stunnin’tun; and they
+are both good wholesome berths, particularly the last. Lord love you!
+Sir John, if repentance would do any good, I should be pardoned on the
+spot.”
+
+Here Noah caught a glimpse of Bob grinning in the crowd, and he asked
+of the executioners, as a last favor, that they would have the boy
+brought near, that he might take an affectionate leave of him. This
+reasonable request was complied with, despite of poor Bob’s struggles;
+and the youngster had quite as good reasons for hearty repentance as
+the culprit himself. Just at this trying moment the mandate for the
+order of the punishments arrived, and the officials seriously declared
+that the condemned must be prepared to meet his fate.
+
+The unflinching manner in which Captain Poke submitted to the mortal
+process of decaudization extracted plaudits from, and awakened sympathy
+in every monikin present. Having satisfied myself that the tail was
+actually separated from the body, I ran, as fast as legs could carry
+me, towards the hall of the twelve judges. My brother Downright, who
+was impatiently expecting my appearance, instantly arose and moved the
+bench to issue a mandamus for a stay of execution in the case of
+“Regina versus Noah Poke, or No. 1, sea-water-color. By the statute of
+the 2d of Longevity and Flirtilla, it was enacted, my lords,” put in
+the brigadier, “that in no case shall a convicted felon suffer loss of
+life, or limb, while it can be established that he is non compos
+mentis. This is also a rule, my lords, of common law—but being common
+sense and common monikinity, it has been thought prudent to enforce it
+by an especial enactment. I presume Mr. Attorney-General for the queen
+will scarcely dispute the law of the case—”
+
+“Not at all, my lords—though I have some doubts as to the fact. The
+fact remains to be established,” answered the other, taking snuff.
+
+“The fact is certain, and will not admit of cavil. In the case of Rex
+versus Noah Poke, the court ordered the punishment of decaudization to
+take precedence of that of decapitation, in the case of Regina versus
+the same. Process had been issued from the bench to that effect; the
+culprit has, in consequence, lost his cauda, and with it his reason; a
+creature without reason has always been held to be non compos mentis,
+and by the law of the land is not liable to the punishments of life or
+limb.”
+
+“Your law is plausible, my brother Downright,” observed my lord
+chief-justice, “but it remains for the bench to be put in possession of
+the facts. At the next term, you will perhaps be better prepared—”
+
+“I pray you, my lord, to remember that this is a case which will not
+admit of three months’ delay.”
+
+“We can decide the principle a year hence, as well as to-day; and we
+have now sat longer in banco,” looking at his watch, “than is either
+usual, agreeable, or expedient.”
+
+“But, my lords, the proof is at hand. Here is a witness to establish
+that the cauda of Noah Poke, the defendant of record, has actually been
+separated from his body—”
+
+“Nay—nay—my brother Downright, a barrister of your experience must know
+that the twelve can only take evidence on affidavit. If you had an
+affidavit prepared, we might possibly find time to hear it, before we
+adjourn; as it is, the affair must lie over to another sitting.”
+
+I was now in a cold sweat, for I could distinctly scent the peculiar
+odor of the burning tail; the ashes of which being fairly thrown into
+Noah’s face, there remained no further obstacle to the process of
+decapitation—the sentence, it will be remembered, having kept his
+countenance on his shoulders expressly for that object. My brother
+Downright, however, was not a lawyer to be defeated by so simple a
+stumbling-block. Seizing a paper that was already written over in a
+good legal hand, which happened to be lying before him, he read it,
+without pause or hesitation, in the following manner:
+
+“Regina versus Noah Poke.”
+
+“Kingdom of Leaphigh, Season of Nuts, {Personally this fourth day of
+the Moon.} appeared before me, Meditation, Lord Chief-Justice of the
+Court of King’s Bench, John Goldencalf, baronet, of the Kingdom of
+Great Britain, who, being duly sworn, doth depose and say, viz., that
+he, the said deponent, was present at, and did witness, the
+decaudization of the defendant in this suit, and that the tail of the
+said Noah Poke, or No. 1, sea-water-color, hath been truly and
+physically separated from his body.
+
+“—And further this deponent sayeth not. Signature, etc.”
+
+Having read, in the most fluent manner, the foregoing affidavit, which
+existed only in his own brain, my brother Downright desired the court
+to take my deposition to its truth.
+
+“John Goldencalf, baronet,” said the chief-justice, “you have heard
+what has just been read; do you swear to its truth?”
+
+“I do.”
+
+Here the affidavit was signed by both my lord chief-justice and myself,
+and it was duly put on file. I afterwards learned that the paper used
+by my brother Downright on this memorable occasion was no other than
+the notes which the chief-justice himself had taken on one of the
+arguments in the case in question, and that, seeing the names and title
+of the cause, besides finding it no easy matter to read his own
+writing, that high officer of the crown had, very naturally, supposed
+that all was right. As to the rest of the bench, they were in too great
+a hurry to go to dinner, to stop and read affidavits, and the case was
+instantly disposed of, by the following decision:
+
+“Regina versus Noah Poke, etc. Ordered, that the culprit be considered
+non compos mentis, and that he be discharged, on finding security to
+keep the peace for the remainder of his natural life.”
+
+An officer was instantly dispatched to the great square with this
+reprieve, and the court rose. I delayed a little in order to enter into
+the necessary recognizances in behalf of Noah, taking up at the same
+time the bonds given the previous night, for his appearance to answer
+to the indictments. These forms being duly complied with, my brother
+Downright and myself repaired to the place of execution, in order to
+congratulate our client—the former justly elated with his success,
+which he assured me was not a little to the credit of his own
+education.
+
+We found Noah surprisingly relieved by his liberation from the hands of
+the Philistines; nor was he at all backwards in expressing his
+satisfaction at the unexpected turn things had taken. According to his
+account of the matter, he did not set a higher value on his head than
+another; still, it was convenient to have one; had it been necessary to
+part with it, he made no doubt he should have submitted to do so like a
+man, referring to the fortitude with which he had borne the amputation
+of his cauda, as a proof of his resolution; for his part, he should
+take very good care how he accused any one with having a memory, or
+anything else, again, and he now saw the excellence of those wise
+provisions of the laws, which cut up a criminal in order to prevent the
+repetition of his offences; he did not intend to stay much longer on
+shore, believing he should be less in the way of temptation on board
+the Walrus than among the monikins; and, as for his own people, he was
+sure of soon catching them on board again, for they had now been off
+their pork twenty-four hours, and nuts were but poor grub for foremast
+hands, after all; philosophers might say what they pleased about
+governments, but, in his opinion, the only ra’al tyrant on ’arth was
+the belly; he did not remember ever to have had a struggle with his
+belly—and he had a thousand—that the belly didn’t get the better; that
+it would be awkward to lay down the title of lord high admiral, but it
+was easier to lay down that than to lay down his head; that as for
+cauda, though it was certainly agreeable to be in the fashion, he could
+do very well without one, and when he got back to Stunnin’tun, should
+the worst come to the worst, there was a certain saddler in the place
+who could give him as good a fit as the one he had lost; that Miss Poke
+would have been greatly scandalized, however, had he come home after
+decapitation; that it might be well to sail for Leaplow as soon as
+convenient, for in that country he understood bobs were in fashion, and
+he admitted that he should not like to cruise about Leaphigh, for any
+great length of time, unless he could look as other people look; for
+his part, he bore no one a grudge, and he freely forgave everybody but
+Bob, out of whom, the Lord willing, he proposed to have full
+satisfaction, before the ship should be twenty-four hours at sea, etc.,
+etc., etc.
+
+Such was the general tendency of the remarks of Captain Poke, as we
+proceeded towards the port, where he embarked and went on board the
+Walrus, with some eagerness, having learned that our rear-admirals and
+post-captains had, indeed, yielded to the calls of nature, and had all
+gone to their duty, swearing they would rather be foremast Jacks in a
+well-victualled ship, than the king of Leaphigh upon nuts.
+
+The captain had no sooner entered the boat, taking his head with him,
+than I began to make my acknowledgments to my brother Downright for the
+able manner in which he had defended my fellow human being; paying, at
+the same time, some well-merited compliments to the ingenious and truly
+philosophical distinctions of the Leaphigh system of jurisprudence.
+
+“Spare your thanks and your commendations, I beg of you, good Sir
+John,” returned the brigadier, as we walked back towards my lodgings.
+“We did as well as circumstances would allow; though our whole defence
+would have been upset, had not the chief-justice very luckily been
+unable to read his own handwriting. As for the principles and forms of
+the monikin law—for in these particulars Leaplow is very much like
+Leaphigh—as you have seen them displayed in these two suits, why, they
+are such as we have. I do not pretend that they are faultless; on the
+contrary, I could point out improvements myself—but we get on with them
+as well as we can: no doubt, among men, you have codes that will better
+bear examination.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+A NEOPHYTE IN DIPLOMACY—DIPLOMATIC INTRODUCTION—A CALCULATION—A
+SHIPMENT OF OPINIONS—HOW TO CHOOSE AN INVOICE, WITH AN ASSORTMENT.
+
+
+I now began seriously to think of sailing for Leaplow; for, I confess,
+I was heartily tired of being thought the governor of His Royal
+Highness Prince Bob, and pined to be restored once more to my proper
+place in society. I was the more incited to make the change by the
+representations of the brigadier, who assured me that it was sufficient
+to come from foreign parts to be esteemed a nobleman in Leaplow, and
+that I need not apprehend in his country any of the ill-treatment I had
+received in the one in which I now was. After talking over the matter,
+therefore, in a familiar way, we determined to repair at once to the
+Leaplow legation, in order to ask for our passports, and to offer, at
+the same time, to carry any dispatches that Judge People’s Friend might
+have prepared for his government—it being the custom of the Leaplowers
+to trust to these godsends in carrying on their diplomatic
+correspondence.
+
+We found the judge in undress, and a very different figure he cut,
+certainly, from that which he made when I saw him the previous night at
+court. Then he was all queue; now he was all bob. He seemed glad to see
+us, however, and quite delighted when I told him of the intention to
+sail for Leaplow, as soon as the wind served. He instantly asked a
+passage for himself, with republican simplicity.
+
+There was to be another turn of the great and little wheels, he said,
+and it was quite important to himself to be on the spot; for, although
+everything was, beyond all question, managed with perfect republican
+propriety, yet, somehow (and yet he did not know exactly how, but
+SOMEHOW), those who are on the spot always get the best prizes. If I
+could give him a passage, therefore, he would esteem it a great
+personal favor; and I might depend on it, the circumstance would be
+well received by the party. Although I did not very well understand
+what he meant by this party, which was to view the act so kindly, I
+very cheerfully told the judge that the apartments lately occupied by
+my lord Chatterino and his friends were perfectly at his disposal. I
+was then asked when I intended to sail; and the answer was, the instant
+the wind hauled, so we could lay out of the harbor. It might be within
+half an hour. Hereupon Judge People’s Friend begged I would have the
+goodness to wait until he could hunt up a charge d’affaires. His
+instructions were most peremptory never to leave the legation without a
+charge d’affaires; but he would just brush his bob, and run into the
+street, and look up one in five minutes, if I would promise to wait so
+long. It would have been unkind to refuse so trifling a favor, and the
+promise was given. The judge must have run as fast as his legs would
+carry him; for, in about ten minutes, he was back again, with a
+diplomatic recruit. He told me his heart had misgiven him sadly. The
+three first to whom he offered the place had plumply refused it, and,
+indeed, he did not know but he should have a quarrel or two on his
+hands; but, at last, he had luckily found one who could get nothing
+else to do, and he pinned him on the spot.
+
+So far everything had gone on swimmingly; but the new charge had, most
+unfortunately, a very long cauda, a fashion that was inexorably
+proscribed by the Leaplow usages, except in cases when the
+representative went to court; for it seems the Leaplow political
+ethics, like your country buck, has two dresses—one for every-day wear,
+and one for Sundays. The judge intimated to his intended substitute,
+that it was absolutely indispensable he should submit to an amputation,
+or he could not possibly confer the appointment, queues being
+proscribed at home by both public opinions, the horizontal and the
+perpendicular. To this the candidate objected, that he very well knew
+the Leaplow usages on this head, but that he had seen his excellency
+himself going to court with a singularly apparent brush; and he had
+supposed from that, and from sundry other little occurrences he did not
+care to particularize, that the Leaplowers were not so bigoted in their
+notions but they could act on the principle of doing at Rome as is done
+by the Romans. To this the judge replied, that this principle was
+certainly recognized in all things that were agreeable, and that he
+knew, from experience, how hard it was to go in a bob, when all around
+him went in cauda; but that tails were essentially anti-republican,
+and, as such, had been formally voted down in Leaplow, where even the
+Great Sachem did not dare to wear one, let him long for it as much as
+he would; and if it were known that a public charge offended in this
+particular, although he might be momentarily protected by one of the
+public opinions, the matter would certainly be taken up by the
+opposition public opinion, and then the people might order a new turn
+of the little wheel, which heaven it knew! occurred now a great deal
+oftener than was either profitable or convenient.
+
+Hereupon the candidate deliberately undid the fastenings and removed
+the queue, showing, to our admiration, that it was false, and that he
+was, after all neither more nor less than a Leaplower in masquerade;
+which, by the way, I afterwards learned, was very apt to be the case
+with a great many of that eminently original people, when they got
+without the limits of their own beloved land. Judge People’s Friend was
+now perfectly delighted. He told us this was exactly what he could most
+have wished for. “Here is a bob,” said he, “for the horizontals and
+perpendiculars, and there is a capital ready-made cauda for his majesty
+and his majesty’s first-cousin! A Leaphighized Leaplower, more
+especially if there be a dash of caricature about him, is the very
+thing in our diplomacy.” Finding matters so much to his mind, the judge
+made out the letter of appointment on the spot, and then proceeded to
+give his substitute the usual instructions.
+
+“You are on all occasions,” he said, “to take the utmost care not to
+offend the court of Leaphigh, or the meanest of the courtiers, by
+advancing any of our peculiar opinions, all of which, beyond dispute,
+you have at your finger-ends; on this score, you are to be so
+particular that you may even, in your own person, pro tempore, abandon
+republicanism—yea, sacred republicanism itself!—knowing that it can
+easily be resumed on your return home again. You are to remember there
+is nothing so undiplomatic, or even vulgar, as to have an opinion on
+any subject, unless it should be the opinion of the persons you may
+happen to be in company with; and, as we have the reputation of
+possessing that quality in an eminent degree, everywhere but at home,
+take especial heed to eschew vulgarity—if you can. You will have the
+greatest care, also, to wear the shortest bob in all your private, and
+the longest tail in all your public relations, this being one of the
+most important of the celebrated checks and balances of our government.
+Our institutions being expressly formed by the mass, for the particular
+benefit of all, you will be excessively careful not to let the claims
+of any one citizen, or even any set of citizens, interfere with that
+harmony which it is so necessary, for the purposes of trade, to
+maintain with all foreign courts; which courts being accustomed
+themselves to consider their subjects as cattle, to be worked in the
+traces of the state, are singularly restive whenever they hear of any
+individual being made of so much importance. Should any Leaplower
+become troublesome on this score, give him a bad name at once; and in
+order to effect that object with your own single-minded and
+right-loving countrymen, swear that he is a disorganizer, and, my life
+on it, both public opinions at home will sustain you; for there is
+nothing on which our public opinions agree so well as the absolute
+deference which they pay to foreign public opinions—and this the more
+especially, in all matters that are likely to affect profits, by
+deranging commerce. You will, above all things, make it a point to be
+in constant relations with some of the readiest paragraph-writers of
+the newspapers, in order to see that facts are properly stated at home.
+I would advise you to look out some foreigner, who has never seen
+Leaplow, for this employment; one that is also paid to write for the
+journals of Leapup, or Leapdown, or some other foreign country; by
+which means you will be sure to get an impartial agent, or one who can
+state things in your own way, who is already half paid for his
+services, and who will not be likely to make blunders by meddling with
+distinctive thought. When a person of this character is found, let him
+drop a line now and then in favor of your own sagacity and patriotism;
+and if he should say a pleasant thing occasionally about me, it will do
+no harm, but may help the little wheel to turn more readily. In order
+to conceal his origin, let your paragraph-agent use the word OUR
+freely; the use of this word, as you know, being the only qualification
+of citizenship in Leaplow. Let him begin to spell the word O-U-R, and
+then proceed to pronounce it, and be careful that he does not spell it
+H-O-U-R, which might betray his origin. Above all things, you will be
+patriotic and republican, avoiding the least vindication of your
+country and its institutions, and satisfying yourself with saying that
+the latter are, at least, well suited to the former, if you should say
+this in a way to leave the impression on your hearers, that you think
+the former fitted for nothing else, it will be particularly agreeable
+and thoroughly republican, and most eminently modest and praiseworthy.
+You will find the diplomatic agents of all other states sensitive on
+the point of their peculiar political usages, and prompt to defend
+them; but this is a weakness you will rigidly abstain from imitating,
+for our polity being exclusively based on reason, you are to show a
+dignified confidence in the potency of that fundamental principle, nor
+in any way lessen the high character that reason already enjoys, by
+giving any one cause to suspect you think reason is not fully able to
+take care of itself. With these leading hints, and your own natural
+tendencies, which I am glad to see are eminently fitted for the great
+objects of diplomacy—being ductile, imitative, yielding, calculating,
+and, above all, of a foreign disposition—I think you will be able to
+get on very cleverly. Cultivate, above all things, your foreign
+dispositions, for you are now on foreign duty, and your country reposes
+on your shoulders and eminent talents the whole burden of its foreign
+interests in this part of the world.”
+
+Here the judge closed his address, which was oral, apparently well
+satisfied with himself and with his raw-hand in diplomacy. He then
+said—
+
+“That he would now go to court to present his substitute, and to take
+leave himself; after which he would return as fast as possible, and
+detain us no longer than was necessary to put his cauda in pepper, to
+protect it against the moths; for heaven knew what prize he might draw
+in the next turn of the little wheel!”
+
+We promised to meet him at the port, where a messenger just then
+informed us Captain Poke had landed, and was anxiously waiting our
+appearance. With this understanding we separated; the judge undertaking
+to redeem all our promises paid in at the tavern, by giving his own in
+their stead.
+
+The brigadier and myself found Noah and the cook bargaining for some
+private adventures with a Leaphigh broker or two, who, finding that the
+ship was about to sail in ballast, were recommending their wares to the
+notice of these two worthies.
+
+“It would be a ra’al sin, Sir John,” commenced the captain, “to neglect
+an occasion like this to turn a penny. The ship could carry ten
+thousand immigrants, and they say there are millions of them going over
+to Leaplow; or it might stow half the goods in Aggregation. I’m
+resolved, at any rate, to use my cabin privilege; and I would advise
+you, as owner, to look out for suthin’ to pay port-charges with, to say
+the least.”
+
+“The idea is not a bad one, friend Poke; but, as we are ignorant of the
+state of the market on the other side, it might be well to consult some
+inhabitant of the country about the choice of articles. Here is the
+Brigadier Downright, whom I have found to be a monikin of experience
+and judgment, and if you please, we will first hear what he has to say
+about it.”
+
+“I dabble very little in merchandise,” returned the brigadier; “but, as
+a general principle, I should say that no article of Leaphigh
+manufacture would command so certain a market in Leaplow as opinions.”
+
+“Have you any of these opinions for sale?” I inquired of the broker.
+
+“Plenty of them, sir, and of all qualities—from the very lowest to the
+very ’ighest prices—those that may be had for next to nothing, to those
+that we think a great deal of ourselves. We always keeps them ready
+packed for exportation, and send wast invoices of them, hannually, to
+Leaplow in particular. Opinions are harticles that help to sell each
+other; and a ship of the tonnage of yours might stow enough, provided
+they were properly assorted, to carry all before them for the season.”
+
+Expressing a wish to see the packages, we were immediately led into an
+adjoining warehouse, where, sure enough, there were goodly lots of the
+manufactures in question. I passed along the shelves, reading the
+inscriptions of the different packages. Pointing to several bundles
+that had “Opinions on Free Trade” written on their labels, I asked the
+brigadier what he thought of that article.
+
+“Why, they would have done better, a year or two since, when we were
+settling a new tariff; but I should think there would be less demand
+for them now.”
+
+“You are quite right, sir,” added the broker; “we did send large
+invoices of them to Leaplow formerly, and they were all eagerly bought
+up, the moment they arrived. A great many were dyed over again, and
+sold as of ’ome manufacture. Most of these harticles are now shipped
+for Leapup, with whom we have negotiations that give them a certain
+value.”
+
+“‘Opinions on Democracy, and on the Policy of Governments in General’:
+I should think these would be of no use in Leaplow?”
+
+“Why, sir, they goes pretty much hover the whole world. We sell powers
+on ’em on hour own continent, near by, and a great many do go even to
+Leaplow; though what they does with ’em there, I never could say,
+seeing they are all government monikins in that queer country.”
+
+An inquiring look extorted a clearer answer from the brigadier:—
+
+“To admit the fact, we have a class among us who buy up these articles
+with some eagerness. I can only account for it, by supposing they think
+differing in their tastes from the mass, makes them more enlightened
+and peculiar.”
+
+“I’ll take them all. An article that catches these propensities is sure
+of sale. ‘Opinions on Events’: what can possibly be done with these?”
+
+“That depends a little on their classification,” returned the
+brigadier. “If they relate to Leaplow events, while they have a certain
+value, they cannot be termed of current value; but if they refer to the
+events of all the rest of the earth, take them for heaven’s sake! for
+we trust altogether to this market for our supplies.”
+
+On this hint I ordered the whole lot, trusting to dispose of the least
+fashionable by aid of those that were more in vogue.
+
+“‘Opinions on Domestic Literature.’”
+
+“You may buy all he has; we use no other.”
+
+“‘Opinions on Continental Literature.’”
+
+“Why, we know little about the goods themselves—but I think a selection
+might answer.”
+
+I ordered the bale cut in two, and took one half, at a venture.
+
+“‘Opinions of Leaplow Literature, From No. 1 up to No. 100.’”
+
+“Ah! it is proper I should explain,” put in the broker, “that we has
+two varieties of them ’ere harticles. One is the true harticle, as is
+got up by our great wits and philosophers, they says, on the most
+approved models; but the other is nothing but a sham harticle that is
+really manufactured in Leaplow, and is sent out here to get hour stamp.
+That’s all—I never deceives a customer—both sell well, I hear, on the
+other side, ’owever.”
+
+I looked again at the brigadier, who quietly nodding assent, I took the
+whole hundred bales.
+
+“‘Opinions of the Institutions of Leaphigh.’”
+
+“Why, them ’ere is assorted, being of all sizes, forms, and colors.
+They came coastwise, and are chiefly for domestic consumption; though I
+have known ’em sent to Leaplow, with success.”
+
+“The consumers of this article among us,” observed the brigadier, “are
+very select, and rarely take any but of the very best quality. But then
+they are usually so well stocked, that I question if a new importation
+would pay freight. Indeed, our consumers cling very generally to the
+old fashions in this article, not even admitting the changes produced
+by time. There was an old manufacturer called Whiterock, who has a sort
+of Barlow-knife reputation among us, and it is not easy to get another
+article to compete with his. Unless they are very antiquated, I would
+have nothing to do with them.”
+
+“Yes, this is all true, sir. We still sends to Leaplow quantities of
+that ’ere manufacture; and the more hantiquated the harticle, the
+better it sells; but then the new fashions has a most wonderful run at
+’ome.”
+
+“I’ll stick to the real Barlow, through thick or thin. Hunt me up a
+bale of his notions; let them be as old as the flood. What have we
+here?—‘opinions on the Institutions of Leaplow.’”
+
+“Take them,” said the brigadier, promptly.
+
+“This ’ere gentleman has an hidear of the state of his own market,”
+added the broker, giggling. “Wast lots of these things go across
+yearly—and I don’t find that any on ’em ever comes back.”
+
+“‘Opinions on the State of Manners and Society in Leaplow.’”
+
+“I believe I’ll take an interest in that article myself, Sir John, if
+you can give me a ton or two between decks. Have you many of this
+manufacture?”
+
+“Lots on ’em, sir—and they DO sell so! That ’ere are a good harticle
+both at ’ome and abroad. My eye! how they does go off in Leaplow!”
+
+“This appears to be also your expectation, brigadier, by your readiness
+to take an interest!”
+
+“To speak the truth, nothing sells better in our beloved country.”
+
+“Permit me to remark that I find your readiness to purchase this and
+the last article, a little singular. If I have rightly comprehended our
+previous conversations, you Leaplowers profess to have improved not
+only on the ancient principles of polity, but on the social condition
+generally.”
+
+“We will talk of this during the passage homewards, Sir John
+Goldencalf; but, by your leave, I will take a share in the investment
+in ‘Opinions on the State of Society and Manners in Leaplow,’
+especially if they treat at large on the deformities of the government,
+while they allow us to be genteel. This is the true notch—some of these
+goods have been condemned because the manufacturers hadn’t sufficient
+skill in dyeing.”
+
+“You shall have a share, brigadier. Harkee, Mr. Broker; I take it these
+said opinions come from some very well-known and approved manufactory?”
+
+“All sorts, sir. Some good, and some good for nothing—everything sells,
+’owever. I never was in Leaplow, but we says over ’ere, that the
+Leaplowers eat, and drink, and sleep on our opinions. Lord, sir, it
+would really do your heart good to see the stuff, in these harticles,
+that they does take from us without higgling!”
+
+“I presume, brigadier, that you use them as an amusement—as a means to
+pass a pleasant hour, of an evening—a sort of moral segar?”
+
+“No, sir,” put in the broker, “they doesn’t smoke ’em, my word on’t, or
+they wouldn’t buy ’em in such lots!”
+
+I now thought enough had been laid in on my own account, and I turned
+to see what the captain was about. He was higgling for a bale marked
+“Opinions on the Lost Condition of the Monikin Soul.” A little curious
+to know why he had made this selection, I led him aside, and frankly
+put the question.
+
+“Why, to own the truth, Sir John,” he said, “religion is an article
+that sells in every market, in some shape or other. Now, we are all in
+the dark about the Leaplow tastes and usages, for I always suspect a
+native of the country to which I am bound, on such a p’int; and if the
+things shouldn’t sell there, they’ll at least do at Stunnin’tun. Miss
+Poke alone would use up what there is in that there bale, in a
+twelvemonth. To give the woman her due, she’s a desperate consumer of
+snuff and religion.”
+
+We had now pretty effectually cleared the shelves, and the cook, who
+had come ashore to dispose of his slush, had not yet been able to get
+anything.
+
+“Here is a small bale as come FROM Leaplow, and a pinched little thing
+it is,” said the broker, laughing; “it don’t take at all, here, and it
+might do to go ’ome again—at any rate, you will get the drawback. It is
+filled with ‘Distinctive Opinions of the Republic of Leaplow.’” The
+cook looked at the brigadier, who appeared to think the speculation
+doubtful. Still it was Hobson’s choice; and, after a good deal of
+grumbling, the doctor, as Noah always called his cook, consented to
+take the “harticle,” at half the prime cost.
+
+Judge People’s Friend now came trotting down to the port, thoroughly en
+republican, when we immediately embarked, and in half an hour, Bob was
+kicked to Noah’s heart’s content, and the Walrus was fairly under way
+for Leaplow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+POLITICAL BOUNDARIES—POLITICAL RIGHTS—POLITICAL SELECTIONS, AND
+POLITICAL DISQUISITIONS; WITH POLITICAL RESULTS.
+
+
+The aquatic mile-stones of the monikin seas have been already
+mentioned; but I believe I omitted to say, that there was a line of
+demarcation drawn in the water, by means of a similar invention, to
+point out the limits of the jurisdiction of each state. Thus, all
+within these water-marks was under the laws of Leaphigh; all between
+them and those of some other country, was the high seas; and all within
+those of the other country, Leaplow for instance, was under the
+exclusive jurisdiction of that other country.
+
+With a favorable wind, the Walrus could run to the watermarks in about
+half a day; from thence to the water-marks of Leaplow was two days’
+sail, and another half day was necessary to reach our haven. As we drew
+near the legal frontiers of Leaphigh, several small fast-sailing
+schooners were seen hovering just without the jurisdiction of the king,
+quite evidently waiting our approach. One boarded us, just as the outer
+edge of the spanker-boom got clear of the Leaphigh sovereignty. Judge
+People’s Friend rushed to the side of the ship, and before the crew of
+the boat could get on deck, he had ascertained that the usual number of
+prizes had been put into the little wheel.
+
+A monikin in a bob of a most pronounced character, or which appeared to
+have been subjected to the second amputation, being what is called in
+Leaplow a bob-upon-bob, now approached, and inquired if there were any
+emigrants on board. He was made acquainted with our characters and
+objects. When he understood that our stay would most likely be short,
+he was evidently a little disappointed.
+
+“Perhaps, gentlemen,” he added, “you may still remain long enough to
+make naturalization desirable?”
+
+“It is always agreeable to be at home in foreign countries—but are
+there no legal objections?”
+
+“I see none, sir—you have no tails, I believe?”
+
+“None but what are in our trunks. I did not know, however, but the
+circumstance of our being of a different species might throw some
+obstacles in the way.”
+
+“None in the world, sir. We act on principles much too liberal for so
+narrow an objection. You are but little acquainted with the
+institutions and policy of our beloved and most happy country, I see,
+sir. This is not Leaphigh, nor Leapup, nor Leapdown, nor Leapover, nor
+Leapthrough, nor Leapunder; but good old, hearty, liberal, free and
+independent, most beloved, happy, and prosperous beyond example,
+Leaplow. Species is of no account under our system. We would as soon
+naturalize one animal as another, provided it be a republican animal. I
+see no deficiency about any of you. All we ask is certain general
+principles. You go on two legs—”
+
+“So do turkeys, sir.”
+
+“Very true—but you have no feathers.”
+
+“Neither has a donkey.”
+
+“All very right, gentlemen—you do not bray, however.”
+
+“I will not answer for that,” put in the captain, sending his leg
+forwards in a straight line, in a way to raise an outcry in Bob, that
+almost upset the Leaplower’s proposition.
+
+“At all events, gentlemen,” he observed, “there is a test that will put
+the matter at rest, at once.”
+
+He then desired us, in turn, to pronounce the word “our”—“OUR
+liberties”—“OUR country”—“OUR firesides”—“OUR altars,” Whoever
+expressed a wish to be naturalized, and could use this word in the
+proper manner, and in the proper place, was entitled to be a citizen.
+We all did very well but the second mate, who, being a Herefordshire
+man, could not, for the life of him, get any nearer to the Doric, in
+the latter shibboleth, than “our halters.” Now, it would seem that, in
+carrying out a great philanthropic principle in Leaplow, halters had
+been proscribed; for, whenever a rogue did anything amiss, it had been
+discovered that, instead of punishing him for the offence, the true way
+to remedy the evil was to punish the society against which he had
+offended. By this ingenious turn, society was naturally made to look
+out sharp how it permitted any one to offend it. This excellent idea is
+like that of certain Dutchmen, who, when they cut themselves with an
+ax, always apply salve and lint to the cruel steel, and leave the wound
+to heal as fast as possible.
+
+To return to our examination: we all passed but the second mate, who
+hung in his halter, and was pronounced to be incorrigible. Certificates
+of naturalization were delivered on the spot, the fees were paid, and
+the schooner left us.
+
+That night it blew a gale, and we had no more visitors until the
+following morning. As the sun rose, however, we fell in with three
+schooners, under the Leaplow flag, all of which seemed bound on errands
+of life or death. The first that reached us sent a boat on board, and a
+committee of six bob-upon-bobs hurried up our sides, and lost no time
+in introducing themselves. I shall give their own account of their
+business and characters.
+
+It would seem that they were what is called a “nominating committee” of
+the Horizontals, for the City of Bivouac, the port to which we were
+bound, where an election was about to take place for members of the
+great National Council. Bivouac was entitled to send seven members; and
+having nominated themselves, the committee were now in quest of a
+seventh candidate to fill the vacancy. In order to secure the
+naturalized interests, it had been determined to select as new a comer
+as possible. This would also be maintaining the principle of
+liberality, in the abstract. For this reason they had been cruising for
+a week, as near as the law would allow to the Leaphigh boundaries, and
+they were now ready to take any one who would serve.
+
+To this proposition I again objected the difference of species. Here
+they all fairly laughed in my face, Brigadier Downright included,
+giving me very distinctly to understand that they thought I had very
+contracted notions on matters and things, to suppose so trifling an
+obstacle could disturb the harmony and unity of a Horizontal vote. They
+went for a principle, and the devil himself could not make them swerve
+from the pursuit of so sacred an object.
+
+I then candidly admitted that nature had not fitted me, as admirably as
+it had fitted my friend the judge, for the throwing of summersets; and
+I feared that when the order was given “to go to the right about,” I
+might be found no better than a bungler. This staggered them a little;
+and I perceived that they looked at each other in doubt.
+
+“But you can, at least, turn round suddenly, at need?” one of them
+asked, after a pause.
+
+“Certainly, sir,” I answered, giving ocular evidence that I was no idle
+boaster, making a complete gyration on my heels, in very good time.
+
+“Very well!—admirably well!” they all cried in a breath. “The great
+political essential is to be able to perform the evolutions in their
+essence—the facility with which they are performed being no more than a
+personal merit.”
+
+“But, gentlemen, I know little more of your constitution and laws, than
+I have learned in a few broken discussions with my fellow-travellers.”
+
+“This is a matter of no moment, sir. Our constitution, unlike that of
+Leaphigh, is written down, and he who runs can read; and then we have a
+political fugleman in the house, who saves an immense deal of
+unnecessary study and reflection to the members. All you will have to
+do, will be to watch his movements; and, my life on it, you will go as
+well through the manual exercise as the oldest member there.”
+
+“How, sir, do all the members take the manoeuvres from this fugleman?”
+
+“All the Horizontals, sir—the Perpendiculars having a fugleman of their
+own.”
+
+“Well, gentlemen, I conceive this to be an affair in which I am no
+judge, and I put myself entirely in the hands of my friends.”
+
+This answer met with much commendation, and manifested, as they all
+protested, great political capabilities; the statesman who submitted
+all to his friends never failing to rise to eminence in Leaplow. The
+committee took my name in writing and hastened back to their schooner,
+in order to get into port to promulgate the nomination. These persons
+were hardly off the deck, before another party came up the opposite
+side of the ship. They announced themselves to be a nominating
+committee of the Perpendiculars, on exactly the same errand as their
+opponents. They, too, wished to propitiate the foreign interests, and
+were in search of a proper candidate. Captain Poke had been an
+attentive listener to all that occurred during the circumstances that
+preceded my nomination; and he now stepped promptly forward, and
+declared his readiness to serve. As there was quite as little
+squeamishness on one side as on the other, and the Perpendicular
+committee, as it owned itself, was greatly pressed for time, the
+Horizontals having the start of them, the affair was arranged in five
+minutes, and the strangers departed with the name of NOAH POKE, THE
+TRIED PATRIOT, THE PROFOUND JURIST, AND THE HONEST MONIKIN, handsomely
+placarded on a large board—all but the name having been carefully
+prepared in advance.
+
+When the committee were fairly out of the ship, Noah look me aside, and
+made his apologies for opposing me in this important election. His
+reasons were numerous and ingenious, and, as usual, a little
+discursive. They might be summed up as follows: He never had sat in a
+parliament, and he was curious to know how it would feel; it would
+increase the respect of the ship’s company, to find their commander of
+so much account in a strange port; he had had some experience at
+Stunnin’tun by reading the newspapers, and he didn’t doubt of his
+abilities at all, a circumstance that rarely failed of making a good
+legislator; the congressman in his part of the country was some such
+man as himself, and what was good for the goose was good for the
+gander; he knew Miss Poke would be pleased to hear he had been chosen;
+he wondered if he should be called the Honorable Noah Poke, and whether
+he should receive eight dollars a day, and mileage from the spot where
+the ship then was; the Perpendiculars might count on him, for his word
+was as good as his bond; as for the constitution, he had got on under
+the constitution at home, and he believed a man who could do that might
+get on under any constitution; he didn’t intend to say a great deal in
+parliament, but what he did say he hoped might be recorded for the use
+of his children; together with a great deal more of the same sort of
+argumentation and apology.
+
+The third schooner now brought us to. This vessel sent another
+committee, who announced themselves to be the representatives of a
+party that was termed the Tangents. They were not numerous, but
+sufficiently so to hold the balance whenever the Horizontals and the
+Perpendiculars crossed each other directly at right angles, as was the
+case at present; and they had now determined to run a single candidate
+of their own. They, too, wished to fortify themselves by the foreign
+interest, as was natural, and had come out in quest of a proper person.
+I suggested the first mate; but against this Noah protested, declaring
+that come what would, the ship must on no account be deserted. Time
+pressed; and, while the captain and the subordinate were hotly
+disputing the propriety of permitting the latter to serve, Bob, who had
+already tasted the sweets of political importance, in his assumed
+character of prince-royal, stepped slyly up to the committee, and gave
+in his name. Noah was too much occupied to discover this well-managed
+movement; and by the time he had sworn to throw the mate overboard if
+he did not instantly relinquish all ambitious projects of this nature,
+he found that the Tangents were off. Supposing they had gone to some
+other vessel, the captain allowed himself to be soothed, and all went
+on smoothly again.
+
+From this time until we anchored in the bay of Bivouac, the
+tranquillity and discipline of the Walrus were undisturbed. I improved
+the occasion to study the constitution of Leaplow, of which the judge
+had a copy, and to glean such information from my companions as I
+believed might be useful in my future career. I thought how pleasant it
+would be for a foreigner to teach the Leaplowers their own laws, and to
+explain to them the application of their own principles! Little,
+however, was to be got from the judge, who was just then too much
+occupied with some calculations concerning the chances of the little
+wheel, with which he had been furnished by a leading man of one of the
+nominating committees.
+
+I now questioned the brigadier touching that peculiar usage of his
+country which rendered Leaphigh opinions concerning the Leaplow
+institutions, society, and manners of so much value in the market of
+the latter. To this I got but an indifferent answer, except it was to
+say, that his countrymen, having cleared the interests connected with
+the subjects from the rubbish of time, and set everything at work, on
+the philosophical basis of reason and common sense, were exceedingly
+desirous of knowing what other people thought of the success of the
+experiment.
+
+“I expect to see a nation of sages, I can assure you, brigadier; one in
+which even the very children are profoundly instructed in the great
+truths of your system; and, as to the monikinas, I am not without dread
+of bringing my theoretical ignorance in collision with their great
+practical knowledge of the principles of your government.”
+
+“They are early fed on political pap.”
+
+“No doubt, sir, no doubt. How different must they be from the females
+of other countries! Deeply imbued with the great distinctive principles
+of your system, devoted to the education of their children in the same
+sublime truths, and indefatigable in their discrimination, among the
+meanest of their households!”
+
+“Hum!”
+
+“Now, sir, even in England, a country which I trust is not the most
+debased on earth, you will find women, beautiful, intellectual,
+accomplished and patriotic, who limit their knowledge of these
+fundamental points to a zeal for a clique, and the whole of whose
+eloquence on great national questions is bounded by a few heartfelt
+wishes for the downfall of their opponents;—”
+
+“It is very much so at Stunnin’tun, too, if truth must be spoken,”
+remarked Noah, who had been a listener.
+
+“Who, instead of instructing the young suckers that cling to their
+sides in just notions of general social distinctions, nurture their
+young antipathies with pettish philippics against some luckless chief
+of the adverse party;—”
+
+“Tis pretty much the same at Stunnin’tun, as I live!”
+
+“Who rarely study the great lessons of history in order to point out to
+the future statesmen and heroes of the empire the beacons of crime, the
+incentives for public virtue, or the charters of their liberties; but
+who are indefatigable in echoing the cry of the hour, however false or
+vulgar, and who humanize their attentive offspring by softly expressed
+wishes that Mr. Canning, or some other frustrator of the designs of
+their friends, were fairly hanged!”
+
+“Stunnin’tun, all over!”
+
+“Beings that are angels in form—soft, gentle, refined, and tearful as
+the evening with its dews, when there is a question of humanity or
+suffering; but who seem strangely transformed into she-tigers, whenever
+any but those of whom they can approve attain to power; and who,
+instead of entwining their soft arms around their husbands and
+brothers, to restrain them from the hot strife of opinions, cheer them
+on by their encouragement and throw dirt with the volubility and wit of
+fish-women.”
+
+“Miss Poke, to the backbone!”
+
+“In short, sir, I expect to see an entirely different state of things
+at Leaplow. There, when a political adversary is bespattered with mud,
+your gentle monikinas, doubtless, appease anger by mild soothings of
+philosophy, tempering zeal by wisdom, and regulating error by apt and
+unanswerable quotations from that great charter which is based on the
+eternal and immutable principles of right.”
+
+“Well, Sir John, if you speak in this elocutionary manner in the
+house,” cried the delighted Noah, “I shall be shy of answering. I
+doubt, now, if the brigadier himself could repeat all you have just
+said.”
+
+“I have forgotten to inquire, Mr. Downright, a little about your
+Leaplow constituency. The suffrage is, beyond question, confined to
+those members of society who possess a ‘social stake.’”
+
+“Certainly, Sir John, They who live and breathe.”
+
+“Surely none vote but those who possess the money, and houses, and
+lands of the country?”
+
+“Sir, you are altogether in error; all vote who possess ears, and eyes,
+and noses, and bobs, and lives, and hopes, and wishes, and feelings,
+and wants. Wants we conceive to be a much truer test of political
+fidelity, than possessions.”
+
+“This is novel doctrine, indeed! but it is in direct hostility to the
+social-stake system.”
+
+“You were never more right, Sir John, as respects your own theory, or
+never more wrong as respects the truth. In Leaplow we contend—and
+contend justly—that there is no broader or bolder fallacy than to say
+that a representation of mere effects, whether in houses, lands,
+merchandise, or money, is a security for a good government. Property is
+affected by measures; and the more a monikin has, the greater is the
+bribe to induce him to consult his own interests, although it should be
+at the expense of those of everybody else.”
+
+“But, sir, the interest of the community is composed of the aggregate
+of these interests.”
+
+“Your pardon, Sir John; nothing is composed of it, but the aggregate of
+the interests of a class. If your government is instituted for their
+benefit only, your social-stake system is all well enough; but if the
+object be the general good, you have no choice but to trust its custody
+to the general keeping. Let us suppose two men—since you happen to be a
+man, and not a monikin—let us suppose two men perfectly equal in
+morals, intelligence, public virtue and patriotism, one of whom shall
+be rich and the other shall have nothing. A crisis arrives in the
+affairs of their common country, and both are called upon to exercise
+their franchise, on a question—as almost all great questions must—that
+unavoidably will have some influence on property generally. Which would
+give the most impartial vote—he who, of necessity, must be swayed by
+his personal interest, or he who has no inducement of the sort to go
+astray?”
+
+“Certainly he who has nothing to influence him to go wrong. But the
+question is not fairly put—”
+
+“Your pardon, Sir John—it is put fairly as an abstract question, and
+one that is to prove a principle. I am glad to hear you say that a man
+would be apt to decide in this manner; for it shows his identity with a
+monikin. We hold that all of us are apt to think most of ourselves on
+such occasions.”
+
+“My dear brigadier, do not mistake sophistry for reason. Surely, if
+power belonged only to the poor—and the poor, or the comparatively
+poor, always compose the mass—they would exercise it in a way to strip
+the rich of their possessions.”
+
+“We think not, in Leaplow. Cases might exist, in which such a state of
+things would occur under a reaction; but reactions imply abuses, and
+are not to be quoted to maintain a principle. He who was drunk
+yesterday, may need an unnatural stimulus to-day; while he who is
+uniformly temperate preserves his proper tone of body without recourse
+to a remedy so dangerous. Such an experiment, under a strong
+provocation, might possibly be made; but it could scarcely be made
+twice among any people, and not even once among a people that submits
+in season to a just division of its authority, since it is obviously
+destructive of a leading principle of civilization. According to our
+monikin histories, all the attacks upon property have been produced by
+property’s grasping at more than fairly belongs to its immunities. If
+you make political power a concomitant of property, both may go
+together, certainly; but if kept separate, the danger to the latter
+will never exceed the danger in which it is put daily by the arts of
+the money-getters, who are, in truth, the greatest foes of property, as
+it belongs to others.”
+
+I remembered Sir Joseph Job, and could not but admit that the brigadier
+had, at least, some truth on his side.
+
+“But do you deny that the sentiment of property elevates the mind,
+ennobles, and purifies?”
+
+“Sir, I do not pretend to determine what may be the fact among men, but
+we hold among monikins, that ‘the love of money is the root of all
+evil.’”
+
+“How, sir, do you account the education which is a consequence of
+property as nothing?”
+
+“If you mean, my dear Sir John, that which property is most apt to
+teach, we hold it to be selfishness; but if you mean that he who has
+money, as a rule, will also have in formation to guide him aright, I
+must answer, that experience, which is worth a thousand theories, tells
+us differently. We find that on questions which are purely between
+those who have, and those who have not, the HAVES are commonly united,
+and we think this would be the fact if they were as unschooled as
+bears; but on all other questions, they certainly do great discredit to
+education, unless you admit that there are in every case TWO rights;
+for, with us, the most highly educated generally take the two extremes
+of every argument. I state this to be the fact with monikins, you will
+remember—doubtless, educated men agree much better.”
+
+“But, my good brigadier, if your position about the greater
+impartiality and independence of the elector who is not influenced by
+his private interests be true, a country would do well to submit its
+elections to a body of foreign umpires.”
+
+“It would indeed, Sir John, if it were certain these foreign umpires
+would not abuse the power to their own particular advantage, if they
+could have the feelings and sentiments which ennoble and purify a
+nation far more than money, and if it were possible they could
+thoroughly understand the character, habits, wants, and resources of
+another people. As things are, therefore, we believe it is wisest to
+trust our own elections to ourselves—not to a portion of ourselves, but
+to all of ourselves.”
+
+“Immigrants included,” put in the captain.
+
+“Why, we do carry the principle well out in the case of gentlemen like
+yourselves,” returned the brigadier, politely, “but liberality is a
+virtue. As a principle, Sir John, your idea of referring the choice of
+our representatives to strangers has more merit than you probably
+imagine, though, certainly, impracticable, for the reasons already
+given. When we seek justice, we commonly look out for some impartial
+judge. Such a judge is unattainable, however, in the matter of the
+interests of a state, for the simple reason that power of this sort,
+permanently wielded, would be perverted on a principle which, after a
+most scrupulous analysis, we have been compelled to admit is
+incorporated with the very monikin nature—viz., selfishness. I make no
+manner of doubt that you men, however, are altogether superior to an
+influence so unworthy?”
+
+Here I could only borrow the use of the brigadier’s “Hum!”
+
+“Having ascertained that it would not do to submit the control of our
+affairs to utter strangers, or to those whose interests are not
+identified with our own, we set about seeing what could be done with a
+selection from among ourselves. Here we were again met by that same
+obstinate principle of selfishness; and we were finally driven to take
+shelter in the experiment of intrusting the interests of all to the
+management of all.”
+
+“And, sir, are these the opinions of Leaphigh?”
+
+“Very far from it. The difference between Leaphigh and Leaplow is just
+this: the Leaphighers, being an ancient people, with a thousand vested
+interests, are induced, as time improves the mind, to seek reasons for
+their facts; while we Leaplowers, being unshackled by any such
+restraints, have been able to make an effort to form our facts on our
+reasons.”
+
+“Why do you, then, so much prize Leaphigh opinions on Leaplow facts?”
+
+“Why does every little monikin believe his own father and mother to be
+just the two wisest, best, most virtuous, and discreetest old monikins
+in the whole world, until time, opportunity, and experience show him
+his error?”
+
+“Do you make no exceptions, then, in your franchise, but admit every
+citizen who, as you say, has a nose, ears, bob, and wants, to the
+exercise of the suffrage?”
+
+“Perhaps we are less scrupulous on this head than we ought to be, since
+we do not make ignorance and want of character bars to the privilege.
+Qualifications beyond mere birth and existence may be useful, but they
+are badly chosen when they are brought to the test of purely material
+possessions. This practice has arisen in the world from the fact that
+they who had property had power, and not because they ought to have
+it.”
+
+“My dear brigadier, this is flying in the face of all experience.”
+
+“For the reason just given, and because all experience has hitherto
+commenced at the wrong end. Society should be constructed as you erect
+a house; not from the roof down, but from the foundation upwards.”
+
+“Admitting, however, that your house has been badly constructed at
+first, in repairing it, would you tear away the walls at random, at the
+risk of bringing all down about your ears?”
+
+“I would first see that sufficient props were reared, and then proceed
+with vigor, though always with caution. Courage in such an experiment
+is less to be dreaded than timidity. Half the evils of life, social,
+personal and political, are as much the effects of moral cowardice as
+of fraud.”
+
+I then told the brigadier, that as his countrymen rejected the
+inducements of property in the selection of the political base of their
+social compact, I expected to find a capital substitute in virtue.
+
+“I have always heard that virtue is the great essential of a free
+people, and doubtless you Leaplowers are perfect models in this
+important particular?”
+
+The brigadier smiled before he answered me, first looking about to the
+right and left, as if to regale himself with the odor of perfection.
+
+“Many theories have been broached on these subjects,” he replied, “in
+which there has been some confusion between cause and effect. Virtue is
+no more a cause of freedom, except as it is connected with
+intelligence, than vice is a cause of slavery. Both may be
+consequences, but it is not easy to say how either is necessarily a
+cause. There is a homely saying among us monikins, which is quite to
+the point in this matter: ‘Set a rogue to catch a rogue.’ Now, the
+essence of a free government is to be found in the responsibility of
+its agents. He who governs without responsibility is a master, while he
+who discharges the duties of a functionary under a practical
+responsibility is a servant. This is the only true test of governments,
+let them be mystified as they may in other respects. Responsibility to
+the mass of the nation is the criterion of freedom. Now responsibility
+is the SUBSTITUTE for virtue in a politician, as discipline is the
+substitute for courage in a soldier. An army of brave monikins without
+discipline, would be very apt to be worsted by an army of monikins of
+less natural spirit, with discipline. So a corps of originally virtuous
+politicians, without responsibility, would be very apt to do more
+selfish, lawless, and profligate acts, than a corps of less virtue, who
+were kept rigidly under the rod of responsibility. Unrestrained power
+is a great corrupter of virtue, of itself; while the liabilities of a
+restrained authority are very apt to keep it in check. At least, such
+is the fact with us monikins—men very possibly get along better.”
+
+“Let me tell you, Mr. Downright, you are now uttering opinions that are
+diametrically opposed to those of the world, which considers virtue an
+indispensable ingredient in a republic.”
+
+“The world—meaning always the monikin world—knows very little about
+real political liberty, except as a theory. We of Leaplow are, in
+effect, the only people who have had much to do with it, and I am now
+telling you what is the result of my own observation, in my own
+country. If monikins were purely virtuous, there would be no necessity
+for government at all; but, being what they are, we think it wisest to
+set them to watch each other.”
+
+“But yours is self-government, which implies self-restraint; and
+self-restraint is but another word for virtue.”
+
+“If the merit of our system depended on self-government, in your
+signification, or on self-restraint, in any signification, it would not
+be worth the trouble of this argument, Sir John Goldencalf. This is one
+of those balmy fallacies with which ill-judging moralists endeavor to
+stimulate monikins to good deeds. Our government is based on a directly
+opposite principle; that of watching and restraining each other,
+instead of trusting to our ability to restrain ourselves. It is the
+want of responsibility, and not of constant and active presence, which
+infers virtue and self-control. No one would willingly lay legal
+restraints on himself in anything, while all are very happy to restrain
+their neighbors. This refers to the positive and necessary rules of
+intercourse, and the establishment of rights; as to mere morality, laws
+do very little towards enforcing its ordinances. Morals usually come of
+instruction; and when all have political power, instruction is a
+security that all desire.”
+
+“But when all vote, all may wish to abuse their trust to their own
+especial advantage, and a political chaos will be the consequence.”
+
+“Such a result is impossible, except as especial advantage is
+identified with general advantage. A community can no more buy itself
+in this manner, than a monikin can eat himself, let him be as ravenous
+as he will. Admitting that all are rogues, necessity would compel a
+compromise.”
+
+“You make out a plausible theory, and I have little doubt that I shall
+find you the wisest, the most logical, the discreetest, and the most
+consistent community I have yet visited. But another word: how is it
+that our friend the judge gave such equivocal instructions to his
+charge; and why, in particular, did he lay so much stress on the
+employment of means, which gave the lie flatly to all you have told
+me?”
+
+Brigadier Downright hereupon stroked his chin, and observed that he
+thought there might possibly be a shift of wind; and he also wondered
+(quite audibly), when we should make the land. I afterwards persuaded
+him to allow that a monikin was but a monikin, after all, whether he
+had the advantages of universal suffrage, or lived under a despot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+AN ARRIVAL—AN ELECTION—ARCHITECTURE—A ROLLING-PIN, AND PATRIOTISM OF
+THE MOST APPROVED WATER.
+
+
+In due time the coast of Leaplow made its appearance, close under our
+larboard bow. So sudden was our arrival in this novel and extraordinary
+country, that we were very near running on it, before we got a glimpse
+of its shores. The seamanship of Captain Poke, however, stood us in
+hand; and, by the aid of a very clever pilot, we were soon safely
+moored in the harbor of Bivouac. In this happy land, there was no
+registration, no passports, “no nothin’”—as Mr. Poke pointedly
+expressed it. The formalities were soon observed, although I had
+occasion to remark, how much easier, after all, it is to get along in
+this world with vice than with virtue. A bribe offered to a
+custom-house officer was refused; and the only trouble I had, on the
+occasion, arose from this awkward obtrusion of a conscience. However,
+the difficulty was overcome, though not quite as easily as if douceurs
+had happened to be in fashion; and we were permitted to land with all
+our necessary effects.
+
+The city of Bivouac presented a singular aspect as I first put foot
+within its hallowed streets. The houses were all covered with large
+placards, which, at first, I took to be lists of the wares to be
+vended, for the place is notoriously commercial; but which, on
+examination, I soon discovered were merely electioneering handbills.
+The reader will figure to himself my pleasure and surprise, on reading
+the first that offered. It ran as follows:
+
+“HORIZONTAL NOMINATION.
+
+“Horizontal-Systematic-Indoctrinated-Republicans: Attention!
+
+“Your sacred rights are in danger; your dearest liberties are menaced;
+your wives and children are on the point of dissolution; the infamous
+and unconstitutional position that the sun gives light by day, and the
+moon by night, is openly and impudently propagated, and now is the only
+occasion that will probably ever offer to arrest an error so pregnant
+with deception and domestic evils. We present to your notice a suitable
+defender of all those near and dear interests, in the person of,
+
+“JOHN GOLDENCALF,
+
+“the known patriot, the approved legislator, the profound philosopher,
+the incorruptible statesman. To our adopted fellow-citizens we need not
+recommend Mr. Goldencalf, for he is truly one of themselves; to the
+native citizens we will only say, ‘Try him, and you will be more than
+satisfied.’”
+
+I found this placard of great use, for it gave me the first information
+I had yet had of the duty I was expected to perform in the coming
+session of the great council; which was merely to demonstrate that the
+moon gave light by day, and that the sun gave light by night. Of
+course, I immediately set about, in my own mind, hunting up the proper
+arguments by which this grave political hypothesis was to be properly
+maintained. The next placard was in favor of,
+
+“NOAH POKE,”
+
+“the experienced navigator, who will conduct the ship of state into the
+haven of prosperity—the practical astronomer who knows by frequent
+observations, that lunars are not to be got in the dark.”
+
+“Perpendiculars, be plumb, and lay your enemies on their backs!”
+
+After this I fell in with—
+
+“THE HONORABLE ROBERT SMUT,”
+
+“is confidently recommended to all their fellow-citizens by the
+nominating committee of the Anti-Approved-Sublimated-Politico-Tangents,
+as the real gentleman, a ripe scholar, [Footnote: I afterwards found
+this was a common phrase in Leaplow, being uniformly applied to every
+monikin who wore spectacles.] an enlightened politician, and a sound
+Democrat.”
+
+“But I should fill the manuscript with nothing else, were I to record a
+tithe of the commendations and abuse that were heaped on us all, by a
+community to whom, as yet, we were absolutely strangers. A single
+sample of the latter will suffice.”
+
+“AFFIDAVIT.”
+
+“Personally appeared before me, John Equity, justice of the peace,
+Peter Veracious, etc., etc., who, being duly sworn upon the Holy
+Evangelists, doth depose and say, viz.: That he was intimately
+acquainted with one John Goldencalf in his native country, and that he
+is personally knowing to the fact that he, the said John Goldencalf,
+has three wives, seven illegitimate children, is moreover a bankrupt
+without character, and that he was obliged to emigrate in consequence
+of having stolen a sheep.”
+
+“Sworn, etc.”
+
+“(Signed,) PETER VERACIOUS.”
+
+I naturally felt a little indignant at this impudent statement, and was
+about to call upon the first passer-by for the address of Mr.
+Veracious, when the skirts of my skin were seized by one of the
+Horizontal nominating committee, and I was covered with congratulations
+on my being happily elected. Success is an admirable plaster for all
+wounds, and I really forgot to have the affair of the sheep and of the
+illegitimate children inquired into; although I still protest, that had
+fortune been less propitious, the rascal who promulgated this calumny
+would have been made to smart for his temerity. In less than five
+minutes it was the turn of Captain Poke. He, too, was congratulated in
+due form; for, as it appeared, the “immigrant interest,” as Noah termed
+it, had actually carried a candidate on each of the two great opposing
+tickets. Thus far, all was well; for, after sharing his mess so long, I
+had not the smallest objection to sit in the Leaplow parliament with
+the worthy sealer; but our mutual surprise, and I believe I might add,
+indignation, were a good deal excited, by shortly encountering a
+walking notice, which contained a programme of the proceedings to be
+observed at the “Reception of the Honorable Robert Smut.”
+
+It would seem that the Horizontals and the Perpendiculars had made so
+many spurious and mystified ballots, in order to propitiate the
+Tangents, and to cheat each other, that this young blackguard actually
+stood at the head of the poll!—a political phenomenon, as I
+subsequently discovered, however, by no means of rare occurrence in the
+Leaplow history of the periodical selection of the wisest and best.
+
+There was certainly an accumulation of interest on arriving in a
+strange land, to find one’s self both extolled and vituperated on most
+of the corners in its capital, and to be elected to its parliament, all
+in the same day. Still, I did not permit myself to be either so much
+elated or so much depressed, as not to have all my eyes about me, in
+order to get as correctly as possible, and as quickly as possible, some
+insight into the characters, tastes, habits, wishes, and wants of my
+constituents.
+
+I have already declared that it is my intention to dwell chiefly on the
+moral excellences and peculiarities of the people of the monikin world.
+Still I could not walk through the streets of Bivouac without observing
+a few physical usages, that I shall mention, because they have an
+evident connection with the state of society, and the historical
+recollections of this interesting portion of the polar region.
+
+In the first place, I remarked that all sorts of quadrupeds are just as
+much at home in the promenades of the town, as the inhabitants
+themselves, a fact that I make no doubt has some very proper connection
+with that principle of equal rights on which the institutions of the
+country are established. In the second place, I could not but see that
+their dwellings are constructed on the very minimum of base, propping
+each other, as emblematic of the mutual support obtained by the
+republican system, and seeking their development in height for the want
+of breadth; a singularity of customs that I did not hesitate at once to
+refer to a usage of living in trees, at an epoch not very remote. In
+the third place, I noted, instead of entering their dwellings near the
+ground like men, and indeed like most other unfledged animals, that
+they ascend by means of external steps to an aperture about half-way
+between the roof and the earth, where, having obtained admission, they
+go up or down within the building, as occasion requires. This usage, I
+made no question, was preserved from the period (and that, too, no
+distant one), when the savage condition of the country induced them to
+seek protection against the ravages of wild beasts, by having recourse
+to ladders, which were drawn up after the family into the top of the
+tree, as the sun sank beneath the horizon. These steps or ladders are
+generally of some white material, in order that they may, even now, be
+found in the dark, should the danger be urgent; although I do not know
+that Bivouac is a more disorderly or unsafe town than another, in the
+present day. But habits linger in the usages of a people, and are often
+found to exist as fashions, long after the motive of their origin has
+ceased and been forgotten. As a proof of this, many of the dwellings of
+Bivouac have still enormous iron chevaux-de-frise before the doors, and
+near the base of the stone-ladders; a practice unquestionably taken
+from the original, unsophisticated, domestic defences of this wary and
+enterprising race. Among a great many of these chevaux-de-frise, I
+remarked certain iron images, that resemble the kings of chess-men, and
+which I took, at first, to be symbols of the calculating qualities of
+the owners of the mansions—a species of republican heraldry—but which
+the brigadier told me, on inquiry, were no more than a fashion that had
+descended from the custom of having stuffed images before the doors, in
+the early days of the settlement, to frighten away the beasts at night,
+precisely as we station scarecrows in a corn-field. Two of these
+well-padded sentinels, with a stick stuck up in a fire-lock attitude,
+he assured me, had often been known to maintain a siege of a week,
+against a she-bear and a numerous family of hungry cubs, in the olden
+times; and, now that the danger was gone, he presumed the families
+which had caused these iron monuments to be erected, had done so to
+record some marvellous risks of this nature, from which their
+forefathers had escaped by means of so ingenious an expedient.
+
+Everything in Bivouac bears the impress of the sublime principle of the
+institutions. The houses of the private citizens, for instance, overtop
+the roofs of all the public edifices, to show that the public is merely
+a servant of the citizen. Even the churches have this peculiarity,
+proving that the road to heaven is not independent of the popular will.
+The great Hall of Justice, an edifice of which the Bivouackers are
+exceedingly proud, is constructed in the same recumbent style, the
+architect, with a view to protect himself from the imputation of
+believing that the firmament was within reach of his hand, having taken
+the precaution to run up a wooden finger-board from the centre of the
+building, which points to the place where, according to the notions of
+all other people, the ridge of the roof itself should have been raised.
+So very apparent was this peculiarity, Noah observed, that it seemed to
+him as if the whole “’arth” had been rolled down by a great political
+rolling-pin, by way of giving the country its finishing touch.
+
+While making these remarks, one drew near at a brisk trot, who, Mr.
+Downright observed, eagerly desired our acquaintance. Surprised at his
+pretending to know such a fact without any previous communication, I
+took the liberty of asking why he thought that we were the particular
+objects of the other’s haste.
+
+“Simply because you are fresh arrivals. This person is one of a
+sufficiently numerous class among us, who, devoured by a small
+ambition, seek notoriety—which, by the way, they are near obtaining in
+more respects than they probably desire—by obtruding themselves on
+every stranger who touches our shore. Theirs is not a generous and
+frank hospitality that would fain serve others, but an irritable vanity
+that would glorify themselves. The liberal and enlightened monikin is
+easily to be distinguished from all of this clique. He is neither
+ashamed of, nor bigoted in favor of any usages, simply because they are
+domestic. With him the criterions of merit are propriety, taste,
+expediency, and fitness. He distinguishes, while these crave; he
+neither wholly rejects, nor wholly lives by, imitation, but judges for
+himself, and uses his experience as a respectable and useful guide;
+while these think that all they can attain that is beyond the reach of
+their neighbors, is, as a matter of course, the sole aim of life.
+Strangers they seek, because they have long since decreed that this
+country, with its usages, its people, and all it contains, being
+founded on popular rights, is all that is debased and vulgar,
+themselves and a few of their own particular friends excepted; and they
+are never so happy as when they are gloating on, and basking in, the
+secondary refinements of what we call the ‘old region.’ Their own
+attainments, however, being pretty much godsends, or such as we all
+pick up in our daily intercourse, they know nothing of any foreign
+country but Leaphigh, whose language we happen to speak; and, as
+Leaphigh is also the very beau ideal of exclusion, in its usages,
+opinions, and laws, they deem all who come from that part of the earth,
+as rather more entitled to their profound homage than any other
+strangers.”
+
+Here Judge People’s Friend, who had been vigorously pumping the
+nominating committee on the subject of the chances of the little wheel,
+suddenly left us, with a sneaking, self-abased air, and with his nose
+to the ground, like a dog who has just caught a fresh scent.
+
+The next time we met with the ex-envoy, he was in mourning for some
+political backsliding that I never comprehended. He had submitted to a
+fresh amputation of the bob, and had so thoroughly humbled the seat of
+reason, that it was not possible for the most envious and malignant
+disposition to fancy he had a particle of brains left. He had,
+moreover, caused every hair to be shaved off his body, which was as
+naked as the hand, and altogether he presented an edifying picture of
+penitence and self-abasement. I afterwards understood that this
+purification was considered perfectly satisfactory, and that he was
+thought to be, again, within the limits of the most patriotic patriots.
+
+In the meantime the Bivouacker had approached me, and was introduced as
+Mr. Gilded Wriggle.
+
+“Count Poke de Stunnin’tun, my good sir,” said the brigadier, who was
+the master of ceremonies on this occasion, “and the Mogul
+Goldencalf—both noblemen of ancient lineage, admirable privileges, and
+of the purest water; gentlemen who, when they are at home, have six
+dinners daily, always sleep on diamonds, and whose castles are none of
+them less than six leagues in extent.”
+
+“My friend General Downright has taken too much pains, gentlemen,”
+interrupted our new acquaintance, “your rank and extraction being
+self-evident. Welcome to Leaplow! I beg you will make free with my
+house, my dog, my cat, my horse, and myself. I particularly beg that
+your first, your last, and all the intermediate visits, will be to me.
+Well, Mogul, what do you really think of us? You have now been on shore
+long enough to have formed a pretty accurate notion of our institutions
+and habits. I beg you will not judge of all of us by what you see in
+the streets—”
+
+“It is not my intention, sir.”
+
+“You are cautious, I perceive? We are in an awful condition, I confess;
+trampled on by the vulgar, and far—very far from being the people that,
+I dare say, you expected to see. I couldn’t be made the assistant
+alderman of my ward, if I wished it, sir—too much jacobism; the people
+are fools, sir; know nothing, sir; not fit to rule themselves, much
+less their betters, sir. Here have a set of us, some hundreds in this
+very town, been telling them what fools they are, how unfit they are to
+manage their own affairs, and how fast they are going to the devil, any
+time these twenty years, and still we have not yet persuaded them to
+entrust one of us with authority! To say the truth, we are in a most
+miserable condition, and, if anything COULD ruin this country,
+democracy would have ruined it just thirty-five years ago.”
+
+Here the wailings of Mr. Wriggle were interrupted by the wailings of
+Count Poke de Stunnin’tun. The latter, by gazing in admiration at the
+speaker, had inadvertently struck his toe against one of the
+forty-three thousand seven hundred and sixty inequalities of the
+pavement (for everything in Leaplow is exactly equal, except the
+streets and highways), and fallen forwards on his nose. I have already
+had occasion to allude to the sealer’s readiness in using opprobrious
+epithets. This contre-temps happened in the principal street of
+Bivouac, or in what is called the Wide-path, an avenue of more than a
+league in extent; but notwithstanding its great length, Noah took it up
+at one end and abused it all the way to the other, with a precision,
+fidelity, rapidity and point, that excited general admiration. “It was
+the dirtiest, worst paved, meanest, vilest, street he had ever seen,
+and if they had it at Stunnin’tun, instead of using it as a street at
+all, they would fence it up at each end, and turn it into a hog-lot.”
+Here Brigadier Downright betrayed unequivocal signs of alarm. Drawing
+us aside, he vehemently demanded of the captain if he were mad, to
+berate in this unheard-of manner the touchstone of Bivouac sentiment,
+nationality, taste, and elegance! This street was never spoken of
+except by the use of superlatives; a usage, by the way, that Noah
+himself had by no means neglected. It was commonly thought to be the
+longest and the shortest, the widest and the narrowest, the best built
+and the worst built avenue in the universe. “Whatever you say or do,”
+he continued, “whatever you think or believe, never deny the
+superlatives of the Wide-path. If asked if you ever saw a street so
+crowded, although there be room to wheel a regiment, swear it is
+stifling; if required to name another promenade so free from
+interruption, protest, by your soul, that the place is a desert! Say
+what you will of the institutions of the country—”
+
+“How!” I exclaimed; “of the sacred rights of monikins?”
+
+“Bedaub them, and the mass of the monikins, too, with just as much
+filth as you please. Indeed, if you wish to circulate freely in genteel
+society, I would advise you to get a pretty free use of the words,
+‘jacobins,’ ‘rabble,’ ‘mob,’ ‘agrarians,’ ‘canaille’ and ‘democrats’;
+for they recommend many to notice who possess nothing else. In our
+happy and independent country it is a sure sign of lofty sentiment, a
+finished education, a regulated intellect, and a genteel intercourse,
+to know how to bespatter all that portion of your fellow-creatures, for
+instance, who live in one-story edifices.”
+
+“I find all this very extraordinary, your government being professedly
+a government of the mass!”
+
+“You have intuitively discovered the reason—is it not fashionable to
+abuse the government everywhere? Whatever you do, in genteel life,
+ought to be based on liberal and elevated principles; and therefore,
+abuse all that is animate in Leaplow, the present company, with their
+relatives and quadrupeds, excepted; but do not raise your blaspheming
+tongue against anything that is inanimate! Respect, I entreat of you,
+the houses, the trees, the rivers, the mountains, and, above all, in
+Bivouac, respect the Wide-path! We are a people of lively
+sensibilities, and are tender of the reputations of even our stocks and
+stones. Even the Leaplow philosophers are all of a mind on this
+subject.”
+
+“King!”
+
+“Can you account for this very extraordinary peculiarity, brigadier?”
+
+“Surely you cannot be ignorant that all which is property is sacred! We
+have a great respect for property, sir, and do not like to hear our
+wares underrated. But lay it on the mass so much the harder, and you
+will only be thought to be in possession of a superior and a refined
+intelligence.”
+
+Here we turned again to Mr. Wriggle, who was dying to be noticed once
+more.
+
+“Ah! gentlemen, last from Leaphigh!”—he had been questioning one of our
+attendants—“how comes on that great and consistent people?”
+
+“As usual, sir;—great and consistent.”
+
+“I think, however, we are quite their equals, eh?—chips of the same
+blocks?”
+
+“No, sir—blocks of the same chips.”
+
+Mr. Wriggle laughed, and appeared pleased with the compliment; and I
+wished I had even laid it on a little thicker.
+
+“Well, Mogul, what are our great forefathers about? Still pulling to
+pieces that sublime fabric of a constitution, which has so long been
+the wonder of the world, and my especial admiration?”
+
+“They are talking of changes, sir, although I believe they have
+effected no great matter. The primate of all Leaphigh, I had occasion
+to remark, still has seven joints to his tail.”
+
+“Ah! they are a wonderful people, sir!” said Wriggle, looking ruefully
+at his own bob, which, as I afterwards understood, was a mere natural
+abortion. “I detest change, sir; were I a Leaphigher, I would die in my
+tail!”
+
+“One for whom nature has done so much in this way, is to be excused a
+little enthusiasm.”
+
+“A most miraculous people, sir—the wonder of the world—and their
+institutions are the greatest prodigy of the times!”
+
+“That is well remarked, Wriggle,” put in the brigadier; “for they have
+been tinkering them, and altering them, any time these five hundred and
+fifty years, and still they remain precisely the same!”
+
+“Very true, brigadier, very true—the marvel of our times! But,
+gentlemen, what do you indeed think of us? I shall not let you off with
+generalities. You have now been long enough on shore to have formed
+some pretty distinct notions about us, and I confess I should be glad
+to hear them. Speak the truth with candor—are we not most miserable,
+forlorn, disreputable devils, after all?”
+
+I disclaimed the ability to judge of the social condition of a people
+on so short an acquaintance; but to this Mr. Wriggle would not listen.
+He insisted that I must have been particularly disgusted with the
+coarseness and want of refinement in the rabble, as he called the mass,
+who, by the way, had already struck me as being relatively much the
+better part of the population, so far as I had seen things—more than
+commonly decent, quiet, and civil. Mr. Wriggle, also, very earnestly
+and piteously begged I would not judge of the whole country by such
+samples as I might happen to fall in with in the highways.
+
+“I trust, Mogul, you will have charity to believe we are not all of us
+quite so bad as appearances, no doubt, make us in your polished eyes.
+These rude beings are spoiled by our jacobinical laws; but we have a
+class, sir, that IS different. But, if you will not touch on the
+people, how do you like the town, sir? A poor place, no doubt, after
+your own ancient capitals?”
+
+“Time will remedy all that, Mr. Wriggle.”
+
+“Do you then think we really want time? Now, that house at the corner,
+there, to my taste is fit for a gentleman in any country—eh?”
+
+“No doubt, sir, fit for one.”
+
+“This is but a poor street in the eyes of you travellers, I know, this
+Wide-path of ours; though we think it rather sublime?”
+
+“You do yourself injustice, Mr. Wriggle; though not equal to many of
+the—-”
+
+“How, sir, the Wide-path not equal to anything on earth! I know several
+people who have been in the old world [so the Leaplowers call the
+regions of Leaphigh, Leapup, Leapdown, etc.] and they swear there is
+not as fine a street in any part of it. I have not had the good fortune
+to travel, sir; but, sir, permit me, sir, to say, sir, that some of
+them, sir, that HAVE travelled, sir, think, sir, the Wide-path, the
+most magnificent public avenue, sir, that their experienced eyes ever
+beheld, sir—yes, sir, that their very experienced eyes ever beheld,
+sir.”
+
+“I have seen so little of it, as yet, Mr. Wriggle, that you will pardon
+me if I have spoken hastily.”
+
+“Oh! no offence—I despise the monikin who is not above local vanities
+and provincial admiration! You ought to have seen that, sir, for I
+frankly admit, sir, that no rabble can be worse than ours, and that we
+are all going to the devil, as fast as ever we can. No, sir, a most
+miserable rabble, sir.—But as for this street, and our houses, and our
+cats, and our dogs, and certain exceptions—you understand me, sir—it is
+quite a different thing. Pray, Mogul, who is the greatest personage,
+now, in your nation?”
+
+“Perhaps I ought to say the Duke of Wellington, sir.”
+
+“Well, sir, allow me to ask if he lives in a better house than that
+before us?—I see you are delighted, eh? We are a poor, new nation of
+pitiful traders, sir, half savage, as everybody knows; but we DO
+flatter ourselves that we know how to build a house! Will you just step
+in and see a new sofa that its owner bought only yesterday—I know him
+intimately, and nothing gives me so much pleasure as to show his new
+sofa.”
+
+I declined the invitation on the plea of fatigue, and by this means got
+rid of so troublesome an acquaintance. On leaving me, however, he
+begged that I would not fail to make his house my home, swore terribly
+at the rabble, and invited me to admire a very ordinary view that was
+to be obtained by looking up the Wide-path in a particular direction,
+but which embraced his own abode. When Mr. Wriggle was fairly out of
+earshot, I demanded of the brigadier if Bivouac, or Leaplow, contained
+many such prodigies.
+
+“Enough to make themselves very troublesome, and us ridiculous,”
+returned Mr. Downright. “We are a young nation, Sir John, covering a
+great surface, with a comparatively small population, and, as you are
+aware, separated from the other parts of the monikin region by a belt
+of ocean. In some respects we are like people in the country, and we
+possess the merits and failings of those who are so situated. Perhaps
+no nation has a larger share of reflecting and essentially respectable
+inhabitants than Leaplow; but, not satisfied with being what
+circumstances so admirably fit them to be, there is a clique among us,
+who, influenced by the greater authority of older nations, pine to be
+that which neither nature, education, manners, nor facilities will just
+yet allow them to become. In short, sir, we have the besetting sin of a
+young community—imitation. In our case the imitation is not always
+happy, either; it being necessarily an imitation that is founded on
+descriptions. If the evil were limited to mere social absurdities, it
+might be laughed at—but that inherent desire of distinction, which is
+the most morbid and irritable, unhappily, in the minds of those who are
+the least able to attain anything more than a very vulgar notoriety, is
+just as active here, as it is elsewhere; and some who have got wealth,
+and who can never get more than what is purely dependent on wealth,
+affect to despise those who are not as fortunate as themselves in this
+particular. In their longings for pre-eminence, they turn to other
+states (Leaphigh, more especially, which is the beau ideal of all
+nations and people who wish to set up a caste in opposition to
+despotism) for rules of thought, and declaim against that very mass
+which is at the bottom of all their prosperity, by obstinately refusing
+to allow of any essential innovation on the common rights. In addition
+to these social pretenders, we have our political Indoctrinated.”
+
+“Indoctrinated! Will you explain the meaning of the term?”
+
+“Sir, an Indoctrinated is one of a political school who holds to the
+validity of certain theories which have been made to justify a set of
+adventitious facts, as is eminently the case in our own great model,
+Leaphigh. We are peculiarly placed in this country. Here, as a rule,
+facts—meaning political and social facts—are greatly in advance of
+opinion, simply because the former are left chiefly to their own free
+action, and the latter is necessarily trammelled by habit and
+prejudice; while in the ‘old region’ opinion, as a rule—and meaning the
+leading or better opinion—is greatly in advance of facts, because facts
+are restrained by usage and personal interests, and opinion is incited
+by study, and the necessity of change.”
+
+“Permit me to say, brigadier, that I find your present institutions a
+remarkable result to follow such a state of things.”
+
+“They are a cause, rather than a consequence. Opinion, as a whole, is
+everywhere on the advance; and it is further advanced even here, as a
+whole, than anywhere else. Accident has favored the foundation of the
+social compact; and once founded, the facts have been hastening to
+their consummation faster than the monikin mind has been able to keep
+company with them. This is a remarkable but true state of the whole
+region. In other monikin countries, you see opinion tugging at rooted
+practices, and making desperate efforts to eradicate them from their
+bed of vested interests, while here you see facts dragging opinion
+after them like a tail wriggling behind a kite. [Footnote: One would
+think that Brigadier Downright had lately paid a visit to our own happy
+and much enlightened land. Fifty years since, the negro was a slave in
+New York, and incapable of contracting marriage with a white. Facts
+have, however, been progressive; and, from one privilege to another, he
+has at length obtained that of consulting his own tastes in this
+matter, and, so far as he himself is concerned, of doing as he pleases.
+This is the fact, but he who presumes to speak of it has his windows
+broken by opinion, for his pains! NOTE BY THE EDITOR] As to our purely
+social imitation and social follies, absurd as they are, they are
+necessarily confined to a small and an immaterial class; but the
+Indoctrinated spirit is a much more serious affair. That unsettles
+confidence, innovates on the right, often innocently and ignorantly,
+and causes the vessel of state to sail like a ship with a drag towing
+in her wake.”
+
+“This is truly a novel condition for an enlightened monikin nation.”
+
+“No doubt, men manage better; but of all this you will learn more in
+the great council. You may, perhaps, think it strange that our facts
+should preserve their ascendency in opposition to so powerful a foe as
+opinion; but you will remember that a great majority of our people, if
+not absolutely on a level with circumstances, being purely practical,
+are much nearer to this level, than the class termed the endoctrinated.
+The last are troublesome and delusive, rather than overwhelming.”
+
+“To return to Mr. Wriggle—is his sect numerous?”
+
+“His class flourishes most in the towns. In Leaplow we are greatly in
+want of a capital, where the cultivated, educated, and well-mannered
+can assemble, and, placed by their habits and tastes above the ordinary
+motives and feelings of the less instructed, they might form a more
+healthful, independent, appropriate, and manly public sentiment than
+that which now pervades the country. As things are, the real elite of
+this community are so scattered, as rather to receive an impression
+FROM, than to impart one TO society, The Leaplow Wriggles, as you have
+just witnessed, are selfish and exacting as to their personal
+pretensions, irritably confident as to the merit of any particular
+excellence which limits their own experience, and furiously proscribing
+to those whom they fancy less fortunate than themselves.”
+
+“Good heavens!—brigadier—all this is excessively human!”
+
+“Ah! it is—is it? Well, this is certainly the way with us monikins. Our
+Wriggles are ashamed of exactly that portion of our population of which
+they have most reason to be proud, viz., the mass; and they are proud
+of precisely that portion of which they have most reason to be ashamed,
+viz., themselves. But plenty of opportunities will offer to look
+further into this; and we will now hasten to the inn.”
+
+As the brigadier appeared to chafe under the subject, I remained
+silent, following him as fast as I could, but keeping my eyes open, the
+reader may be very sure, as we went along. There was one peculiarity I
+could not but remark in this singular town. It was this:—all the houses
+were smeared over with some colored earth, and then, after all this
+pains had been taken to cover the material, an artist was employed to
+make white marks around every separate particle of the fabric (and they
+were in millions), which ingenious particularity gives the dwellings a
+most agreeable air of detail, imparting to the architecture, in
+general, a sublimity that is based on the multiplication table. If to
+this be added the black of the chevaux-de-frise, the white of the
+entrance-ladders, and a sort of standing-collar to the whole,
+immediately under the eves, of some very dazzling hue, the effect is
+not unlike that of a platoon of drummers, in scarlet coats, cotton
+lace, and cuffs and capes of white. What renders the similitude more
+striking, is the fact that no two of the same plantoon appear to be
+exactly of a size, as is very apt to be the case with your votaries in
+military music.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+A FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE, A FUNDAMENTAL LAW, AND A FUNDAMENTAL ERROR.
+
+
+The people of Leaplow are remarkable for the deliberation of their
+acts, the moderation of their views, and the accumulation of their
+wisdom. As a matter of course such a people is never in an indecent
+haste. Although I have now been legally naturalized, and regularly
+elected to the great council fully twenty-four hours, three entire days
+were allowed for the study of the institutions, and to become
+acquainted with the genius of a nation, who, according to their own
+account of the matter, have no parallel in heaven or earth, or in the
+waters under the earth, before I was called upon to exercise my novel
+and important functions. I profited by the delay and shall seize a
+favorable moment to make the reader acquainted with some of my
+acquisitions on this interesting topic.
+
+The institutions of Leaplow are divided into two great moral
+categories, viz.: the LEGAL and the SUBSTITUTIVE. The former embraces
+the provisions of the great ELEMENTARY, and the latter all the
+provisions of the great ALIMENTARY principle. The first, accordingly,
+is limited by the constitution, or the Great National Allegory, while
+the last is limited by nothing but practice; one contains the
+proposition, and the other its deductions; this is all hypothesis,
+that, all corollary. The two great political landmarks, the two public
+opinions, the bob-upon-bobs, the rotatory action, and the great and
+little wheels, are merely inferential, and I shall, therefore, say
+nothing about them in my present treatise, which has a strict relation
+only to the fundamental law of the land, or to the Great and Sacred
+National Allegory.
+
+It has been already stated that Leaplow was originally a scion of
+Leaphigh. The political separation took place in the last generation,
+when the Leaplowers publicly renounced Leaphigh and all it contained,
+just as your catechumen is made to renounce the devil and all his
+works. This renunciation, which is also sometimes called the
+DENUNCIATION, was much more to the liking of Leaplow than to that of
+Leaphigh; and a long and sanguinary war was the consequence. The
+Leaplowers, after a smart struggle, however, prevailed in their firm
+determination to have no more to do with Leaphigh. The sequel will show
+how far they were right.
+
+Even preceding the struggle, so active was the sentiment of patriotism
+and independence, that the citizens of Leaplow, though ill-provided
+with the productions of their own industry, proudly resorted to the
+self-denial of refusing to import even a pin from the mother country,
+actually preferring nakedness to submission. They even solemnly voted
+that their venerable progenitor, instead of being, as she clearly ought
+to have been, a fond, protecting, and indulgent parent, was, in truth,
+no other than a rapacious, vindictive and tyrannical step-mother. This
+was the opinion, it will be remembered, when the two communities were
+legally united, had but one head, wore clothes, and necessarily pursued
+a multitude of their interests in common.
+
+By the lucky termination of the war, all this was radically changed.
+Leaplow pointed her thumb at Leaphigh, and declared her intention
+henceforth to manage her own affairs in her own way. In order to do
+this the more effectually, and, at the same time, to throw dirt into
+the countenance of her late step-mother, she determined that her own
+polity should run so near a parallel, and yet should be so obviously an
+improvement on that of Leaphigh, as to demonstrate the imperfections of
+the latter to the most superficial observer. That this patriotic
+resolution was faithfully carried out in practice, I am now about to
+demonstrate.
+
+In Leaphigh, the old human principle had long prevailed, that political
+authority came from God; though why such a theory should ever have
+prevailed anywhere, as Mr. Downright once expressed it, I cannot see,
+the devil very evidently having a greater agency in its exercise than
+any other influence, or intelligence, whatever. However, the jus
+divinum was the regulator of the Leaphigh social compact, until the
+nobility managed to get the better of the jus, when the divinum was
+left to shift for itself. It was at this epocha the present
+constitution found its birth. Any one may have observed that one stick
+placed on end will fall, as a matter of course, unless rooted in the
+earth. Two sticks fare no better, even with their tops united; but
+three sticks form a standard. This simple and beautiful idea gave rise
+to the Leaphigh polity. Three moral props were erected in the midst of
+the community, at the foot of one of which was placed the king, to
+prevent it from slipping; for all the danger, under such a system, came
+from that of the base slipping; at the foot of the second, the nobles;
+and at the foot of the third, the people. On the summit of this tripod
+was raised the machine of state. This was found to be a capital
+invention in theory, though practice, as practice is very apt to do,
+subjected it to some essential modifications. The king, having his
+stick all his own way, gave a great deal of trouble to the two other
+sets of stick-holders; and, unwilling to disturb the theory, for that
+was deemed to be irrevocably settled and sacred, the nobility, who, for
+their own particular convenience, paid the principal workmen at the
+base of the people’s stick to stand steady, set about the means of
+keeping the king’s stick, also, in a more uniform and serviceable
+attitude. It was on this occasion that, discovering the king never
+could keep his end of the great social stick in the place where he had
+sworn to keep it, they solemnly declared that he must have forgotten
+where the constitutional foot-hole was, and that he had irretrievably
+lost his memory—a decision that was the remote cause of the recent
+calamity of Captain Poke. The king was no sooner constitutionally
+deprived of his memory, than it was an easy matter to strip him of all
+his other faculties; after which it was humanely decreed, as indeed it
+ought to be in the case of a being so destitute, that he could do no
+wrong. By way of following out the idea on a humane and Christian-like
+principle, and in order to make one part of the practice conform to the
+other, it was shortly after determined that he should do nothing; his
+eldest first-cousin of the masculine gender being legally proclaimed
+his substitute. In the end, the crimson curtain was drawn before the
+throne. As, however, this cousin might begin to wriggle the stick in
+his turn, and derange the balance of the tripod, the other two sets of
+stick-holders next decided that, though his majesty had an undeniable
+constitutional right to say who SHOULD BE his eldest first-cousin of
+the masculine gender, they had an undoubted constitutional right to say
+who he SHOULD NOT BE. The result of all this was a compromise; his
+majesty, who, like other people, found the sweets of authority more
+palatable than the bitter, agreeing to get up on top of the tripod,
+where he might appear seated on the machine of state, to receive
+salutations, and eat and drink in peace, leaving the others to settle
+among themselves who should do the work at the bottom, as well as they
+could. In brief, such is the history, and such was the polity of
+Leaphigh, when I had the honor of visiting that country.
+
+The Leaplowers were resolute to prove that all this was radically
+wrong. They determined, in the first place, that there should be but
+one great social beam; and, in order that it should stand perfectly
+steady, they made it the duty of every citizen to prop its base. They
+liked the idea of a tripod well enough, but, instead of setting one up
+in the Leaphigh fashion, they just reversed its form, and stuck it on
+top of their beam, legs uppermost, placing a separate agent on each
+leg, to work their machine of state; taking care, also, to send a new
+one aloft periodically. They reasoned thus: If one of the Leaphigh
+beams slip (and they will be very apt to slip in wet weather, with the
+king, nobles and people wriggling and shoving against each other), down
+will come the whole machine of state, or, to say the least, it will get
+so much awry as never to work as well as at first; and therefore we
+will have none of it. If, on the other hand, one of our agents makes a
+blunder and falls, why, he will only break his own neck. He will,
+moreover, fall in the midst of us, and, should he escape with life, we
+can either catch him and throw him back again, or we can send a better
+hand up in his place, to serve out the rest of his time. They also
+maintain that one beam, supported by all the citizens, is much less
+likely to slip than three beams, supported by three powers of very
+uncertain, not to say unequal, forces.
+
+Such, in effect, is the substance of the respective national allegories
+of Leaphigh and of Leaplow; I say allegories, for both governments seem
+to rely on this ingenious form of exhibiting their great distinctive
+national sentiments. It would, in fact, be an improvement, were all
+constitutions henceforth to be written in this manner, since they would
+necessarily be more explicit, intelligible, and sacred than they are by
+the present attempt at literality.
+
+Having explained the governing principles of these two important
+states, I now crave the reader’s attention, for a moment, while I go a
+little into the details of the MODUS OPERANDI, in both cases.
+
+Leaphigh acknowledged a principle, in the outset, that Leaplow totally
+disclaimed, viz., that of primogeniture. Being an only child myself,
+and having no occasion for research on this interesting subject, I
+never knew the basis of this peculiar right, until I came to read the
+great Leaphigh commentator, Whiterock, on the governing rules of the
+social compact. I there found that the first-born, MORALLY considered,
+is thought to have better claims to the honors of the genealogical
+tree, on the father’s side, than those offspring whose origin is to be
+referred to a later period in connubial life. On this obvious and
+highly discriminating principle, the crown, the rights of the nobles,
+and indeed all other rights, are transferred from father to son, in the
+direct male line, according to primogeniture.
+
+Nothing of this is practised in Leaplow. There, the supposition of
+legitimacy is as much in favor of the youngest as of the oldest born,
+and the practice is in conformity. As there is no hereditary chief to
+poise on one of the legs of the great tripod, the people at the foot of
+the beam choose one from among themselves, periodically, who is called
+the Great Sachem. The same people choose another set, few in number,
+who occupy a common seat, on another leg. These they term the Riddles.
+Another set, still more numerous and popular in aspect, if not in fact,
+fills a large seat on the third leg. These last, from their being
+supposed to be supereminently popular and disinterested, are familiarly
+known as the Legion. They are also pleasantly nicknamed the Bobees, an
+appellation that took its rise in the circumstance that most of the
+members of their body have submitted to the second dock, and, indeed,
+have nearly obliterated every sign of a CAUDA. I had, most luckily,
+been chosen to sit in the House of Bobees, a station for which I felt
+myself well qualified, in this great essential at least; for all the
+anointing and forcing resorted to by Noah and myself, during our voyage
+out, and our residence in Leaphigh, had not produced so much as a
+visible sprout in either.
+
+The Great Sachem, the Riddles, and the Legion, had conjoint duties to
+perform, in certain respects, and separate duties in others. All three,
+as they owed their allegorical elevation to, so were they dependent on,
+the people at the foot of the great social stick, for approbation and
+reward—that is to say for all rewards other than those which they have
+it in their power to bestow on themselves. There was another authority,
+or agent of the public, that is equally perched on the social beam,
+though not quite so dependent as the three just named, upon the main
+prop of the people—being also propped by a mechanical disposition of
+the tripod itself. These are termed the Supreme Arbitrators, and their
+duties are to revise the acts of the other three agents of the people,
+and to decide whether they are or are not in conformity with the
+recognized principles of the Sacred Allegory.
+
+I was greatly delighted with my own progress in the study of the
+Leaplow institutions. In the first place, I soon discovered that the
+principal thing was to reverse the political knowledge I had acquired
+in Leaphigh, as one would turn a tub upside-down, when he wished to
+draw from its stores at a fresh end, and then I was pretty sure of
+being within at least the spirit of the Leaplow law. Everything seemed
+simple, for all was dependent on the common prop, at the base of the
+great social beam.
+
+Having got a thorough insight myself into the governing principles of
+the system under which I had been chosen to serve, I went to look up my
+colleague, Captain Poke, in order to ascertain how he understood the
+great Leaplow Allegory.
+
+I found the mind of the sealer, according to a beautiful form of speech
+already introduced in this narrative, “considerably exercised,” on the
+several subjects that so naturally presented themselves to a man in his
+situation. In the first place, he was in a towering passion at the
+impudence of Bob in presuming to offer himself as a candidate for the
+great council; and having offered himself, the rage of the Captain was
+in no degree abated by the circumstance of the young rascal’s being at
+the head of the poll. He most unreservedly swore “that no subordinate
+of his should ever sit in the same legislative body with himself; that
+he was a republican by birth, and knew the usages of republican
+governments quite as well as the best patriot among them; and although
+he admitted that all sorts of critters were sent to Congress in his
+country, no man ever knew an instance of a cabin-boy’s being sent
+there. They might elect just as much as they pleased; but coming
+ashore, and playing politician were very different things from cleaning
+his boots, and making his coffee, and mixing his grog.” The captain had
+just been waited on by a committee of the Perpendiculars (half the
+Leaplow community is on some committee or other), by whom he had been
+elected, and they had given notice, that instructions would be sent in,
+forthwith, to all their representatives, to perform gyration No. 3, as
+soon after the meeting of the council as possible. He was no tumbler,
+and he had sent for a master of political saltation, who had just been
+with him practising. According to Noah’s own statement, his success was
+anything but flattering. “If they would give a body room, Sir John,” he
+said, in a complaining accent, “I should think nothing of it—but you
+are expected to stand shoulder to shoulder—yard-arm and yard-arm—and
+throw a flap-jack as handy as an old woman would toss a johnny-cake!
+It’s unreasonable to think of wearing ship without room; but give me
+room, and I’ll engage to get round on the other tack, and to luff into
+the line again, as safely as the oldest cruiser among ’em, though not
+quite so quick. They do go about spitefully, that’s sartain.”
+
+Nor were the Great National Allegories without their difficulties. Noah
+perfectly understood the images of the two tripods, though he was
+disposed to think that neither was properly secured. A mast would make
+but bad weather, he maintained, let it be ever so well rigged and
+stayed, without being also securely stepped. He saw no use in trusting
+the heels of the beams to anybody. Good lashings were what were wanted,
+and then the people might go about their private affairs, and not fear
+the work would fall. That the king of Leaphigh had no memory, he could
+testify from bitter experience; nor did he believe that he had any
+conscience; and, chiefly he desired to know if we, when we got up into
+our places on the top of the three inverted beams, among the other
+Bobees, were to make war on the Great Sachem and the Riddles, or
+whether we were to consider the whole affair as a good thing, in which
+the wisest course would be to make fair weather of it?
+
+To all these remarks and questions I answered as well as my own limited
+experience would allow; taking care to inform my friend that he had
+conceived the whole matter a little too literally, as all that he had
+been reading about the great political beams, the tripods, and the
+legislative boxes, was merely an allegory.
+
+“And pray, then, Sir John, what may an allegory be?”
+
+“In this case, my good sir, it is a constitution.”
+
+“And what is a constitution?”
+
+“Why, it is sometimes as you perceive, an allegory.”
+
+“And are we not to be mast-headed, then, according to the book?”
+
+“Figuratively, only.”
+
+“But there are actually such critters as the Great Sachem, and Riddles,
+and above all, the Bobees!—We are boney fie-diddle-di-dee elected?”
+
+“Boney fie-diddle-di-dee.”
+
+“And may I take the liberty of asking, what it is our duty to do?”
+
+“We are to act practically—according to the literality of the legal,
+implied, figurative, allegorical significations of the Great National
+Compact under a legitimate construction.”
+
+“I fear we shall have to work doubletides, Sir John, to do so much in
+so short a time! Do you mean that, in honest truth, there is no beam?”
+
+“There is, and there is not.”
+
+“No fore, main, and mizzen tops, according to what is here written
+down?”
+
+“There is not, and there is.”
+
+“Sir John, in the name of God, speak out! Is all this about eight
+dollars a day, no better than a take in?”
+
+“That, I believe is strictly literal.”
+
+As Noah now seemed a little mollified, I seized the opportunity to tell
+him he must beware how he attempted to stop Bob from attending the
+council. Members were privileged, going and coming; and unless he was
+guarded in his course, he might have some unpleasant collision with the
+sergeant-at-arms. Besides, it was unbecoming the dignity of a
+legislator to be wrangling about trifles, and he, to whom was confided
+the great affairs of a state, ought to attach the utmost importance to
+a grave exterior, which commonly was of more account with his
+constituents than any other quality. Any one could tell whether he was
+grave or not, but it was by no means so easy a matter to tell whether
+he or his constituents had the greater cause to appear so. Noah
+promised to be discreet, and we parted, not to meet again until we
+assembled to be sworn in.
+
+Before continuing the narrative, I will just mention that we disposed
+of our commercial investments that morning. All the Leaphigh opinions
+brought good prices; and I had occasion to see how well the brigadier
+understood the market by the eagerness with which, in particular, the
+Opinions on the State of Society in Leaplow were bought up. But, by one
+of those unexpected windfalls which raise up so many of the chosen of
+the earth to their high places, the cook did better than any of us. It
+will be remembered, that he had bartered an article of merchandise that
+he called slush against a neglected bale of Distinctive Leaplow
+Opinions, which had no success at all in Leaphigh. Coming as they did
+from abroad, these articles had taken as novelties in Bivouac, and he
+sold them all before night, at enormous advances; the cry being that
+something new and extraordinary had found its way into the market.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+HOW TO ENACT LAWS—ORATORY, LOGIC, AND ELOQUENCE; ALL CONSIDERED IN
+THEIR EVERY-DAY ASPECTS.
+
+
+Political oaths are very much the same sort of thing everywhere, and I
+shall say no more about our inauguration than simply to state it took
+place as usual. The two houses were duly organized, and we proceeded,
+without delay, to the transaction of business. I will here state that I
+was much rejoiced to find Brigadier Downright among the Bobees, the
+captain whispering that most probably he had been mistaken for an
+“immigrunt,” and chosen accordingly.
+
+It was not a great while before the Great Sachem sent us a
+communication, which contained a compte rendue of the state of the
+nation. Like most accounts it is my good fortune to receive, I thought
+it particularly long. Agreeably to the opinions of this document, the
+people of Leaplow were, by a good deal, the happiest people in the
+world; they were also considerably more respected, esteemed, beloved,
+honored, and properly appreciated, than any other monikin community,
+and, in short, they were the admiration and glory of the universe. I
+was exceedingly glad to hear this, for some of the facts were quite new
+to me; a circumstance which shows one can never get correct notions of
+a nation except from itself.
+
+These important facts properly digested, we all of us set about our
+several duties with a zeal that spoke fairly for our industry and
+integrity. Things commenced swimmingly, and it was not long before the
+Riddles sent us a resolution for concurrence, by way of opening the
+ball. It was conceived in the following terms: “Resolved, that the
+color which has hitherto been deemed to be black, is really white.”
+
+As this was the first resolution that involved a principle on which we
+had been required to vote, I suggested to Noah the propriety of our
+going round to the brigadier, and inquiring what might be the drift of
+so singular a proposition. Our colleague answered the question with
+great good-nature, giving us to understand that the Perpendiculars and
+the Horizontals had long been at variance on the mere coloring property
+of various important questions, and the real matter involved in the
+resolution was not visible. The former had always maintained (by
+always, he meant ever since the time they maintained the contrary) the
+doctrine of the resolution, and the latter its converse. A majority of
+the Riddles, just at this moment, are Perpendiculars; and, as it was
+now seen, they had succeeded in getting a vote on their favorite
+principle.
+
+“According to this account of the matter, Sir John,” observed the
+captain, “I shall be compelled to maintain that black is white, seeing
+that I am in on the Parpendic’lar interest?”
+
+I thought with the captain, and was pleased that my own legislative
+debut was not to be characterized by the promulgation of any doctrine
+so much at variance with my preconceived ways of thinking. Curious,
+however, to know his opinion, I asked the brigadier in what light he
+felt disposed to view the matter himself.
+
+“I am elected by the Tangents,” he said; “and, by what I can learn, it
+is the intention of our friends to steer a middle course; and one of
+our leaders is already selected, who, at a proper stage of the affair,
+is to move an amendment.”
+
+“Can you refer me, my dear friend, to anything connected with the Great
+National Allegory that bears on this point?”
+
+“Why, there is a clause among the fundamental and immutable laws, which
+it is thought was intended to meet this very case; but, unhappily, the
+sages by whom our Allegory was drawn up have not paid quite as much
+attention to the phraseology as the importance of the subject
+demanded.”
+
+Here the brigadier laid his finger on the clause in question, and I
+returned to a seat to study its meaning. It was conceived as
+follows:—Art. IV. Clause 6: “The Great National Council shall, in no
+case whatever, pass any law, or resolution, declaring white to be
+black.”
+
+After studying this fundamental enactment to the bottom, turning it on
+every side, and finally considering it upside-down, I came to the
+conclusion that its tenor was, on the whole, rather more favorable than
+unfavorable to the Horizontal doctrine. It struck me, a very good
+argument was to be made out of the constitutional question, and that it
+presented a very fair occasion for a new member to venture on a maiden
+speech. Having so settled the matter, entirely to my own satisfaction,
+I held myself in reserve, waiting for the proper moment to produce an
+effect.
+
+It was not long before the chairman of the committee on the judiciary
+(one of the effects of the resolution was entirely to change the
+coloring of all testimony throughout the vast Republic of Leaplow) made
+his report on the subject-matter of the resolution. This person was a
+Tangent, who had a besetting wish to become a Riddle, although the
+leaning of our house was decidedly Horizontal; and, as a matter of
+course, he took the Riddle side of this question. The report, itself,
+required seven hours in the reading, commencing with the subject at the
+epocha of the celebrated caucus that was adjourned sine die, by the
+disruption of the earth’s crust, and previously to the distribution of
+the great monikin family into separate communities, and ending with the
+subject of the resolution in his hand. The reporter had set his
+political palette with the utmost care, having completely covered the
+subject with neutral tints, before he got through with it, and glazing
+the whole down with ultramarine, in such a way as to cause the eye to
+regard the matter through a fictitious atmosphere. Finally, he repeated
+the resolution, verbatim, and as it came from the other house.
+
+Mr. Speaker now called upon gentlemen to deliver their sentiments. To
+my utter amazement, Captain Poke arose, put his tobacco back into its
+box, and opened the debate without apology.
+
+The honorable captain said he understood this question to be one
+implicating the liberties of everybody. He understood the matter
+literally, as it was propounded in the Allegory, and set forth in the
+resolution; and, as such, he intended to look at it with unprejudiced
+eyes. “The natur’ of this proposal lay altogether in color. What is
+color, after all? Make the most of it, and in the most favorable
+position, which, perhaps, is the cheek of a comely young woman, and it
+is but skin-deep. He remembered the time when a certain female in
+another part of the univarse, who is commonly called Miss Poke, might
+have out-rosed the best rose in a placed called Stunnin’tun; and what
+did it all amount to? He shouldn’t ask Miss Poke herself, for obvious
+reasons—but he would ask any of the neighbors how she looked now?
+Quitting female natur’, he would come to human natur’ generally. He had
+often remarked that sea water was blue, and he had frequently caused
+pails to be lowered, and the water brought on deck, to see if he could
+come at any of this blueing matter—for indigo was both scarce and dear
+in his part of the world, but he never could make out anything by the
+experiment; from which he concluded that, on the whull, there was
+pretty much no such thing as color, at all.
+
+“As for the resolution before the house, it depended entirely on the
+meaning of words. Now, after all, what is a word? Why, some people’s
+words are good, and other people’s words are good for nothing. For his
+part, he liked sealed instruments—which might be because he was a
+sealer—but as for mere words, he set but little store by them. He once
+tuck a man’s word for his wages; and the long and short of it was, that
+he lost his money. He had known a thousand instances in which words had
+proved to be of no value, and he did not see why some gentlemen wished
+to make them of so much importance here. For his part, he was for
+puffing up nothing, no, not even a word or a color, above its desarts.
+The people seemed to call for a change in the color of things, and he
+called upon gentlemen to remember that this was a free country, and one
+in which the laws ruled; and therefore he trusted they would be
+disposed to adapt the laws to the wants of the people. What had the
+people asked of the house in this matter? So far as his knowledge went,
+they had really asked nothing in words, but he understood there was
+great discontent on the subject of the old colors; and he construed
+their silence into an expression of contempt for words in general. He
+was a Parpendic’lar, and he should always maintain Parpendic’lar
+sentiments. Gentlemen might not agree with him, but, for one, he was
+not disposed to jipordyze the liberties of his constituents, and
+therefore he gave the rizolution just as it came from the Riddles,
+without altering a letter—although he did think there was one word
+misspelt—he meant ‘really,’ which he had been taught to spell
+‘ra’aily’—but he was ready to sacrifice even his opinions on this point
+to the good of the country; and therefore he went with the Riddles,
+even to their misprints. He hoped the rizolution would pass, with the
+entire unanimity so important a subject demanded.”
+
+This speech produced a very strong sensation. Up to this time, the
+principal orators of the house had been much in the practice of
+splitting hairs about some nice technicality in the Great Allegory; but
+Noah, with the simplicity of a truly great mind, had made a home thrust
+at the root of the whole matter; laying about him with the
+single-first, I made a few apposite remarks on the necessity of
+respecting the vital ordinances of the body politic, and asked the
+attention of my hearers while I read to them a particular clause, which
+it had struck me had some allusion to the very point now in
+consideration. Having thus cleared the way, I had not the folly to
+defeat the objects of so much preparation, by an indiscreet
+precipitancy. So far from it, previously to reading the extract from
+the constitution, I waited until the attention of every member present
+was attracted more forcibly by the dignity, deliberation, and gravity
+of my manner, than by the substance of what had yet been said. In the
+midst of this deep silence and expectation I read aloud, in a voice
+that reached every cranny in the hall—
+
+“The great council shall, in no case whatever, pass any law, or
+resolution, declaring white to be black.”
+
+If I had been calm in the presentation of this authority, I was equally
+self-possessed in waiting for its effect. Looking about me I saw
+surprise, perplexity, doubt, wonder, and uncertainty in every
+countenance, if I did not find conviction. One fact embarrassed even
+me. Our friends the Horizontals were evidently quite as much at fault
+as our opponents the Perpendiculars, instead of being, as I had good
+reason to hope, in an ecstasy of pleasure on hearing their cause
+sustained by an authority so weighty.
+
+“Will the honorable member have the goodness to explain from what
+author he has quoted?” one of the leading Perpendiculars at length
+ventured to inquire.
+
+“The language you have just heard, Mr. Speaker,” I resumed, believing
+that now was the favorable instant to follow up the matter, “is
+language that must find an echo in every heart—it is language that can
+never be used in vain in this venerable hall, language that carries
+with it conviction and command.”—I observed that the members were now
+fairly gaping at each other with wonder.—“Sir, I am asked to name the
+author from whom I have quoted these sententious and explicit
+words—Sir, what you have just heard is to be found in the Article IV.,
+Clause 6, of the Great National Allegory—”
+
+“Order—order—order!” shouted a hundred raven throats.
+
+I stood aghast, even more amazed than the house itself had been only
+the instant before.
+
+“Order—order—order—order—order!” continued to be yelled, as if a
+million of demons were screeching in the hall.
+
+“The honorable member will please to recollect,” said the bland and
+ex-officio impartial speaker, who, by the way, was a Perpendicular,
+elected by fraud, “that it is out of order to use personalities.”
+
+“Personalities! I do not understand, sir—”
+
+“The instrument to which the honorable member has alluded, his own good
+sense will tell him, was never written by itself—so far from this, the
+very members of the convention by which it was drawn up, are at this
+instant members of this house, and most of them supporters of the
+resolution now before the house; and it will be deemed personal to
+throw into their faces former official acts, in this unheard-of manner.
+I am sorry it is my duty to say, that the honorable member is entirely
+out of order.”
+
+“But, sir, the Sacred National—”
+
+“Sacred, sir, beyond a doubt—but in a sense different from what you
+imagine—much too sacred, sir, ever to be alluded to here. There are the
+works of the commentators, the books of constructions, and specially
+the writings of various foreign and perfectly disinterested
+statesmen—need I name Ekrub in particular!—that are at the command of
+members; but so long as I am honored with a seat in this chair, I shall
+peremptorily decide against all personalities.”
+
+I was dumfounded. The idea that the authority itself would be refused
+never crossed my mind, though I had anticipated a sharp struggle on its
+construction. The constitution only required that no law should be
+passed declaring black to be white, whereas the resolution merely
+ordered that henceforth white should be black. Here was matter for
+discussion, nor was I at all sanguine as to the result; but to be thus
+knocked on the head by a club, in the outset, was too much for the
+modesty of a maiden speech. I took my seat in confusion; and I plainly
+saw that the Perpendiculars, by their sneers, now expected to carry
+everything triumphantly their own way. This, most probably, would have
+been the case, had not one of the Tangents immediately got the floor,
+to move the amendment. To the vast indignation of Captain Poke, and, in
+some degree, to my own mortification, this duty was intrusted to the
+Hon. Robert Smut. Mr. Smut commenced with entreating members not to be
+led away by the sophistry of the first speaker. That honorable member,
+no doubt, felt himself called upon to defend the position taken by his
+friends; but those that knew him well, as it had been his fate to know
+him, must be persuaded that his sentiments had, at least, undergone a
+sudden and miraculous change. That honorable member denied the
+existence of color at all! He would ask that honorable member if he had
+never been instrumental himself in producing what is generally called
+“black and blue color”? He should like to know if that honorable member
+placed as little value, at present, on blows as he now seemed to set on
+words. He begged pardon of the house—but this was a matter of great
+interest to himself—he knew that there never had been a greater
+manufacturer of “black and blue color” than that honorable member, and
+he wondered at his now so pertinaciously denying the existence of
+colors, and at his wish to underrate their value. For his part, he
+trusted he understood the importance of words, and the value of hues;
+and while he did not exactly see the necessity of deeming black so
+inviolable as some gentlemen appeared to think it, he was not by any
+means prepared to go as far as those who had introduced this
+resolution. He did not believe that public opinion was satisfied with
+maintaining that black was black, but he thought it was not yet
+disposed to affirm that black was white. He did not say that such a day
+might not arrive; he only maintained that it had not yet arrived, and
+with a view to meet that which he believed was the public sentiment, he
+should move, by way of amendment, to strike out the whole of the
+resolution after the word “really,” and insert that which would cause
+the whole resolution to read as follows, viz.:
+
+“Resolved, that the color which has hitherto been deemed to be black,
+is really lead-color.”
+
+Hereupon, the Honorable Mr. Smut took his seat, leaving the house to
+its own ruminations. The leaders of the Perpendiculars, foreseeing that
+if they got half-way this session, they might effect the rest of their
+object the next, determined to accept the compromise; and the
+resolution, amended, passed by a handsome majority. So this important
+point was finally decided for the moment, leaving great hopes among the
+Perpendiculars of being able to lay the Horizontals even flatter on
+their backs than they were just then.
+
+The next question that presented itself was of far less interest,
+exciting no great attention. To understand it, however, it will be
+necessary to refer a little to history. The government of Leapthrough
+had, about sixty-three years before, caused one hundred and twenty-six
+Leaplow ships to be burned on the high seas, or otherwise destroyed.
+The pretence was, that they incommoded Leapthrough. Leaplow was much
+too great a nation to submit to so heinous an outrage, while, at the
+same time, she was much too magnanimous and wise a nation to resent it
+in an every-day and vulgar manner. Instead of getting in a passion and
+loading her cannon, she summoned all her logic and began to reason.
+After reasoning the matter with Leapthrough for fifty-two years, or
+until all the parties who had been wronged were dead, and could no
+longer be benefited by her logic, she determined to abate two-thirds of
+her pretensions in a pecuniary sense, and all her pretensions in an
+honorary sense, and to compromise the affair by accepting a certain
+insignificant sum of money as a salve to the whole wrong. Leapthrough
+conditioned to pay this money, in the most solemn and satisfactory
+manner; and everybody was delighted with the amicable termination of a
+very vexatious and a seemingly interminable discussion. Leapthrough was
+quite as glad to get rid of the matter as Leaplow, and very naturally,
+under all the circumstances, thought the whole thing at length done
+with, when she conditioned to pay the money. The Great Sachem of
+Leaplow, most unfortunately, however, had a “will of iron,” or, in
+other words, he thought the money ought to be paid as well as
+conditioned to be paid. This despotic construction of the bargain had
+given rise to unheard-of dissatisfaction in Leapthrough, as indeed
+might have been expected; but it was, oddly enough, condemned with some
+heat even in Leaplow itself, where it was stoutly maintained by certain
+ingenious logicians, that the only true way to settle a bargain to pay
+money, was to make a new one for a less sum whenever the amount fell
+due; a plan that, with a proper moderation and patience would be
+certain, in time, to extinguish the whole debt.
+
+Several very elaborate patriots had taken this matter in hand, and it
+was now about to be presented to the house under four different
+categories. Category No. 1, had the merit of simplicity and precision.
+It proposed merely that Leaplow should pay the money itself, and take
+up the bond, using its own funds. Category No. 2, embraced a
+recommendation of the Great Sachem for Leaplow to pay itself, using,
+however, certain funds of Leapthrough. Category No. 3 was a proposal to
+offer ten millions to Leapthrough to say no more about the transaction
+at all. Category No. 4, was to commence the negotiating or abating
+system mentioned, without delay, in order to extinguish the claim by
+instalments as soon as possible.
+
+The question came up on the consideration of the different projects
+connected with these four leading principles. My limits will not admit
+of a detailed history of the debate. All I can do, is merely to give an
+outline of the logic that these various propositions set in motion, of
+the legislative ingenuity of which they were the parents, and of the
+multitude of legitimate conclusions that so naturally followed.
+
+In favor of category No 1, it was urged that, by adopting its leading
+idea, the affair would be altogether in our own hands, and might
+consequently be settled with greater attention to purely Leaplow
+interests; that further delay could only proceed from our own
+negligence; that no other project was so likely to get rid of this
+protracted negotiation in so short a time; that by paying the debt with
+the Leaplow funds, we should be sure of receiving its amount in the
+good legal currency of the republic; that it would be singularly
+economical, as the agent who paid might also be authorized to receive,
+whereby there would be a saving in salary; and, finally, that under
+this category, the whole affair might be brought within the limits of a
+nutshell, and the compass of any one’s understanding.
+
+In favor of category No. 2, little more than very equivocal sophisms,
+which savored strongly of commonplace opinions, were presented. It was
+pretended, for instance, that he who signed a bond was in equity bound
+to pay it; that, if he refused, the other party had the natural and
+legal remedy of compulsion; that it might not always be convenient for
+a creditor to pay all the obligations of other people which he might
+happen to hold; that if his transactions were extensive, money might be
+wanting to carry out such a principle; and that, as a precedent, it
+would comport much more with Leaplow prudence and discretion to
+maintain the old and tried notions of probity and justice, than to
+enter on the unknown ocean of uncertainty that was connected with the
+new opinions, by admitting which, we could never know when we were
+fairly out of debt.
+
+Category No. 3, was discussed on an entirely new system of logic, which
+appeared to have great favor with that class of the members who were of
+the more refined school of ethics. These orators referred the whole
+matter to a sentiment of honor. They commenced by drawing vivid
+pictures of the outrages in which the original wrongs had been
+committed. They spoke of ruined families, plundered mariners, and
+blasted hopes. They presented minute arithmetical calculations to show
+that just forty times as much wrong had, in fact, been done, as this
+bond assumed; and that, as the case actually stood, Leaplow ought, in
+strict justice, to receive exactly forty times the amount of the money
+that was actually included in the instrument. Turning from these
+interesting details, they next presented the question of honor.
+Leapthrough, by attacking the Leaplow flag, and invading Leaplow
+rights, had made it principally a question of honor, and, in disposing
+of it, the principle of honor ought never to be lost sight of. It was
+honorable to PAY ones’ debts—this no one could dispute but it was not
+so clear, by any means, that there was any honor in RECEIVING ones’
+dues. The national honor was concerned; and they called on members, as
+they cherished the sacred sentiment, to come forward and sustain it by
+their votes. As the matter stood, Leaplow had the best of it. In
+compounding with her creditor, as had been done in the treaty,
+Leapthrough lost some honor—in refusing to pay the bond, she lost still
+more; and now, if we should send her the ten millions proposed, and she
+should have the weakness to accept it, we should fairly get our foot
+upon her neck, and she could never look us in the face again!
+
+The category No. 4, brought up a member who had made political economy
+his chief study. This person presented the following case:—According to
+his calculations, the wrong had been committed precisely sixty-three
+years, and twenty-six days, and two-thirds of a day ago. For the whole
+of that long period Leaplow had been troubled with this vexatious
+question, which had hung like a cloud over the otherwise unimpaired
+brightness of her political landscape. It was time to get rid of it.
+The sum stipulated was just twenty-five millions, to be paid in
+twenty-five annual instalments, of a million each. Now, he proposed to
+reduce the instalments to one-half the number, but in no way to change
+the sum. That point ought to be considered as irrevocably settled. This
+would diminish the debt one-half. Before the first instalment should
+become due he would effect a postponement, by diminishing the
+instalments again to six, referring the time to the latest periods
+named in the last treaty, and always most sacredly keeping the sums
+precisely the same. It would be impossible to touch the sums, which, he
+repeated, ought to be considered as sacred. Before the expiration of
+the first seven years, a new arrangement might reduce the instalments
+to two, or even to one—always respecting the sum; and finally, at the
+proper moment, a treaty could be concluded, declaring that there should
+be no instalment at all, reserving the point, that if there HAD been an
+instalment, Leaplow could never have consented to reduce it below one
+million. The result would be that in about five-and-twenty years the
+country would be fairly rid of the matter, and the national character,
+which it was agreed on all hands was even now as high as it well could
+be, would probably be raised many degrees higher. The negotiations had
+commenced in a spirit of compromise; and our character for consistency
+required that this spirit of compromise should continue to govern our
+conduct as long as a single farthing remained unpaid.
+
+This idea took wonderfully; and I do believe it would have passed by a
+handsome majority, had not a new proposition been presented, by an
+orator of singularly pathetic powers.
+
+The new speaker objected to all four of the categories. He said that
+each and every one of them would lead to war. Leapthrough was a
+chivalrous and high-minded nation, as was apparent by the present
+aspect of things. Should we presume to take up the bond, using our own
+funds, it would mortally offend her pride, and she would fight us; did
+we presume to take up the bond, using her funds, it would offend her
+financial system, and she would fight us; did we presume to offer her
+ten millions to say no more about the matter, it would offend her
+dignity by intimating that she was to be bought off from her rights,
+and she would fight us; did we presume to adopt the system of new
+negotiations, it would mortally offend her honor, by intimating that
+she would not respect her old negotiations, and she would fight us. He
+saw war in all four of the categories. He was for a peace category, and
+he thought he held in his hand a proposition, that by proper
+management, using the most tender delicacy, and otherwise respecting
+the sensibilities of the high and honorable nation in question, we
+might possibly get out of this embarrassing dilemma without actually
+coming to blows—he said to blows, for he wished to impress on honorable
+members the penalties of war. He invited gentlemen to recollect that a
+conflict between two great nations was a serious affair. If Leapthrough
+were a little nation, it would be a different matter, and the contest
+might be conducted in a corner; our honor was intimately connected with
+all we did with great nations. What was war? Did gentlemen know? He
+would tell them.
+
+Here the orator drew a picture of war that caused suffering monikinity
+to shudder. He viewed it in its four leading points: its religious, its
+pecuniary, its political, and its domestic penalties. He described war
+to be the demon state of the monikin mind; as opposed to worship, to
+charity, brotherly love, and all the virtues. On its pecuniary
+penalties, he touched by exhibiting a tax-sheet. Buttons which cost
+sixpence a gross, he assured the house, would shortly cost sevenpence a
+gross.—Here he was reminded that monikins no longer wore buttons.—No
+matter, they bought and sold buttons, and the effects on trade were
+just the same. The political penalties of war he fairly showed to be
+frightful; but when he came to speak of the domestic penalties, there
+was not a dry eye in the house. Captain Poke blubbered so loud that I
+was in an agony lest he should be called to order.
+
+“Regard that pure spirit,” he cried, “crushed as it has been in the
+whirlwind of war. Behold her standing over the sod that covers the hero
+of his country, the husband of her virgin affections. In vain the
+orphan at her side turns its tearful eye upwards, and asks for the
+plumes that so lately pleased its infant fancy; in vain its gentle
+voice inquires when he is to return, when he is to gladden their hearts
+with his presence—” But I can write no more. Sobs interrupted the
+speaker, and he took his seat in an ecstasy of godliness and
+benevolence.
+
+I hurried across the house, to beg the brigadier would introduce me to
+this just monikin without a moment’s delay. I felt as if I could take
+him to my heart at once, and swear an eternal friendship with a spirit
+so benevolent. The brigadier was too much agitated, at first, to attend
+to me; but, after wiping his eyes at least a hundred times, he finally
+succeeded in arresting the torrents, and looked upwards with a bland
+smile.
+
+“Is he not a wonderful monikin?”
+
+“Wonderful indeed! How completely he puts us all to shame!—Such a
+monikin can only be influenced by the purest love for the species.”
+
+“Yes, he is of a class that we call the third monikinity. Nothing
+excites our zeal like the principles of the class of which he is a
+member!”
+
+“How! Have you more than one class of the humane?”
+
+“Certainly—the Original, the Representative, and the Speculative.”
+
+“I am devoured by the desire to understand the distinctions, my dear
+brigadier.”
+
+“The Original is an every-day class, that feels under the natural
+impulses. The Representative is a more intellectual division, that
+feels chiefly by proxy. The Speculatives are those whose sympathies are
+excited by positive interests, like the last speaker. This person has
+lately bought a farm by the acre, which he is about to sell, in village
+lots, by the foot, and war will knock the whole thing in the head. It
+is this which stimulates his benevolence in so lively a manner.”
+
+“Why, this is no more than a development of the social-stake system—”
+
+I was interrupted by the speaker, who called the house to order. The
+vote on the resolution of the last orator was to be taken. It read as
+follows:—
+
+“Resolved, that it is altogether unbecoming the dignity and character
+of Leapthrough, for Leaplow to legislate on the subject of so petty a
+consideration as a certain pitiful treaty between the two countries.”
+
+“Unanimity—unanimity!” was shouted by fifty voices. Unanimity there
+was; and then the whole house set to work shaking hands and hugging
+each other, in pure joy at the success of the honorable and ingenious
+manner in which it had got rid of this embarrassing and impertinent
+question.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+AN EFFECT OF LOGARITHMS ON MORALS—AN OBSCURATION, A DISSERTATION, AND A
+CALCULATION.
+
+
+The house had not long adjourned before Captain Poke and myself were
+favored with a visit from our colleague Mr. Downright, who came on an
+affair of absorbing interest. He carried in his hand a small pamphlet;
+and the usual salutations were scarcely over, before he directed our
+attention to a portion of its contents. It would seem that Leaplow was
+on the eve of experiencing a great moral eclipse. The periods and dates
+of the phenomenon (if that can be called a phenomenon which was of too
+frequent occurrence) had been calculated, with surprising accuracy, by
+the Academy of Leaphigh, and sent, through its minister, as an especial
+favor, to our beloved country in order that we should not be taken by
+surprise. The account of the affair read as follows:—
+
+“On the third day of the season of nuts, there will be the commencement
+of a great moral eclipse, in that portion of the monikin region which
+lies immediately about the pole. The property in eclipse will be the
+great moral postulate usually designated by the term Principle; and the
+intervening body will be the great immoral postulate, usually known as
+Interest. The frequent occurrence of the conjunction of these two
+important postulates has caused our moral mathematicians to be rather
+negligent of their calculations on this subject of late years; but, to
+atone for this inexcusable indifference to one of the most important
+concerns of life, the calculating committee was instructed to pay
+unusual attention to all the obscurations of the present year, and this
+phenomenon, one of the most decided of our age, has been calculated
+with the utmost nicety and care. We give the results.
+
+“The eclipse will commence by a motive of monikin vanity coming in
+contact with the sub-postulate of charity, at 1 A. M. The postulate in
+question will be totally hid from view, in the course of 6 h. 17 m.
+from the moment of contact. The passage of a political intrigue will
+instantly follow, when the several sub-postulates of truth, honesty,
+disinterestedness, and patriotism, will all be obscured in succession,
+beginning with the lower limb of the first, and ending with all the
+limbs of the whole of them, in 3 h. 42 m. from the moment of contact.
+The shadow of vanity and political intrigue will first be deepened by
+the approach of prosperity, and this will be soon succeeded by the
+contact of a great pecuniary interest, at 10 h. 2 m. 1s.; and in
+exactly 2 m. and 3-7 s., the whole of the great moral postulate of
+Principle will be totally hid from view. In consequence of this early
+passage of the darkest shadow that is ever cast by Interest, the
+passages of the respective shadows of ambition, hatred, jealousy, and
+all the other minor satellites of Interest, will be invisible.
+
+“The country principally affected by this eclipse will be the Republic
+of Leaplow, a community whose known intelligence and virtues are
+perhaps better qualified to resist its influence than any other. The
+time of occultation will be 9 y. 7 m. 26 d. 4 h. 16 m. 2 s. Principle
+will begin to reappear to the moral eye at the end of this period,
+first by the approach of Misfortune, whose atmosphere being much less
+dense than that of Interest, will allow of imperfect views of the
+obscured postulate; but the radiance of the latter will not be
+completely restored until the arrival of Misery, whose chastening
+colors invariably permit all truths to be discernible, although through
+a sombre medium. To resume:
+
+“Beginning of eclipse, 1 A. M.
+
+Ecliptic opposition, in 4 y. 6 m. 12 d. 9 h. from beginning of eclipse.
+
+Middle, in 4 y. 9 m. 0 d. 7 h. 9 m. from beginning of eclipse.
+
+End of eclipse, 9 y. 11 m. 20 d. 3 h. 2 m. from beginning.
+
+Period of occultation, 9 y. 7 m. 26 d. 4 h. 16 m. 2 s.”
+
+I gazed at the brigadier in admiration and awe. There was nothing
+remarkable in the eclipse itself, which was quite an every-day affair;
+but the precision with which it had been calculated added to its other
+phenomena the terrible circumstance of obtaining a glimpse into the
+future, I now began to perceive the immense difference between living
+consciously under a moral shadow, and living under it unconsciously.
+The latter was evidently a trifle compared with the former. Providence
+had most kindly provided for our happiness in denying the ability to
+see beyond the present moment.
+
+Noah took the affair even more at heart than myself. He told me, with a
+rueful and prognosticating countenance, that we were fast drawing near
+to the autumnal equinox, when we should reach the commencement of a
+natural night of six months’ duration; and although the benevolent
+substitute of steam might certainly in some degree lessen the evil,
+that it was a furious evil, after all, to exist for a period so weary
+without enjoying the light of the sun. He found the external glare of
+day bad enough, but he did not believe he should be able to endure its
+total absence. “Natur’ had made him a ‘watch and watch’ critter. As for
+the twilight of which so much was said, it was worse than nothin’,
+being neither one thing nor the other. For his part, he liked things
+‘made out of whole cloth.’ Then he had sent the ship round to a distant
+roadstead, in order that there might be no more post-captains and
+rear-admirals among the people; and here had he been as much as four
+days on nothing but nuts. Nuts might do for the philosophy of a monkey,
+but he found, on trial, that it played the devil with the philosophy of
+a man. Things were bad enough as they were. He pined for a little
+pork—he cared not who knew it; it might not be very sentimental, he
+knew, but it was capital sea-food; his natur’ was pretty much pork; he
+believed most men had, in some way or other, more or less pork in their
+human natur’s; nuts might do for monikin natur’, but human natur’ loved
+meat; if monikins did not like it, monikins need not eat it; there
+would be so much the more for those who did like it—he pined for his
+natural aliment, and as for living nine years in an eclipse, it was
+quite out of the question. The longest Stunnin’tun eclipses seldom went
+over three hours—he once knew Deacon Spiteful pray quite through one,
+from apogee to perigee. He therefore proposed that Sir John and he
+should resign their seats without delay, and that they should try to
+get the Walrus to the north’ard as quick as possible, lest they should
+be caught in the polar night. As for the Hon. Robert Smut, he wished
+him no better luck than to remain where he was all his life, and to
+receive his eight dollars a day in acorns.”
+
+Although it was impossible not to hear, and, having heard, not to
+record the sentiments of Noah, still my attention was much more
+strongly attracted by the demeanor of the brigadier, than by the
+jeremiad of the sealer. To an anxious inquiry if he were not well, our
+worthy colleague answered plaintively, that he mourned over the
+misfortune of his country.
+
+“I have often witnessed the passage of the passions, and of the minor
+motives, across the disc of the great moral postulate, Principle; but
+an occultation of its light by a pecuniary Interest, and for so long a
+period, is fearful! Heaven only knows what will become of us!”
+
+“Are not these eclipses, after all, so many mere illustrations of the
+social-stake system? I confess this occultation, of which you seem to
+have so much dread, is not so formidable a thing, on reflection, as it
+at first appeared to be.”
+
+“You are quite right, Sir John, as to the character of the eclipse
+itself, which, as a matter of course, must depend on the character of
+the intervening body. But the wisest and best of our philosophers hold
+that the entire system of which we are but insignificant parts, is
+based on certain immutable truths of a divine origin. The premises, or
+postulates, of all these truths, are so many moral guides in the
+management of monikin affairs; and, the moment they are lost sight of,
+as will be the case during these frightful nine years that are to come,
+we shall be abandoned entirely to selfishness. Now selfishness is only
+too formidable when restrained by Principle; but left to its own
+grasping desires and audacious sophisms, to me the moral perspective is
+terrible. We are only too much addicted to turn our eyes from
+Principle, when it is shining in heavenly radiance, and in full glory,
+before us; it is not difficult, therefore, to foresee the nature of the
+consequences which are to follow its total and protracted obscuration.”
+
+“You then conceive there is a rule superior to interest, which ought to
+be respected in the control of monikin affairs?”
+
+“Beyond a doubt; else in what should we differ from the beasts of
+prey?”
+
+“I do not exactly see whether this does, or does not accord with the
+notions of the political economists of the social-stake system.”
+
+“As you say, Sir John, it does, and it does not. Your social-stake
+system supposes that he who has what is termed a distinct and prominent
+interest in society, will be the most likely to conduct its affairs
+wisely, justly, and disinterestedly. This would be true, if those great
+principles which lie at the root of all happiness were respected; but
+unluckily, the stake in question, instead of being a stake in justice
+and virtue, is usually reduced to be merely a stake in property. Now,
+all experience shows that the great property-incentives are to increase
+property, protect property, and to buy with property those advantages
+which ought to be independent of property, viz., honors, dignities,
+power, and immunities. I cannot say how it is with men, but our
+histories are eloquent on this head. We have had the property-principle
+carried out thoroughly in our practice, and the result has shown that
+its chief operation is to render property as intact as possible, and
+the bones, and sinews, and marrow of all who do not possess it, its
+slaves. In short, the time has been, when the rich were even exempt
+from contributing to the ordinary exigencies of the state. But it is
+quite useless to theorize on this subject, for, by that cry in the
+streets, the lower limb of the great postulate is beginning to be
+obscured, and, alas! we shall soon have too much practical
+information.”
+
+The brigadier was right. On referring to the clocks, it was found that,
+in truth, the eclipse had commenced some time before, and that we were
+on the verge of an absolute occultation of Principle, by the basest and
+most sordid of all motives, pecuniary Interest.
+
+The first proof that was given of the true state of things, was in the
+language of the people. The word Interest was in every monikin’s mouth,
+while the word Principle, as indeed was no more than suitable, seemed
+to be quite blotted out of the Leaplow vocabulary. To render a local
+term into English, half of the vernacular of the country appeared to be
+compressed into the single word “dollar.”
+
+“Dollar—dollar—dollar”—nothing but “dollar! Fifty thousand
+dollars—twenty thousand dollars—a hundred thousand dollars”—met one at
+every turn. The words rang at the corners—in the public ways—at the
+exchange—in the drawing-rooms—ay, even in the churches. If a temple had
+been reared for the worship of the Creator, the first question was, how
+much did it cost? If an artist submitted the fruits of his labors to
+the taste of his fellow-citizens, conjectures were whispered among the
+spectators, touching its value in the current coin of the republic. If
+an author presented the offspring of his genius to the same arbiters,
+its merits were settled by a similar standard; and one divine, who had
+made a strenuous, but an ill-timed appeal to the charity of his
+countrymen, by setting forth the beauties as well as the rewards of the
+god-like property, was fairly put down by a demonstration that his
+proposition involved a considerable outlay, while it did not clearly
+show much was to be gained by going to heaven!
+
+Brigadier Downright had good reasons for his sombre anticipations, for
+all the acquirements, knowledge, and experience, obtained in many years
+of travel, were now found to be worse than useless. If my honorable
+colleague and covoyager ventured a remark on the subject of foreign
+policy, a portion of politics to which he had given considerable
+attention, it was answered by a quotation from the stock market; an
+observation on a matter of taste was certain to draw forth a nice
+distinction between the tastes of certain liquors, together with a
+shrewd investigation of their several prices; and once, when the worthy
+monikin undertook to show, from what struck me to be singularly good
+data, that the foreign relations of the country were in a condition to
+require great firmness, a proper prudence, and much foresight, he was
+completely silenced by an antagonist showing, from the last sales, the
+high value of lots up town!
+
+In short, there was no dealing with any subject that could not resolve
+itself into dollars, by means of the customary exchanges. The
+infatuation spread from father to son; from husband to wife; from
+brother to sister; and from one collateral to another, until it pretty
+effectually assailed the whole of what is usually termed “society.”
+Noah swore bitterly at this antagonist state of things. He affirmed
+that he could not even crack a walnut in a corner, but every monikin
+that passed appeared to grudge him the satisfaction, small as it was;
+and that Stunin’tun, though a scramble-penny place as any he knew, was
+paradise to Leaplow, in the present state of things.
+
+It was melancholy to remark how the lustre of the ordinary virtues grew
+dim, as the period of occultation continued, and the eye gradually got
+to be accustomed to the atmosphere cast by the shadow of pecuniary
+interest. I involuntarily shuddered at the open and undisguised manner
+in which individuals, who might otherwise pass for respectable
+monikins, spoke of the means that they habitually employed in effecting
+their objects, and laid bare their utter forgetfulness of the great
+postulate that was hid. One coolly vaunted how much cleverer he was
+than the law; another proved to demonstration that he had outwitted his
+neighbor; while a third, more daring or more expert, applied the same
+grounds of exultation to the entire neighborhood. This had the merit of
+cunning; that of dissimulation; another of deception, and all of
+success!
+
+The shadow cast its malign influence on every interest connected with
+monikin life. Temples were raised to God on speculation; the government
+was perverted to a money-investment, in which profit, and not justice
+and security, was the object; holy wedlock fast took the aspect of
+buying and selling, and few prayed who did not identify spiritual
+benefits with gold and silver.
+
+The besetting propensity of my ancestor soon began to appear in
+Leaplow. Many of those pure and unsophisticated republicans shouted,
+“Property is in danger!” as stoutly as it was ever roared by Sir Joseph
+Job, and dark allusions were made to “revolutions” and “bayonets.” But
+certain proof of the prevalence of the eclipse, and that the shadow of
+pecuniary interest lay dark on the land, was to be found in the
+language of what are called the “few.” They began to throw dirt at all
+opposed to them, like so many fish-women: a sure symptom that the
+spirit of selfishness was thoroughly awakened. From much experience, I
+hold this sign to be infallible, that the sentiment of aristocracy is
+active and vigilant. I never yet visited a country in which a minority
+got into its head the crotchet it was alone fit to dictate to the rest
+of its fellow-creatures, that it did not, without delay, set about
+proving its position, by reviling and calling names. In this particular
+“the few” are like women, who, conscious of their weakness, seldom fail
+to make up for the want of vigor in their limbs, by having recourse to
+the vigor of the tongue. The “one” hangs; the “many” command by the
+dignity of force; the “few” vituperate and scold. This is, I believe,
+the case all over the world, except in those peculiar instances in
+which the “few” happen also to enjoy the privilege of hanging.
+
+It is worthy of remark that the terms, “rabble,” “disorganizers,”
+“jacobins,” and “agrarians,” [Footnote: It is scarcely necessary to
+tell the intelligent reader there is no proof that any political
+community was ever so bent on self-destruction as to enact agrarian
+laws, in the vulgar sense in which it has suited the arts of
+narrow-minded politicians to represent them ever since the revival of
+letters. The celebrated agrarian laws of Rome did not essentially
+differ from the distribution of our own military lands, or perhaps the
+similitude is greater to the modern Russian military colonies. Those
+who feel an interest in this subject would do well to consult Niebuhr.
+NOTE BY THE EDITOR.] were bandied from one to the other, in Leaplow,
+under this malign influence, with precisely the same justice,
+discrimination, and taste, as they had been used by my ancestor in
+London, a few years before. Like causes notoriously produce like
+effects; and there is no one thing so much like an Englishman under the
+property-fever, as a Leaplow monikin suffering under the same malady.
+
+The effect produced on the state of parties by the passage of the
+shadow of Pecuniary Interest, was so singular as to deserve our notice.
+Patriots who had long been known for an indomitable resolution to
+support their friends, openly abandoned their claims on the rewards of
+the little wheel, and went over to the enemy; and this, too, without
+recourse to the mysteries of the “flapjack.” Judge People’s Friend was
+completely annihilated for the moment—so much so, indeed, as to think
+seriously of taking another mission—for, during these eclipses, long
+service, public virtue, calculated amenity, and all the other bland
+qualities of your patriot, pass for nothing, when weighed in the scale
+against profit and loss. It was fortunate the Leapthrough question was,
+in its essence, so well disposed of, though the uneasiness of those who
+bought and sold land by the inch, pushed even that interest before the
+public again by insisting that a few millions should be expended in
+destroying the munitions of war, lest the nation might improvidently be
+tempted to make use of them in the natural way. The cruisers were
+accordingly hauled into the stream and converted into tide-mills, the
+gun-barrels were transformed into gas-pipes, and the forts were
+converted, as fast as possible, into warehouses and tea-gardens. After
+this, it was much the fashion to affirm that the advanced state of
+civilization had rendered all future wars quite out of the question.
+Indeed, the impetus that was given, by the effects of the shadow, in
+this way, to humanity in gross, was quite as remarkable as were its
+contrary tendencies on humanity in detail.
+
+Public opinion was not backward in showing how completely it was acting
+under the influence of the shadow. Virtue began to be estimated by
+rent-rolls. The affluent, without hesitation, or, indeed, opposition,
+appropriated to themselves the sole use of the word respectable, while
+taste, judgment, honesty, and wisdom, dropped like so many heirlooms
+quietly into the possession of those who had money. The Leaplowers are
+a people of great acuteness, and of singular knowledge of details.
+Every considerable man in Bivouac soon had his social station assigned
+him, the whole community being divided into classes of
+“hundred-thousand-dollar monikins”—“fifty-thousand-dollar
+monikins”—“twenty-thousand-dollar monikins.” Great conciseness in
+language was a consequence of this state of feeling. The old questions
+of “is he honest?” “is he capable?” “is he enlightened?” “is he wise?”
+“is he good?” being all comprehended in the single interrogatory of “is
+he rich?”
+
+There was one effect of this very unusual state of things, that I had
+not anticipated. All the money-getting classes, without exception,
+showed a singular predilection in favor of what is commonly called a
+strong government; being not only a republic, but virtually a
+democracy, I found that much the larger portion of this highly
+respectable class of citizens, were not at all backward in expressing
+their wish for a change.
+
+“How is this?” I demanded of the brigadier, whom I rarely quitted; for
+his advice and opinions were of great moment to me, just at this
+particular crisis—“how is this, my good friend? I have always been led
+to think trade is especially favorable to liberty; and here are all
+your commercial interests the loudest in their declamations against the
+institutions.”
+
+The brigadier smiled; it was but a melancholy smile, after all; for his
+spirits appeared to have quite deserted him.
+
+“There are three great divisions among politicians,” he said—“they who
+do not like liberty at all—they who like it, as low down as their own
+particular class—and they who like it for the sake of their
+fellow-creatures. The first are not numerous, but powerful by means of
+combinations; the second is a very irregular corps, including, as a
+matter of course, nearly everybody, but is wanting, of necessity, in
+concert and discipline, since no one descends below his own level; the
+third are but few, alas, how few! and are composed of those who look
+beyond their own selfishness. Now, your merchants, dwelling in towns,
+and possessing concert, means, and identity of interests, have been
+able to make themselves remarkable for contending with despotic power,
+a fact which has obtained for them a cheap reputation for liberality of
+opinion; but, so far as monikin experience goes—men may have proved to
+be better disposed—no government that is essentially influenced by
+commerce has ever been otherwise than exclusive, or aristocratic.”
+
+I bethought me of Venice, Genoa, Pisa, the Hanse Towns, and all the
+other remarkable places of this character in Europe, and I felt the
+justice of my friend’s distinction, at the same time I could not but
+observe how much more the minds of men are under the influence of names
+and abstractions than under the influence of positive things. To this
+opinion the brigadier very readily assented, remarking, at the same
+time, that a well-wrought theory had generally more effect on opinion
+than fifty facts; a result that he attributed to the circumstance of
+monikins having a besetting predisposition to save themselves the
+trouble of thinking.
+
+I was, in particular, struck with the effect of the occultation of
+Principle on motives. I had often remarked that it was by no means safe
+to depend on one’s own motives, for two sufficient reasons; first, that
+we did not always know what our own motives were; and secondly,
+admitting that we did, it was quite unreasonable to suppose that our
+friends would believe them what we thought them to be ourselves. In the
+present instance, every monikin seemed perfectly aware of the
+difficulty; and, instead of waiting for his acquaintances to attribute
+some moral enormity as his governing reason, he prudently adopted a
+moderately selfish inducement for his acts, which he proclaimed with a
+simplicity and frankness that generally obtained credit. Indeed, the
+fact once conceded that the motive was not offensively disinterested
+and just, no one was indisposed to listen to the projects of his
+friend, who usually rose in estimation, as he was found to be
+ingenious, calculating, and shrewd. The effect of all this was to
+render society singularly sincere and plain-spoken; and one
+unaccustomed to so much ingenuousness, or who was ignorant of the
+cause, might, plausibly enough, suppose, at times, that accident had
+thrown him into an extraordinary association with so many ARTISTES,
+who, as it is commonly expressed, lived by their wits. I will avow
+that, had it been the fashion to wear pockets at Leaplow, I should
+often have been concerned for their contents; for sentiments so purely
+unsophisticated, were so openly advanced under the influence of the
+shadow, that one was inevitably led, oftener than was pleasant, to
+think of the relations between meum and tuum, as well as of the
+unexpected causes by which they were sometimes disturbed.
+
+A vacancy occurred, the second day of the eclipse, among the
+representatives of Bivouac, and the candidate of the Horizontals would
+certainly have been chosen to fill it, but for a contretemps connected
+with this affair of motives. The individual in question had lately
+performed that which, in most other countries, and under other
+circumstances, would have passed for an act of creditable national
+feeling; but which, quite as a matter of course, was eagerly presented
+to the electors, by his opponents, as a proof of his utter unfitness to
+be intrusted with their interests. The friends of the candidate took
+the alarm, and indignantly denied the charges of the Perpendiculars,
+affirming that their monikin had been well paid for what he had done.
+In an evil hour, the candidate undertook to explain, by means of a
+handbill, in which he stated that he had been influenced by no other
+motive than a desire to do that which he believed to be right. Such a
+person was deemed to be wanting in natural abilities, and, as a matter
+of course, he was defeated; for your Leaplow elector was not such an
+ass as to confide the care of his interests to one who knew so little
+how to take care of his own.
+
+About this time, too, a celebrated dramatist produced a piece in which
+the hero performed prodigies under the excitement of patriotism, and
+the labor of his pen was incontinently damned for his pains; both pit
+and boxes—the galleries dissenting—deciding that it was out of all
+nature to represent a monikin incurring danger in this unheard-of
+manner, without a motive. The unhappy wight altered the last scene, by
+causing his hero to be rewarded by a good, round sum of money, when the
+piece had a very respectable run for the rest of the season, though I
+question if it ever were as popular as it would have been, had this
+precaution been taken before it was first acted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+THE IMPORTANCE OF MOTIVES TO A LEGISLATOR—MORAL CONSECUTIVENESS,
+COMETS, KITES, AND A CONVOY; WITH SOME EVERY-DAY LEGISLATION; TOGETHER
+WITH CAUSE AND EFFECT.
+
+
+Legislation, during the occultation of the great moral postulate
+Principle by the passage of Pecuniary Interest, is, at the best, but a
+melancholy affair. It proved to be peculiarly so with us just at that
+moment, for the radiance of the divine property had been a good deal
+obscured in the houses, for a long time previously, by the interference
+of various minor satellites. In nothing, therefore, did the deplorable
+state of things which existed make itself more apparent, than in our
+proceedings.
+
+As Captain Poke and myself, notwithstanding our having taken different
+stands in politics, still continued to live together, I had better
+opportunities to note the workings of the obscuration on the ingenuous
+mind of my colleague than on that of most other persons. He early began
+to keep a diary of his expenses, regularly deducting the amount at
+night from the sum of eight dollars, and regarding the balance as so
+much clear gain. His conversation, too, soon betrayed a leaning to his
+personal interests, instead of being of that pure and elevated cast
+which should characterize the language of a statesman. He laid down the
+position, pretty dogmatically, that legislation, after all, was work;
+that “the laborer was worthy of his hire”; and that, for his part, he
+felt no great disposition to go through the vexation and trouble of
+helping to make laws, unless he could see, with a reasonable certainty,
+that something was to be got by it. He thought Leaplow had quite laws
+enough as it was—more than she respected or enforced—and if she wanted
+any more, all she had to do was to pay for them. He should take an
+early occasion to propose that all our wages—or, at any rate, his own;
+others might do as they pleased—should be raised, at the very least,
+two dollars a day, and this while he merely sat in the house; for he
+wished to engage me to move, by way of amendment, that as much more
+should be given to the committees. He did not think it was fair to
+exact of a member to be a committee-man for nothin’, although most of
+them were committee-men for nothin’; and if we were called on to keep
+two watches, in this manner, the least that could be done would be to
+give us TWO PAYS. He said, considering it in the most favorable point
+of view, that there was great wear and tear of brain in legislation,
+and he should never be the man he was before he engaged in the trade;
+he assured me that his idees, sometimes, were so complicated that he
+did not know where to find the one he wanted, and that he had wished
+for a cauda, a thousand times, since he had been in the house, for, by
+keeping the end of it in his hand, like the bight of a rope, he might
+always have suthin’ tangible to cling to. He told me, as a great
+secret, that he was fairly tired of rummaging among his thoughts for
+the knowledge necessary to understand what was going on, and that he
+had finally concluded to put himself, for the rest of the session,
+under the convoy of a God-like. He had been looking out for a fit
+fugleman of this sort, and he had pretty much determined to follow the
+signal of the great God-like of the Parpendic’lars, like the rest of
+them, for it would occasion less confusion in the ranks, and enable him
+to save himself a vast deal of trouble in making up his mind. He didn’t
+know, on the whole, but eight dollars a day might give a living profit,
+provided he could throw all the thinking on his God-like, and turn his
+attention to suthin’ else; he thought of writing his v’y’ges, for he
+understood that anything from foreign parts took like wild-fire in
+Leaplow; and if they didn’t take, he could always project charts for a
+living.
+
+Perhaps it will be necessary to explain what Noah meant by saying that
+he thought of engaging a God-like. The reader has had some insight into
+the nature of one set of political leaders in Leaplow, who are known by
+the name of the Most Patriotic Patriots. These persons, it is scarcely
+necessary to say, are always with the majority, or in a situation to
+avail themselves of the evolutions of the little wheel. Their great
+rotatory principle keeps them pretty constantly in motion, it is true;
+but while there is a centrifugal force to maintain this action, great
+care has been had to provide a centripetal counterpoise, in order to
+prevent them from bolting out of the political orbit. It is supposed to
+be owing to this peculiarity in their party organizations, that your
+Leaplow patriot is so very remarkable for going round and round a
+subject, without ever touching it.
+
+As an offset to this party arrangement, the Perpendiculars have taken
+refuge in the God-likes. A God-like, in Leaplow politics, in some
+respects resembles a saint in the Catholic calendar; that is to say, he
+is canonized, after passing through a certain amount of temptation and
+vice with a whole skin; after having his cause pleaded for a certain
+number of years before the high authorities of his party; and, usually,
+after having had a pretty good taste of purgatory. Canonization
+attained, however, all gets to be plain sailing with him. He is spared,
+singular as it may appear, even a large portion of his former “wear and
+tear” of brains, as Noah had termed it, for nothing puts one so much at
+liberty in this respect, as to have full powers to do all the thinking.
+Thinking in company, like travelling in company, requires that we
+should have some respect to the movements, wishes, and opinions of
+others; but he who gets a carte blanche for his sentiments, resembles
+the uncaged bird, and may fly in whatever direction most pleases
+himself, and feel confident, as he goes, that his ears will be saluted
+with the usual traveller’s signal of “all’s right.” I can best compare
+the operation of your God-like and his votaries, to the action of a
+locomotive with its railroad train. As that goes, this follows; faster
+or slower, the movement is certain to be accompanied; when the steam is
+up they fly, when the fire is out they crawl, and that, too, with a
+very uneasy sort of motion; and when a bolt is broken, they who have
+just been riding without the smallest trouble to themselves, are
+compelled to get out and push the load ahead as well as they can,
+frequently with very rueful faces, and in very dirty ways. The cars
+whisk about, precisely as the locomotive whisks about, all the
+turn-outs are necessarily imitated, and, in short, one goes after the
+other very much as it is reasonable to suppose will happen when two
+bodies are chained together, and the entire moving power is given to
+only one of them. A God-like in Leaplow, moreover, is usually a Riddle.
+It was the object of Noah to hitch on to one of these moral steam-tugs,
+in order that he too might be dragged through his duties without effort
+to himself; an expedient, as the old sealer expressed it, that would in
+some degree remedy his natural want of a cauda, by rendering him
+nothing but tail.
+
+“I expect, Sir John,” he said, for he had a practice of expecting by
+way of conjecture, “I expect this is the reason why the Leaplowers dock
+themselves. They find it more convenient to give up the management of
+their affairs to some one of these God-likes, and fall into his wake
+like the tail of a comet, which makes it quite unnecessary to have any
+other cauda.”
+
+“I understand you; they amputate to prevent tautology.”
+
+Noah rarely spoke of any project until his mind was fairly made up; and
+the execution usually soon followed the proposition. The next thing I
+heard of him, therefore, he was fairly under the convoy, as he called
+it, of one of the most prominent of the Riddles. Curious to know how he
+liked the experiment, after a week’s practice, I called his attention
+to the subject, by a pretty direct inquiry.
+
+He told me it was altogether the pleasantest mode of legislating that
+had ever been devised. He was now perfectly master of his own time, and
+in fact, he was making out a set of charts for the Leaplow marine, a
+task that was likely to bring him in a good round sum, as pumpkins were
+cheap, and in the polar seas he merely copied the monikin authorities,
+and out of it he had things pretty much his own way. As for the Great
+Allegory, when he wanted a hint about it, or, indeed, about any other
+point at issue, all he had to do was to inquire what his God-like
+thought about it, and to vote accordingly. Then he saved himself a
+great deal of breath in the way of argument out of doors, for he and
+the rest of the clientele of this Riddle, having officially invested
+their patron with all their own parts, the result had been such an
+accumulation of knowledge in this one individual, as enabled them
+ordinarily to floor any antagonist by the simple quotation of his
+authority. Such or such is the opinion of God-like this or of God-like
+that, was commonly sufficient; and then there was no lack of material,
+for he had taken care to provide himself with a Riddle who, he really
+believed, had given an opinion, at some time or other, on every side of
+every subject that had ever been mooted in Leaplow. He could nullify,
+or mollify, or qualify, with the best of them; and these, which he
+termed the three fies, he believed were the great requisites of a
+Leaplow legislator. He admitted, however, that some show of
+independence was necessary, in order to give value to the opinion of
+even a God-like, for monikin nature revolted at anything like total
+mental dependence; and that he had pretty much made up his mind to
+think for himself on a question that was to be decided that very day.
+
+The case to which the captain alluded was this. The city of Bivouac was
+divided in three pretty nearly equal parts which were separated from
+each other by two branches of a marsh; one part of the town being on a
+sort of island, and the other two parts on the respective margins of
+the low land. It was very desirable to connect these different portions
+of the capital by causeways, and a law to that effect had been
+introduced in the house. Everybody, in or out of the house, was in
+favor of the project, for the causeways had become, in some measure,
+indispensable. The only disputed point was the length of the works in
+question. One who is but little acquainted with legislation, and who
+has never witnessed the effects of an occultation of the great moral
+postulate Principle, by the orb Pecuniary Interest, would very
+plausibly suppose that the whole affair lay in a nutshell, and that all
+we had to do was to pass a law ordering the causeways to extend just as
+far as the public convenience rendered it necessary. But these are mere
+tyros in the affairs of monikins. The fact was that there were just as
+many different opinions and interests at work to regulate the length of
+the causeways, as there were, owners of land along their line of route.
+The great object was to start in what was called the business quarter
+of the town, and then to proceed with the work as far as circumstances
+would allow. We had propositions before us in favor of from one hundred
+feet as far as up to ten thousand. Every inch was fought for with as
+much obstinacy as if it were an important breach that was defended; and
+combinations and conspiracies were as rife as if we were in the midst
+of a revolution. It was the general idea that by filling in with dirt,
+a new town might be built wherever the causeway terminated, and
+fortunes made by an act of parliament. The inhabitants of the island
+rallied en masse against the causeway leading one inch from their
+quarter, after it had fairly reached it; and, so throughout the entire
+line, monikins battled for what they called their interests, with an
+obstinacy worthy of heroes.
+
+On this great question, for it had, in truth, become of the last
+importance by dragging into its consideration most of the leading
+measures of the day, as well as six or seven of the principal
+ordinances of the Great National Allegory, the respective partisans
+logically contending that, for the time being, nothing should advance a
+foot in Leaplow that did not travel along that causeway, Noah
+determined to take an independent stand. This resolution was not
+lightly formed, for he remained rather undecided, until, by waiting a
+sufficient time, he felt quite persuaded that nothing was to be got by
+following any other course. His God-like luckily was in the same
+predicament, and everything promised a speedy occasion to show the
+world what it was to act on principle; and this, too, in the middle of
+a moral eclipse.
+
+When the question came to be discussed, the landholders along the first
+line of the causeway were soon reasoned down by the superior interests
+of those who lived on the island. The rub was, the point of permitting
+the work to go any further. The islanders manifested great liberality,
+according to their account of themselves; for they even consented that
+the causeway should be constructed on the other marsh to precisely such
+a distance as would enable any one to go as near as possible to the
+hostile quarter, without absolutely entering it. To admit the latter,
+they proved to demonstration, would be changing the character of their
+own island from that of an entrepot to that of a mere thoroughfare. No
+reasonable monikin could expect it of them.
+
+As the Horizontals, by some calculation that I never understood, had
+satisfied themselves it might better answer their purposes to construct
+the entire work, than to stop anywhere between the two extremes, my
+duty was luckily, on this occasion, in exact accordance with my
+opinions; and, as a matter of course, I voted, this time, in a way of
+which I could approve. Noah, finding himself a free agent, now made his
+push for character, and took sides with us. Very fortunately we
+prevailed, all the beaten interests joining themselves, at the last
+moment, to the weakest side, or, in other words, to that which was
+right; and Leaplow presented the singular spectacle of having a just
+enactment passed during the occultation of the great moral postulate,
+so often named. I ought to mention that I have termed principle a
+postulate, throughout this narrative, simply because it is usually in
+the dilemma of a disputed proposition.
+
+No sooner was the result known, than my worthy colleague came round to
+the Horizontal side of the house, to express his satisfaction with
+himself for the course he had just taken. He said it was certainly very
+convenient and very labor-saving to obey a God-like, and that he got on
+much better with his charts now he was at liberty to give his whole
+mind to the subject; but there was suthin’—he didn’t know what—but “a
+sort of Stunin’tun feeling” in doing what one thought right, after all,
+that caused him to be glad that he had voted for the whole causeway. He
+did not own any land in Leaplow, and therefore he concluded that what
+he had done, he had done for the best; at any rate, if he had got
+nothin’ by it, he had lost nothin’ by it, and he hoped all would come
+right in the end. The people of the island, it is true, had talked
+pretty fair about what they would do for those who should sustain their
+interests, but he had got sick of a currency in promises; and fair
+words, at his time of life, didn’t go for much; and so, on the whole,
+he had pretty much concluded to do as he had done. He thought no one
+could call in question his vote, for he was just as poor and as badly
+off now he had voted, as he was while he was making up his mind. For
+his part, he shouldn’t be ashamed, hereafter, to look both Deacon Snort
+and the Parson in the face, when he got home, or even Miss Poke. He
+knew what it was to have a clean conscience, as well as any man; for
+none so well knew what it was to be without anything, as they who had
+felt by experience its want. His God-like was a very labor-saving
+God-like, but he had found, on inquiry, that he came from another part
+of the island, and that he didn’t care a straw which way his kite-tail
+(Noah’s manner of pronouncing clientele) voted. In short, he defied any
+one to say ought ag’in’ him this time, and he was not sorry the
+occasion had offered to show his independence, for his enemies had not
+been backward in remarking that, for some days, he had been little
+better than a speaking-trumpet to roar out anything his God-like might
+wish to have proclaimed. He concluded by stating that he could not hold
+out much longer without meat of some sort or other, and by begging that
+I would second a resolution he thought of offering, by which regular
+substantial rations were to be dealt out to all the human part of the
+house. The inhumans might live upon nuts still, if they liked them.
+
+I remonstrated against the project of the rations, made a strong appeal
+to his pride, by demonstrating that we should be deemed little better
+than brutes if we were seen eating flesh, and advised him to cause some
+of his nuts to be roasted, by way of variety. After a good deal of
+persuasion, he promised further abstinence, although he went away with
+a singularly carnivorous look about the mouth, and an eye that spoke
+pork in every glance.
+
+I was at home the next day, busy with my friend the brigadier, in
+looking over the Great National Allegory, with a view to prevent
+falling, unwittingly, into any more offences of quoting its opinions,
+when Noah burst into the room, as rabid as a wolf that had been bitten
+by a whole pack of hounds. Such, indeed, was, in some measure, his
+situation; for, according to his statement, he had been baited that
+morning, in the public streets even, by every monikin, monikina,
+monikino, brat, and beggar, that he had seen. Astonished to hear that
+my colleague had fallen into this disfavor with his constitutents, I
+was not slow in asking an explanation.
+
+The captain affirmed that the matter was beyond the reach of any
+explanation it was in his power to give. He had voted in the affair of
+the causeway, in strict conformity with the dictates of his conscience,
+and yet here was the whole population accusing him of bribery—nay, even
+the journals had openly flouted at him for what they called his
+barefaced and flagrant corruption. Here the captain laid before us six
+or seven of the leading journals of Bivouac, in all of which his late
+vote was treated with quite as little ceremony as if it had been an
+unequivocal act of sheep-stealing.
+
+I looked at my friend the brigadier for an explanation. After running
+his eye over the articles in the journals, the latter smiled, and cast
+a look of commiseration at our colleague.
+
+“You have certainly committed a grave fault here, my friend,” he said,
+“and one that is seldom forgiven in Leaplow—perhaps I might say never,
+during the occultation of the great moral postulate, as happens to be
+the case at present.”
+
+“Tell me my sins at once, brigadier,” cried Noah, with the look of a
+martyr, “and put me out of pain.”
+
+“You have forgotten to display a motive for your stand during the late
+hot discussion; and, as a matter of course, the community ascribes the
+worst that monikin ingenuity can devise. Such an oversight would ruin
+even a God-like!”
+
+“But, my dear Mr. Downright,” I kindly interposed, “our colleague, in
+this instance, is supposed to have acted on principle.”
+
+The brigadier looked up, turning his nose into the air, like a pup that
+has not yet opened its eyes, and then intimated that he could not see
+the quality I had named, it being obscured by the passage of the orb of
+Pecuniary Interest before its disc. I now began to comprehend the case,
+which really was much more grave than, at first, I could have believed
+possible. Noah himself seemed staggered; for, I believe, he had fallen
+on the simple and natural expedient of inquiring what he himself would
+have thought of the conduct of a colleague who had given a vote on a
+subject so weighty, without exposing a motive.
+
+“Had the captain owned but a foot square of earth, at the end of the
+causeway,” observed the brigadier, mournfully, “the matter might be
+cleared up; but as things are, it is beyond dispute, a most unfortunate
+occurrence.”
+
+“But Sir John voted with me, and he is no more a free-holder in
+Leaplow, than I am myself.”
+
+“True; but Sir John voted with the bulk of his political friends.”
+
+“All the Horizontals were not in the majority; for at least twenty
+went, on this occasion, with the minority.”
+
+“Undeniable—yet every monikin of them had a visible motive. This owned
+a lot by the wayside; that had houses on the island, and another was
+the heir of a great proprietor at the same point of the road. Each and
+all had their distinct and positive interests at stake, and not one of
+them was guilty of so great a weakness as to leave his cause to be
+defended by the extravagant pretension of mere principle!”
+
+“My God-like, the greatest of all the Riddles, absented himself, and
+did not vote at all.”
+
+“Simply because he had no good ground to justify any course he might
+take. No public monikin can expect to escape censure, if he fail to put
+his friends, in the way of citing some plausible and intelligible
+motive for his conduct.”
+
+“How, sir! cannot a man, once in his life, do an act without being
+bought like a horse or a dog, and escape with an inch of character?”
+
+“I shall not take upon myself to say what MEN can do,” returned the
+brigadier; “no doubt they manage this affair better than it is managed
+here; but, so far as monikins are concerned, there is no course more
+certain to involve a total loss of character—I may say so destructive
+to reputation even for intellect—as to act without a good, apparent,
+and substantial MOTIVE.”
+
+“In the name of God, what is to be done, brigadier?”
+
+“I see no other course than to resign. Your constituents must very
+naturally have lost all confidence in you; for one who so very
+obviously neglects his own interests, it cannot be supposed will be
+very tenacious about protecting the interests of others. If you would
+escape with the little character that is left, you will forthwith
+resign. I do not perceive the smallest chance for you by going through
+gyration No. 4, both public opinions uniformly condemning the monikin
+who acts without a pretty obvious, as well as a pretty weighty motive.”
+
+Noah made a merit of necessity; and, after some further deliberation
+between us, he signed his name to the following letter to the speaker,
+which was drawn up on the spot, by the brigadier.
+
+“Mr. Speaker:—The state of my health obliges me to return the high
+political trust which has been confided to me by the citizens of
+Bivouac, into the hands from which it was received. In tendering my
+resignation, I wish to express the great regret with which I part from
+colleagues so every way worthy of profound respect and esteem, and I
+beg you to assure them, that wherever fate may hereafter lead me, I
+shall ever retain the deepest regard for every honorable member with
+whom it has been my good fortune to serve. The emigrant interest, in
+particular, will ever be the nearest and dearest to my heart.” Signed,
+
+“NOAH POKE.”
+
+The captain did not affix his name to this letter without many heavy
+sighs, and divers throes of ambition; for even a mistaken politician
+yields to necessity with regret. Having changed the word emigrant to
+that of “immigrunt,” however, he put as good a face as possible on the
+matter, and wrote the fatal signature. He then left the house,
+declaring he didn’t so much begrudge his successor the pay, as nothing
+but nuts were to be had with the money; and that, as for himself, he
+felt as sneaking as he believed was the case with Nebuchadnezzar, when
+he was compelled to get down on all-fours, and eat grass.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+SOME EXPLANATIONS—A HUMAN APPETITE—A DINNER AND A BONNE BOUCHE.
+
+
+The brigadier and myself remained behind to discuss the general
+bearings of this unexpected event.
+
+“Your rigid demand for motives, my good sir,” I remarked, “reduces the
+Leaplow political morality very much, after all, to the level of the
+social-stake system of our part of the world.”
+
+“They both depend on the crutch of personal Interests, it is true;
+though there is, between them, the difference of the interests of a
+part and of the interests of the whole.”
+
+“And could a part act less commendably than the whole appear to have
+acted in this instance?”
+
+“You forget that Leaplow, just at this moment, is under a moral
+eclipse. I shall not say that these eclipses do not occur often, but
+they occur quite as frequently in other parts of the region, as they
+occur here. We have three great modes of controlling monikin affairs,
+viz., the one, the few, and the many—”
+
+“Precisely the same classification exists among men!” I interrupted.
+
+“Some of our improvements are reflected backward; twilight following as
+well as preceding the passage of the sun,” quite coolly returned the
+brigadier. “We think that the many come nearest to balancing the evil,
+although we are far from believing even them to be immaculate.
+Admitting that the tendencies to wrong are equal in the three systems
+(which we do not, however, for we think our own has the least), it is
+contended that the many escape one great source of oppression and
+injustice, by escaping the onerous provisions which physical weakness
+is compelled to make, in order to protect itself against physical
+strength.”
+
+“This is reversing a very prevalent opinion among men, sir, who usually
+maintain that the tyranny of the many is the worst sort of all
+tyrannies.”
+
+“This opinion has got abroad simply because the lion has not been
+permitted to draw his own picture. As cruelty is commonly the
+concomitant of cowardice, so is oppression nine times out of ten the
+result of weakness. It is natural for the few to dread the many, while
+it is not natural for the many to dread the few. Then, under
+institutions in which the many rule, certain great principles that are
+founded on natural justice, as a matter of course, are openly
+recognized; and it is rare, indeed, that they do not, more or less,
+influence the public acts. On the other hand, the control of a few
+requires that these same truths should be either mystified or entirely
+smothered: and the consequence is injustice.”
+
+“But, admitting all your maxims, brigadier, as regards the few and the
+many, you must yourself allow that here, in your beloved Leaplow
+itself, monikins consult their own interests; and this, after all, is
+acting on the fundamental principle of the great European social-stake
+system.”
+
+“Meaning that the goods of the world ought to be the test of political
+power. By the sad confusion which exists among us, at this moment, Sir
+John, you must perceive that we are not exactly under the most salutary
+of all possible influences. I take it that the great desideratum of
+society is to be governed by certain great moral truths. The inferences
+and corollaries of these truths are principles, which come of heaven.
+Now, agreeably to the monikin dogmas, the love of money is ‘of the
+earth, earthy’; and, at the first blush, it would not seem to be quite
+safe to receive such an inducement as the governing motive of one
+monikin, and, by a pretty fair induction, it would seem to be equally
+unwise to admit it for a good many. You will remember, also, that when
+none but the rich have authority, they control not only their own
+property, but that of others who have less. Your principle supposes,
+that in taking care of his own, the elector of wealth must take care of
+what belongs to the rest of the community; but our experience shows
+that a monikin can be particularly careful of himself, and singularly
+negligent of his neighbor. Therefore do we hold that money is a bad
+foundation for power.”
+
+“You unsettle everything, brigadier, without finding a substitute.”
+
+“Simply because it is easy to unsettle everything and very difficult to
+find substitutes. But, as respects the base of society, I merely doubt
+the wisdom of setting up a qualification that we all know depends on an
+unsound principle. I much fear, Sir John, that, so long as monikins are
+monikins, we shall never be quite perfect; and as to your social-stake
+system, I am of opinion that as society is composed of all, it may be
+well to hear what all have to say about its management.”
+
+“Many men, and, I dare say, many monikins, are not to be trusted even
+with the management of their own concerns.”
+
+“Very true; but it does not follow that other men, or other monikins,
+will lose sight of their own interests on this account, if vested with
+the right to act as their substitutes. You have been long enough a
+legislator, now, to have got some idea how difficult it is to make even
+a direct and responsible representative respect entirely the interests
+and wishes of his constituents; and the fact will show you how little
+he will be likely to think of others, who believes that he acts as
+their master and not as their servant.”
+
+“The amount of all this, brigadier, is that you have little faith in
+monikin disinterestedness, in any shape; that you believe he who is
+intrusted with power will abuse it; and therefore, you choose to divide
+the trust, in order to divide the abuses; that the love of money is an
+‘earthy’ quality, and not to be confided in as the controlling power of
+a state; and, finally, that the social-stake system is radically wrong,
+inasmuch as it is no more than carrying out a principle that is in
+itself defective.”
+
+My companion gaped, like one content to leave the matter there. I
+wished him a good morning, and walked upstairs in quest of Noah, whose
+carnivorous looks had given me considerable uneasiness. The captain was
+out; and, after searching for him in the streets for an hour or two, I
+returned to our abode fatigued and hungry.
+
+At no great distance from our own door, I met Judge People’s Friend,
+shorn and dejected, and I stopped to say a kind word, before going up
+the ladder. It was quite impossible to see a gentleman, whom one had
+met in good society and in better fortunes, with every hair shaved from
+his body, his apology for a tail still sore from its recent amputation,
+and his entire mien expressive of republican humility, without a desire
+to condole with him. I expressed my regrets, therefore, as succinctly
+as possible, encouraging him with the hope of seeing a new covering of
+down before long, but delicately abstaining from any allusion to the
+cauda, whose loss I knew was irretrievable. To my great surprise,
+however, the judge answered cheerfully; discarding, for the moment,
+every appearance of self-abasement and mortification.
+
+“How is this?” I cried; “you are not then miserable?”
+
+“Very far from it, Sir John—I never was in better spirits, or had
+better prospects, in my life.”
+
+I remembered the extraordinary manner in which the brigadier had saved
+Noah’s head, and was fully resolved not to be astonished at any
+manifestation of monikin ingenuity. Still I could not forbear demanding
+an explanation.
+
+“Why, it may seem odd to you, Sir John, to find a politician, who is
+apparently in the depths of despair, really on the eve of a glorious
+preferment. Such, however, is in fact my case. In Leaplow, humility is
+everything. The monikin who will take care and repeat sufficiently
+often that he is just the poorest devil going, that he is absolutely
+unfit for even the meanest employment in the land, and in other
+respects ought to be hooted out of society, may very safely consider
+himself in a fair way to be elevated to some of the dignities he
+declares himself the least fitted to fill.”
+
+“In such a case, all he will have to do then, will be to make his
+choice, and denounce himself loudest touching his especial
+disqualifications for that very station?”
+
+“You are apt, Sir John, and would succeed, if you would only consent to
+remain among us!” said the judge, winking.
+
+“I begin to see into your management—after all, you are neither
+miserable nor ashamed?”
+
+“Not the least in the world. It is of more importance for monikins of
+my calibre to seem to be anything than to be it. My fellow-citizens are
+usually satisfied with this sacrifice; and, now principle is eclipsed,
+nothing is easier.”
+
+“But how happens it, judge, that one of your surprising dexterity and
+agility should be caught tripping? I had thought you particularly
+expert, and infallible in all the gyrations. Perhaps the little affair
+of the cauda has leaked out?”
+
+The judge laughed in my face.
+
+“I see you know little of us, after all, Sir John. Here have we
+proscribed caudae, as anti-republican, both public opinions setting
+their faces against them; and yet a monikin may wear one abroad a mile
+long with impunity if he will just submit to a new dock when he comes
+home, and swear that he is the most miserable wretch going. If he can
+throw in a favorable word, too, touching the Leaplow cats and dogs—Lord
+bless you, sir! they would pardon treason!”
+
+“I begin to comprehend your policy, judge, if not your polity. Leaplow
+being a popular government, it becomes necessary that its public agents
+should be popular too. Now, as monikins naturally delight in their own
+excellences, nothing so disposes them to give credit to another, as his
+professions that he is worse than themselves.”
+
+The judge nodded and grinned.
+
+“But another word, dear sir—as you feel yourself constrained to commend
+the cats and dogs of Leaplow, do you belong to that school of
+philocats, who take their revenge for their amenity to the quadrupeds,
+by berating their fellow-creatures?”
+
+The judge started, and glanced about him as if he dreaded a
+thief-taker. Then earnestly imploring me to respect his situation, he
+added in a whisper, that the subject of the people was sacred with him,
+that he rarely spoke of them without a reverence, and that his
+favorable sentiments in relation to the cats and dogs were not
+dependent on any particular merits of the animals themselves, but
+merely because they were the people’s cats and dogs. Fearful that I
+might say something still more disagreeable, the judge hastened to take
+his leave, and I never saw him afterward. I make no doubt, however,
+that in good time his hair grew as he grew again into favor, and that
+he found the means to exhibit the proper length of tail on all suitable
+occasions.
+
+A crowd in the street now caught my attention. On approaching it, a
+colleague who was there was kind enough to explain its cause.
+
+It would seem that certain Leaphighers had been travelling in Leaplow;
+and, not satisfied with this liberty, they had actually written books
+concerning things that they had seen, and things that they had not
+seen. As respects the latter, neither of the public opinions was very
+sensitive, although many of them reflected on the Great National
+Allegory and the sacred rights of monikins; but as respects the former,
+there was a very lively excitement. These writers had the audacity to
+say that the Leaplowers had cut off all their caudae, and the whole
+community was convulsed at an outrage so unprecedented. It was one
+thing to take such a step, and another to have it proclaimed to the
+world in books. If the Leaplowers had no tails, it was clearly their
+own fault. Nature had formed them with tails. They had bobbed
+themselves on a republican principle; and no one’s principles ought to
+be thrown into his face, in this rude manner, more especially during a
+moral eclipse.
+
+The dispensers of the essence of lopped tails threatened vengeance;
+caricaturists were put in requisition; some grinned, some menaced, some
+swore, and all read!
+
+I left the crowd, taking the direction of my door again, pondering on
+this singular state of society, in which a peculiarity that had been
+deliberately and publicly adopted, should give rise to a sensitiveness
+of a character so unusual. I very well knew that men are commonly more
+ashamed of natural imperfections than those which, in a great measure,
+depend on themselves; but then men are, in their own estimation at
+least, placed by nature at the head of creation, and in that capacity
+it is reasonable to suppose they will be jealous of their natural
+privileges. The present case was rather Leaplow than generic; and I
+could only account for it, by supposing that nature had placed certain
+nerves in the wrong part of the Leaplow anatomy.
+
+On entering the house, a strong smell of roasted meat saluted my
+nostrils, causing a very unphilosophical pleasure to the olfactory
+nerves, a pleasure which acted very directly, too, on the gastric
+juices of the stomach. In plain English, I had very sensible evidence
+that it was not enough to transport a man to the monikin region, send
+him to parliament, and keep him on nuts for a week, to render him
+exclusively ethereal, I found it was vain “to kick against the pricks.”
+The odor of roasted meat was stronger than all the facts just named,
+and I was fain to abandon philosophy, and surrender to the belly. I
+descended incontinently to the kitchen, guided by a sense no more
+spiritual than that which directs the hound in the chase.
+
+On opening the door of our refectory, such a delicious perfume greeted
+the nose, that I melted like a romantic girl at the murmur of a
+waterfall, and, losing sight of all the sublime truths so lately
+acquired, I was guilty of the particular human weakness which is
+usually described as having the “mouth water.”
+
+The sealer had quite taken leave of his monikin forbearance, and was
+enjoying himself in a peculiarly human manner. A dish of roasted meat
+was lying before him, and his eyes fairly glared as he turned them from
+me to the viand, in a way to render it a little doubtful whether I was
+a welcome visitor. But that honest old principle of seamen which never
+refuses to share equally with an ancient mess-mate, got the better even
+of his voracity.
+
+“Sit down, Sir John,” the captain cried, without ceasing to masticate,
+“and make no bones of it. To own the fact, the latter are almost as
+good as the flesh. I never tasted a sweeter morsel!”
+
+I did not wait for a second invitation, the reader may be sure; and in
+less than ten minutes the dish was as clear as a table that had been
+swept by harpies. As this work is intended for one in which truth is
+rigidly respected, I shall avow that I do not remember any cultivation
+of sentiment which gave me half so much satisfaction as that short and
+hurried repast. I look back to it, even now, as to the very beau ideal
+of a dinner! Its fault was in the quantity, and not in quality.
+
+I gazed greedily about for more. Just then, I caught a glimpse of a
+face that seemed looking at me with melancholy reproach. The truth
+flashed upon me in a flood of horrible remorse. Rushing upon Noah like
+a tiger, I seized him by the throat, and cried, in a voice of despair:
+
+“Cannibal! what hast thou done?”
+
+“Loosen your grip, Sir John—we do not relish these hugs at Stunin’tun.”
+
+“Wretch! thou hast made me the participator of thy crime! We have eaten
+Brigadier Downright.”
+
+“Loosen, Sir John, or human natur’ will rebel.”
+
+“Monster! give up thy unholy repast—dost not see a million reproaches
+in the eyes of the innocent victim of thy insatiable appetites?”
+
+“Cast off, Sir John, cast off, while we are friends, I care not if I
+have swallowed all the brigadiers in Leaplow—off hands!”
+
+“Never, monster! until thou disgorgest thy unholy meal!”
+
+Noah could endure no more; but, seizing me by the throat, on the
+retaliating principle, I soon had some such sensations as one would be
+apt to feel if his gullet were in a vice. I shall not attempt to
+describe very minutely the miracle that followed. Hanging ought to be
+an effectual remedy for many delusions; for, in my case, the bowstring
+I was under certainly did wonders in a very short time. Gradually the
+whole scene changed. First came a mist, then a vertigo; and finally, as
+the captain relaxed his hold, objects appeared in new forms, and
+instead of being in our lodgings in Bivouac, I found myself in my old
+apartment in the Rue de Rivoli, Paris.
+
+“King!” exclaimed Noah, who stood before me, red in the face with
+exertion; “this is no boy’s play, and if it’s to be repeated, I shall
+use a lashing! Where would be the harm, Sir John, if a man had eaten a
+monkey?”
+
+Astonishment kept me mute. Every object, just as I had left it the
+morning we started for London, on our way to Leaphigh, was there. A
+table, in the centre of the room, was covered with sheets of paper
+closely written over, which, on examination, I found contained this
+manuscript as far as the last chapter. Both the captain and myself were
+attired as usual; I a la Parisien and he a la Stunin’tun. A small ship,
+very ingeniously made, and very accurately rigged, lay on the floor,
+with “Walrus” written on her stern. As my bewildered eye caught a
+glimpse of this vessel, Noah informed me that, having nothing to do
+except to look after my welfare (a polite way of characterizing his
+ward over my person, as I afterward found), he had employed his leisure
+in constructing the toy.
+
+All was inexplicable. There was really the smell of meat. I had also
+that peculiar sensation of fulness which is apt to succeed a dinner,
+and a dish well filled with bones was in plain view. I took up one of
+the latter, in order to ascertain its genus. The captain kindly
+informed me that it was the remains of a pig, which had cost him a
+great deal of trouble to obtain, as the French viewed the act of eating
+a pig as very little less heinous than the act of eating a child.
+Suspicions began to trouble me, and I now turned to look for the head
+and reproachful eye of the brigadier.
+
+The head was where I had just before seen it, visible over the top of a
+trunk; but it was so far raised as to enable me to see that it was
+still planted on its shoulders. A second look enabled me to distinguish
+the meditative, philosophical countenance of Dr. Reasono, who was still
+in the hussar-jacket and petticoat, though, being in the house, he had
+very properly laid aside the Spanish hat with bedraggled feathers.
+
+A movement followed in the antechamber, and a hurried conversation, in
+a low, earnest tone, succeeded. The captain disappeared, and joined the
+speakers. I listened intently, but could not catch any of the
+intonations of a dialect founded on the decimal principle. Presently
+the door opened, and Dr. Etherington stood before me!
+
+The good divine regarded me long and earnestly. Tears filled his eyes,
+and, stretching out both hands towards me, he asked:
+
+“Do you know me, Jack?”
+
+“Know you, dear sir!—Why should I not?”
+
+“And do you forgive me, dear boy?”
+
+“For what, sir?—I am sure, I have most reason to demand your pardon for
+a thousand follies.”
+
+“Ah! the letter—the unkind—the inconsiderate letter!”
+
+“I have not had a letter from you, sir, in a twelvemonth; the last was
+anything but unkind.”
+
+“Though Anna wrote, it was at my dictation.”
+
+I passed a hand over my brow, and had dawnings of the truth.
+
+“Anna?”
+
+“Is here—in Paris—and miserable—most miserable!—on your account.”
+
+Every particle of monikinity that was left in my system instantly gave
+way to a flood of human sensations.
+
+“Let me fly to her, dear sir—a moment is an age!”
+
+“Not just yet, my boy. We have much to say to each other, nor is she in
+this hotel. To-morrow, when both are better prepared, you shall meet.”
+
+“Add, never to separate, sir, and I will be patient as a lamb.”
+
+“Never to separate, I believe it will be better to say.”
+
+I hugged my venerable guardian, and found a delicious relief from a
+most oppressive burden of sensations, in a flow of tears,
+
+Dr. Etherington soon led me into a calmer tone of mind. In the course
+of the day, many matters were discussed and settled. I was told that
+Captain Poke had been a good nurse, though in a sealing fashion; and
+that the least I could do was to send him back to Stunin’tun, free of
+cost. This was agreed to, and the worthy but dogmatical mariner was
+promised the means of fitting out a new “Debby and Dolly.”
+
+“These philosophers had better be presented to some academy,” observed
+the doctor, smiling, as he pointed to the family of amiable strangers,
+“being already F. U. D. G. E.’s and H. O. A. X.’s. Mr. Reasono, in
+particular, is unfit for ordinary society.”
+
+“Do with them as you please, my more than father. Let the poor animals,
+however, be kept from physical suffering.”
+
+“Attention shall be paid to all their wants, both physical and moral.”
+
+“And in a day or two, we shall proceed to the rectory?”
+
+“The day after to-morrow, if you have strength.”
+
+“And to-morrow?”
+
+“Anna will see you.”
+
+“And the next day?”
+
+“Nay, not quite so soon, Jack; but the moment we think you perfectly
+restored, she shall share your fortunes for the remainder of your
+common probation.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+EXPLANATIONS—A LEAVE-TAKING—LOVE—CONFESSIONS, BUT NO PENITENCE.
+
+
+A night of sweet repose left me refreshed, and with a pulse that
+denoted less agitation than on the preceding day. I awoke early, had a
+bath, and sent for Captain Poke to take his coffee with me, before we
+parted; for it had been settled, the previous evening, that he was to
+proceed towards Stunin’tun forthwith. My old messmate, colleague,
+co-adventurer, and fellow-traveller, was not slow in obeying the
+summons. I confess his presence was a comfort to me, for I did not like
+looking at objects that had been so inexplicably replaced before my
+eyes, unsupported by the countenance of one who had gone through so
+many grave scenes in my company.
+
+“This has been a very extraordinary voyage of ours, Captain Poke,” I
+remarked, after the worthy sealer had swallowed sixteen eggs, an
+omelet, seven cotelettes, and divers accessories. “Do you think of
+publishing your private journal?”
+
+“Why, in my opinion, Sir John, the less that either of us says of the
+v’y’ge the better.”
+
+“And why so? We have had the discoveries of Columbus, Cook, Vancouver,
+and Hudson—why not those of Captain Poke?”
+
+“To own the truth, we sealers do not like to speak of our cruising
+grounds—and, as for these monikins, after all, what are they good for?
+A thousand of them wouldn’t make a quart of ‘ile, and by all accounts
+their fur is worth next to nothin’.”
+
+“Do you account their philosophy for nothing? and their
+jurisprudence?—you, who were so near losing your head, and who did
+actually lose your tail, by the axe of the executioner?”
+
+Noah placed a hand behind him, fumbling about the seat of reason, with
+evident uneasiness. Satisfied that no harm had been done, he very
+coolly placed half a muffin in what he called his “provision hatchway.”
+
+“You will give me this pretty model of our good old ‘Walrus,’ captain?”
+
+“Take it, o’ Heaven’s sake, Sir John, and good luck to you with it.
+You, who give me a full-grown schooner, will be but poorly paid with a
+toy.”
+
+“It’s as like the dear old craft as one pea is like another!”
+
+“I dare say it may be. I never knew a model that hadn’t suthin’ of the
+original in it.”
+
+“Well, my good shipmate, we must part. You know I am to go and see the
+lady who is soon to be my wife, and the diligence will be ready to take
+you to Havre, before I return.”
+
+“God bless you! Sir John—God bless you!” Noah blew his nose till it
+rung like a French horn. I thought his little coals of eyes were
+glittering, too, more than common, most probably with moisture. “You’re
+a droll navigator, and make no more of the ice than a colt makes of a
+rail. But though the man at the wheel is not always awake the heart
+seldom sleeps.”
+
+“When the ‘Debby and Dolly’ is fairly in the water, you will do me the
+pleasure of letting me know it.”
+
+“Count on me, Sir John. Before we part, I have, however, a small favor
+to ask.”
+
+“Name it.”
+
+Here Noah drew out of his pocket a sort of basso relievo carved in
+pine. It represented Neptune armed with a harpoon instead of a trident;
+the captain always contending that the god of the seas should never
+carry the latter, but that, in its place, he should be armed either
+with the weapon he had given him, or with a boat-hook. On the right of
+Neptune was an English gentleman holding out a bag of guineas. On the
+other was a female who, I was told, represented the goddess of liberty,
+while it was secretly a rather flattering likeness of Miss Poke. The
+face of Neptune was supposed to have some similitude to that of her
+husband. The captain, with that modesty which is invariably the
+companion of merit in the arts, asked permission to have a copy of this
+design placed on the schooner’s stern. It would have been churlish to
+refuse such a compliment; and I now offered Noah my hand, as the time
+for parting had arrived. The sealer grasped me rather tightly, and
+seemed disposed to say more than adieu.
+
+“You are going to see an angel, Sir John.”
+
+“How!—Do you know anything of Miss Etherington?”
+
+“I should be as blind as an old bumboat else. During our late v’y’ge, I
+saw her often.”
+
+“This is strange!—But there is evidently something on your mind, my
+friend; speak freely.”
+
+“Well, then, Sir John, talk of anything but of our v’y’ge, to the dear
+crittur. I do not think she is quite prepared yet to hear of all the
+wonders we saw.”
+
+I promised to be prudent; and the captain, shaking me cordially by the
+hand, finally wished me farewell. There were some rude touches of
+feeling in his manner, which reacted on certain chords in my own
+system; and he had been gone several minutes before I recollected that
+it was time to go to the Hotel de Castile. Too impatient to wait for a
+carriage, I flew along the streets on foot, believing that my own fiery
+speed would outstrip the zigzag movement of a fiacre or a cabriolet tie
+flace.
+
+Dr. Etherington met me at the door of his appartement, and led me to an
+inner room without speaking. Here he stood gazing, for some time, in my
+face, with paternal concern.
+
+“She expects you, Jack, and believes that you rang the bell.”
+
+“So much the better, dear sir. Let us not lose a moment; let me fly and
+throw myself at her feet, and implore her pardon.”
+
+“For what, my good boy?”
+
+“For believing that any social stake can equal that which a man feels
+in the nearest, dearest ties of earth!”
+
+The excellent rector smiled, but he wished to curb my impatience.
+
+“You have already every stake in society, Sir John Goldencalf,” he
+answered—assuming the air which human beings have, by a general
+convention, settled shall be dignified—“that any reasonable man can
+desire. The large fortune left by your late father, raises you, in this
+respect, to the height of the richest in the land; and now that you are
+a baronet, no one will dispute your claim to participate in the
+councils of the nation. It would perhaps be better, did your creation
+date a century or two nearer the commencement of the monarchy; but, in
+this age of innovations, we must take things as they are, and not as we
+might wish to have them.”
+
+I rubbed my forehead, for the doctor had incidentally thrown out an
+embarrassing idea.
+
+“On your principle, my dear sir, society would be obliged to begin with
+its great-grandfathers to qualify itself for its own government.”
+
+“Pardon me, Jack, if I have said anything disagreeable—no doubt all
+will come right in heaven. Anna will be uneasy at our delay.”
+
+This suggestion drove all recollection of the good rector’s
+social-stake system, which was exactly the converse of the social-stake
+system of my late ancestor, quite out of my head. Springing forward, I
+gave him reason to see that he would have no farther trouble in
+changing the subject. When we had passed an antechamber, he pointed to
+a door, and admonishing me to be prudent, withdrew.
+
+My hand trembled as it touched the door-knob, but the lock yielded.
+Anna was standing in the middle of the room (she had heard my
+footsteps), an image of womanly loveliness, womanly faith, and womanly
+feeling. By a desperate effort, she was, however, mistress of her
+emotions. Though her pure soul seemed willing to fly to meet me, she
+obviously restrained the impulse, in order to spare my nerves.
+
+“Dear Jack!”—and both her soft, white, pretty little hands met me, as I
+eagerly approached.
+
+“Anna!—dearest Anna!”—I covered the rosy fingers with kisses.
+
+“Let us be tranquil, Jack, and if possible, endeavor to be reasonable,
+too.”
+
+“If I thought this could really cost one habitually discreet as you an
+effort, Anna?”
+
+“One habitually discreet as I, is as likely to feel strongly on meeting
+an old friend, as another.”
+
+“I think it would make me perfectly happy, could I see thee weep.”
+
+As if waiting only for this hint, Anna burst into a flood of tears. I
+was frightened, for her sobs became hysterical and convulsed. Those
+precious sentiments which had been so long imprisoned in her gentle
+bosom, obtained the mastery, and I was well paid for my selfishness, by
+experiencing an alarm little less violent than her own outpouring of
+feeling.
+
+Touching the incidents, emotions, and language of the next half hour,
+it is not my intention to be very communicative. Anna was ingenuous,
+unreserved, and, if I might judge by the rosy blushes that suffused her
+sweet face, and the manner in which she extricated herself from my
+protecting arms, I believe I must add, she deemed herself indiscreet in
+that she had been so unreserved and ingenuous.
+
+“We can now converse more calmly, Jack,” the dear creature resumed,
+after she had erased the signs of emotion from her cheeks—“more calmly,
+if not more sensibly.”
+
+“The wisdom of Solomon is not half so precious as the words I have just
+heard—and as for the music of spheres—”
+
+“It is a melody that angels only enjoy.”
+
+“And art not thou an angel?”
+
+“No, Jack, only a poor, confiding girl; one instinct with the
+affections and weaknesses of her sex, and one whom it must be your part
+to sustain and direct. If we begin by calling each other by these
+superhuman epithets, we may awake from the delusion sooner than if we
+commence with believing ourselves to be no other than what we really
+are. I love you for your kind, excellent, and generous heart, Jack; and
+as for these poetical beings, they are rather proverbial, I believe,
+for having no hearts at all.”
+
+As Anna mildly checked my exaggeration of language—after ten years of
+marriage I am unwilling to admit there was any exaggeration of idea—she
+placed her little velvet hand in mine again, smiling away all the
+severity of the reproof.
+
+“Of one thing, I think you may rest perfectly assured, dear girl,” I
+resumed, after a moment’s reflection. “All my old opinions concerning
+expansion and contraction are radically changed. I have carried out the
+principle of the social-stake system in the extreme, and cannot say
+that I have been at all satisfied with its success. At this moment I am
+the proprietor of vested interests which are scattered over half the
+world. So far from finding that I love my kind any more for all these
+social stakes, I am compelled to see that the wish to protect one, is
+constantly driving me into acts of injustice against all the others.
+There is something wrong, depend on it, Anna, in the old dogmas of
+political economists!”
+
+“I know little of these things, Sir John, but to one ignorant as
+myself, it would appear that the most certain security for the
+righteous exercise of power is to be found in just principles.”
+
+“If available, beyond a question. They who contend that the debased and
+ignorant are unfit to express their opinions concerning the public
+weal, are obliged to own that they can only be restrained by force.
+Now, as knowledge is power, their first precaution is to keep them
+ignorant; and then they quote this very ignorance, with all its
+debasing consequences, as an argument against their participating in
+authority with themselves. I believe there can be no safe medium
+between a frank admission of the whole principle—”
+
+“You should remember, dear Goldencalf, that this is a subject on which
+I know but little. It ought to be sufficient for us that we find things
+as they are; if change is actually necessary, we should endeavor to
+effect it with prudence and a proper regard to justice.”
+
+Anna, while kindly leading me back from my speculations, looked both
+anxious and pained.
+
+“True—true”—I hurriedly rejoined, for a world would not tempt me to
+prolong her suffering for a moment. “I am foolish and forgetful, to be
+talking thus at such a moment; but I have endured too much to be
+altogether unmindful of ancient theories. I thought it might be
+grateful to you, at least, to know, Anna, that I have ceased to look
+for happiness in my affections for all, and am only so much the better
+disposed to turn in search of it to one.”
+
+“To love our neighbor as ourself, is the latest and highest of the
+divine commands,” the dear girl answered, looking a thousand times more
+lovely than ever, for my conclusion was very far from being displeasing
+to her. “I do not know that this object is to be attained by centring
+in our persons as many of the goods of life as possible; but I do
+think, Jack, that the heart which loves one truly, will be so much the
+better disposed to entertain kind feelings towards all others.”
+
+I kissed the hand she had given me, and we now began to talk a little
+more like people of the world, concerning our movements. The interview
+lasted an hour longer, when the heaven. “You never yet were so unkind
+to one who was offensive; much less could you willingly have plotted
+this cruelty to one you regard!”
+
+Anna could no longer control herself, but her cheeks were wetted with
+the usual signs of feeling in her sex. Then smiling in the midst of
+this little outbreaking of womanly sensibility, her countenance became
+playful and radiant.
+
+“That letter ought not to be altogether proscribed, neither, Jack. Had
+it not been written, you would never have visited Leaphigh, nor
+Leaplow, nor have seen any of those wonderful spectacles which are here
+recorded.”
+
+The dear creature laid her hand on a roll of manuscript which she had
+just returned to me, after its perusal. At the same time, her face
+flushed, as vivid and transient feelings are reflected from the
+features of the innocent and ingenuous, and she made a faint effort to
+laugh.
+
+I passed a hand over my brow, for whenever this subject is alluded to
+between us, I invariably feel that there is a species of mistiness, in
+and about the region of thought. I was not displeased, however, for I
+knew that a heart which loved so truly would not willingly cause me
+pain, nor would one habitually so gentle and considerate, utter a
+syllable that she might have reason to think would seriously displease.
+
+“Hadst thou been with me, love, that journey would always be remembered
+as one of the pleasantest events of my life, for, while it had its
+perils and its disagreeables, it had also its moments of extreme
+satisfaction.”
+
+“You will never be an adept in political saltation, John!”
+
+“Perhaps not—but here is a document that will render it less necessary
+than formerly.”
+
+I threw her a packet which had been received that morning from town, by
+a special messenger, but of whose contents I had not yet spoken. Anna
+was too young a wife to open it without an approving look from my fond
+eye. On glancing over its contents, she perceived that I was raised to
+the House of Peers by the title of Viscount Householder. The purchase
+of three more boroughs, and the influence of my old friend Lord Pledge,
+had done it all.
+
+The sweet girl looked pleased, for I believe it is in female nature to
+like to be a viscountess; but, throwing herself into my arms, she
+protested that her joy was at my elevation and not at her own.
+
+“I owed you this effort, Anna, as some acknowledgment for your faith
+and disinterestedness in the affair of Lord M’Dee.”
+
+“And yet, Jack, he had neither high cheek-bones, nor red hair; and his
+accent was such as might please a girl less capricious than myself!”
+
+This was said playfully and coquettishly, but in a way to make me feel
+how near folly would have been to depriving me of a treasure, had the
+heart I so much prized been less ingenuous and pure. I drew the dear
+creature to my bosom, as if afraid my rival might yet rob me of her
+possession. Anna looked up, smiling through her tears; and, making an
+effort to be calm, she said, in a voice so smothered as to prove how
+delicate she felt the subject to be:—
+
+“We will speak seldom of this journey, dear John, and try to think of
+the long and dark journey which is yet before us. We will speak of it,
+however, for there should be nothing totally concealed between us.”
+
+I kissed her serene and humid eyes, and repeated what she had just
+said, syllable for syllable. Anna has not been unmindful of her words;
+for rarely, indeed, has she touched on the past, and then oftener in
+allusion to her own sorrows, than in reference to my impressions.
+
+But, while the subject of my voyage to the monikin region is, in a
+measure, forbidden between me and my wife, there exists no such
+restraint as between me and other people. The reader may like to know,
+therefore, what effect this extraordinary adventure has left on my
+mind, after an interval of ten years.
+
+There have been moments when the whole has appeared a dream; but, on
+looking back, and comparing it with other scenes in which I have been
+an actor, I cannot perceive that this is not quite as indelibly stamped
+on my memory as those. The facts themselves, moreover, are so very like
+what I see daily in the course of occurrence around me, that I have
+come to the conclusion, I did go to Leaphigh in the way related, and
+that I must have been brought back during the temporary insanity of a
+fever. I believe, therefore, that there are such countries as Leaphigh
+and Leaplow; and after much thought, I am of opinion that great justice
+has here been done to the monikin character in general.
+
+The result of much meditation on what I witnessed, has been to produce
+sundry material changes in my former opinions, and to unsettle even
+many of the notions in which I may be said to have been born and bred.
+In order to consume as little of the reader’s time as possible, I shall
+set down a summary of my conclusions, and then take my leave of him,
+with many thanks for his politeness in reading what I have written.
+Before completing my task in this way, however, it will be well to add
+a word on the subject of one or two of my fellow-travellers.
+
+I never could make up my mind relating to the fact whether we did or
+did not actually eat Brigadier Downright. The flesh was so savory, and
+it tasted so delicious after a week of philosophical meditation on
+nuts, and the recollection of its pleasures is so very vivid, that I am
+inclined to think nothing but a good material dinner could have left
+behind it impressions so lively, I have had many melancholy thoughts on
+this subject, especially in November; but observing that men are
+constantly devouring each other, in one shape or another, I endeavor to
+make the best of it, and to persuade myself that a slight difference in
+species may exonerate me from the imputation of cannibalism.
+
+I often get letters from Captain Poke. He is not very explicit on the
+subject of our voyage, it is true; but, on the whole, I have decided
+that the little ship he constructed was built on the model of, and
+named after, our own Walrus instead of our own Walrus being built on
+the model of, and named after, the little ship constructed by Captain
+Poke. I keep the latter, therefore, to show my friends as a proof of
+what I tell them, knowing the importance of visible testimony with
+ordinary minds.
+
+As for Bob and the mates, I never heard any more of them. The former
+most probably continued a “kickee” until years and experience enabled
+him to turn the tables on humanity, when, as is usually the case with
+Christians, he would be very likely to take up the business of a
+“kicker” with so much the greater zeal on account of his early
+sufferings.
+
+To conclude, my own adventures and observations lead to the following
+inferences, viz.:
+
+That every man loves liberty for his own sake and very few for the sake
+of other people.
+
+That moral saltation is very necessary to political success at Leaplow,
+and quite probably in many other places.
+
+That civilization is very arbitrary, meaning one thing in France,
+another thing at Leaphigh, and still a third in Dorsetshire.
+
+That there is no sensible difference between motives in the polar
+region and motives anywhere else.
+
+That truth is a comparative and local property, being much influenced
+by circumstances; particularly by climate and by different public
+opinions.
+
+That there is no portion of human wisdom so select and faultless that
+it does not contain the seeds of its own refutation.
+
+That of all the ’ocracies (aristocracy and democracy included)
+hypocrisy is the most flourishing.
+
+That he who is in the clutches of the law may think himself lucky if he
+escape with the loss of his tail.
+
+That liberty is a convertible term, which means exclusive privileges in
+one country, no privileges in another, and inclusive privileges in all.
+
+That religion is a paradox, in which self-denial and humility are
+proposed as tenets, in direct contradiction to every man’s senses.
+
+That phrenology and caudology are sister sciences, one being quite as
+demonstrable as the other, and more too.
+
+That philosophy, sound principles and virtue, are really delightful;
+but, after all, that they are no more than so many slaves of the belly;
+a man usually preferring to eat his best friend to starving.
+
+That a little wheel and a great wheel are as necessary to the motion of
+a commonweath, as to the motion of a stage-coach, and that what this
+gains in periphery that makes up in activity, on the rotatory
+principle.
+
+That it is one thing to have a king, another to have a throne, and
+another to have neither.
+
+That the reasoning which is drawn from particular abuses, is no
+reasoning for general uses.
+
+That, in England, if we did not use blinkers, our cattle would break
+our necks; whereas, in Germany we travel at a good pace, allowing the
+horse the use of his eyes; and in Naples we fly, without even a bit!
+
+That the converse of what has just been said of horses is true of men,
+in the three countries named.
+
+That occultations of truth are just as certain as the aurora boreal is,
+and quite as easily accounted for.
+
+That men who will not shrink from the danger and toil of penetrating
+the polar basin, will shrink from the trouble of doing their own
+thinking, and put themselves, like Captain Poke, under the convoy of a
+God-like.
+
+That all our wisdom is insufficient to protect us from frauds, one
+outwitting us by gyrations and flapjacks, and another by adding new
+joints to the cauda.
+
+That men are not very scrupulous touching the humility due to God, but
+are so tenacious of their own privileges in this particular, they will
+confide in plausible rogues rather than in plain-dealing honesty.
+
+That they who rightly appreciate the foregoing facts, are People’s
+Friends, and become the salt of the earth—yea, even the Most Patriotic
+Patriots!
+
+That it is fortunate “all will come right in heaven,” for it is certain
+too much goes wrong on earth.
+
+That the social-stake system has one distinctive merit: that of causing
+the owners of vested rights to set their own interests in motion, while
+those of their fellow-citizens must follow, as a matter of course,
+though perhaps a little clouded by the dust raised by their leaders.
+
+That he who has an Anna, has the best investment in humanity; and that
+if he has any repetition of his treasure, it is better still.
+
+That money commonly purifies the spirit as wine quenches thirst; and
+therefore it is wise to commit all our concerns to the keeping of those
+who have most of it.
+
+That others seldom regard us in the same light we regard ourselves;
+witness the manner in which Dr. Reasono converted me from a benefactor
+into the travelling tutor of Prince Bob.
+
+That honors are sweet even to the most humble, as is shown by the
+satisfaction of Noah in being made a lord high admiral.
+
+That there is no such stimulant of humanity, as a good moneyed stake in
+its advancement.
+
+That though the mind may be set on a very improper and base object, it
+will not fail to seek a good motive for its justification, few men
+being so hardened in any grovelling passion, that they will not
+endeavor to deceive themselves, as well as their neighbors.
+
+That academies promote good fellowship in knowledge, and good
+fellowship in knowledge promotes F. U. D. G. E.’s, and H. O. A. X.’s.
+
+That a political rolling-pin, though a very good thing to level rights
+and privileges, is a very bad thing to level houses, temples, and other
+matters that might be named.
+
+That the system of governing by proxy is more extended than is commonly
+supposed; in one country a king resorting to its use, and in another
+the people.
+
+That there is no method by which a man can be made to covet a tail, so
+sure as by supplying all his neighbors, and excluding him by an
+especial edict.
+
+That the perfection of consistency in a nation, is to dock itself at
+home, while its foreign agents furiously cultivate caudae abroad.
+
+That names are far more useful than things, being more generally
+understood, less liable to objections, of greater circulation, besides
+occupying much less room.
+
+That ambassadors turn the back of the throne outward, aristocrats draw
+a crimson curtain before it, and a king sits on it.
+
+That nature has created inequalities in men and things, and, as human
+institutions are intended to prevent the strong from oppressing the
+weak, ergo, the laws should encourage natural inequalities as a
+legitimate consequence.
+
+That, moreover, the laws of nature having made one man wise and another
+man foolish—this strong, and that weak, human laws should reverse it
+all, by making another man wise and one man foolish—that strong, and
+this weak. On this conclusion I obtained a peerage.
+
+That God-likes are commonly Riddles, and Riddles, with many people,
+are, as a matter of course, God-likes. That the expediency of
+establishing the base of society on a principle of the most sordid
+character, one that is denounced by the revelations of God, and proved
+to be insufficient by the experience of man, may at least be questioned
+without properly subjecting the dissenter to the imputation of being a
+sheep-stealer.
+
+That we seldom learn moderation under any political excitement, until
+forty thousand square miles of territory are blown from beneath our
+feet.
+
+That it is not an infallible sign of great mental refinement to
+bespatter our fellow-creatures, while every nerve is writhing in honor
+of our pigs, our cats, our stocks, and our stones.
+
+That select political wisdom, like select schools, propagates much
+questionable knowledge.
+
+That the whole people is not infallible, neither is a part of the
+people infallible.
+
+That love for the species is a godlike and pure sentiment; but the
+philanthropy which is dependent on buying land by the square mile, and
+selling it by the square foot, is stench in the nostrils of the just.
+
+That one thoroughly imbued with republican simplicity invariably
+squeezes himself into a little wheel, in order to show how small he can
+become at need.
+
+That habit is invincible, an Esquimaux preferring whale’s blubber to
+beefsteak, a native of the Gold Coast cherishing his tom-tom before a
+band of music, and certain travelled countrymen of our own saying,
+“Commend me to the English skies.”
+
+That arranging a fact by reason is embarrassing, and admits of
+cavilling; while adapting a reason to a fact is a very natural, easy,
+every-day, and sometimes necessary, process.
+
+That what men affirm for their own particular interests they will swear
+to in the end, although it should be a proposition as much beyond the
+necessity of an oath, as that “black is white.”
+
+That national allegories exist everywhere, the only difference between
+them arising from gradations in the richness of imaginations.
+
+And finally:—
+
+That men have more of the habits, propensities, dispositions, cravings,
+antics, gratitude, flapjacks, and honesty of monikins, than is
+generally known.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
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