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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Voyage of Captain Popanilla
+by Benjamin Disraeli
+
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+Title: The Voyage of Captain Popanilla
+
+Author: Benjamin Disraeli
+
+Release Date: April, 2005  [EBook #7816]
+[This file was first posted on May 20, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
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+Edited by K. Kay Shearin
+
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE VOYAGE OF CAPTAIN POPANILLA ***
+
+
+
+
+THE VOYAGE OF CAPTAIN POPANILLA
+
+by Benjamin Disraeli
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+This narrative of an imaginary voyage was first published in 1827.
+
+
+CHAPTER 1
+
+
+There is an island in the Indian Ocean, so unfortunate as not yet to
+have been visited either by Discovery Ships or Missionary Societies.  It
+is a place where all those things are constantly found which men most
+desire to see, and with the sight of which they are seldom favoured.  It
+abounds in flowers, and fruit, and sunshine.  Lofty mountains, covered
+with green and mighty forests, except where the red rocks catch the
+fierce beams of the blazing sun, bowery valleys, broad lakes, gigantic
+trees, and gushing rivers bursting from rocky gorges, are crowned with a
+purple and ever cloudless sky.  Summer, in its most unctuous state and
+most mellow majesty, is here perpetual.  So intense and overpowering, in
+the daytime, is the rich union of heat and perfume, that living animal
+or creature is never visible; and were you and I to pluck, before
+sunset, the huge fruit from yonder teeming tree, we might fancy
+ourselves for the moment the future sinners of another Eden.  Yet a
+solitude it is not.
+
+The island is surrounded by a calm and blue lagoon, formed by a ridge of
+coral rocks, which break the swell of the ocean, and prevent the noxious
+spray from banishing the rich shrubs which grow even to the water's
+edge.  It is a few minutes before sunset, that the first intimation of
+animal existence in this seeming solitude is given, by the appearance of
+mermaids; who, floating on the rosy sea, congregate about these rocks.
+They sound a loud but melodious chorus from their sea-shells, and a
+faint and distant chorus soon answers from the island.  The mermaidens
+immediately repeat their salutations, and are greeted with a nearer and
+a louder answer.  As the red and rayless sun drops into the glowing
+waters, the choruses simultaneously join; and rushing from the woods,
+and down the mountain steeps to the nearest shore, crowds of human
+beings, at the same moment, appear and collect.
+
+The inhabitants of this island, in form and face, do not misbecome the
+clime and the country.  With the vivacity of a Faun, the men combine the
+strength of a Hercules and the beauty of an Adonis; and, as their more
+interesting companions flash upon his presence, the least classical of
+poets might be excused for imagining that, like their blessed Goddess,
+the women had magically sprung from the brilliant foam of that ocean
+which is gradually subsiding before them.
+
+But sunset in this land is not the signal merely for the evidence of
+human existence.  At the moment that the Islanders, crowned with
+flowers, and waving goblets and garlands, burst from their retreats,
+upon each mountain peak a lion starts forward, stretches his proud tail,
+and, bellowing to the sun, scours back exulting to his forest; immense
+bodies, which before would have been mistaken for the trunks of trees,
+now move into life, and serpents, untwining their green and glittering
+folds, and slowly bending their crested heads around, seem proudly
+conscious of a voluptuous existence; troops of monkeys leap from tree to
+tree; panthers start forward, and alarmed, not alarming, instantly
+vanish; a herd of milk-white elephants tramples over the back-ground of
+the scene; and instead of gloomy owls and noxious beetles, to hail the
+long-enduring twilight, from the bell of every opening flower beautiful
+birds, radiant with every rainbow tint, rush with a long and living
+melody into the cool air.
+
+The twilight in this island is not that transient moment of unearthly
+bliss, which, in our less favoured regions, always leaves us so
+thoughtful and so sad; on the contrary, it lasts many hours, and
+consequently the Islanders are neither moody nor sorrowful.  As they
+sleep during the day, four or five hours of 'tipsy dance and revelry'
+are exercise and not fatigue.  At length, even in this delightful
+region, the rosy tint fades into purple, and the purple into blue; the
+white moon gleams, and at length glitters; and the invisible stars first
+creep into light, and then blaze into radiancy.  But no hateful dews
+discolour their loveliness! and so clear is the air, that instead of the
+false appearance of a studded vault, the celestial bodies may be seen
+floating in aether, at various distances and of various tints.  Ere the
+showery fire-flies have ceased to shine, and the blue lights to play
+about the tremulous horizon, amid the voices of a thousand birds, the
+dancers solace themselves with the rarest fruits, the most delicate
+fish, and the most delicious wines; but flesh they love not.  They are
+an innocent and a happy, though a voluptuous and ignorant race.  They
+have no manufactures, no commerce, no agriculture, and no
+printing-presses; but for their slight clothing they wear the bright
+skins of serpents; for corn, Nature gives them the bread-fruit; and for
+intellectual amusement, they have a pregnant fancy and a ready wit; tell
+inexhaustible stories, and always laugh at each other's jokes.  A
+natural instinct gave them the art of making wine; and it was the same
+benevolent Nature that blessed them also with the knowledge of the art
+of making love.  But time flies even here.  The lovely companions have
+danced, and sung, and banqueted, and laughed; what further bliss remains
+for man?  They rise, and in pairs wander about the island, and then to
+their bowers; their life ends with the Night they love so well; and ere
+Day, the everlasting conqueror, wave his flaming standard in the
+luminous East, solitude and silence will again reign in the ISLE OF
+FANTAISIE.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 2
+
+
+The last and loudest chorus had died away, and the Islanders were
+pouring forth their libation to their great enemy the Sun, when suddenly
+a vast obscurity spread over the glowing West.  They looked at each
+other, and turned pale, and the wine from their trembling goblets fell
+useless on the shore.  The women were too frightened to scream, and, for
+the first time in the Isle of Fantaisie, silence existed after sunset.
+They were encouraged when they observed that the darkness ceased at that
+point in the heavens which overlooked their coral rocks; and perceiving
+that their hitherto unsullied sky was pure, even at this moment of
+otherwise universal gloom, the men regained their colour, touched the
+goblets with their lips, further to reanimate themselves, and the women,
+now less discomposed, uttered loud shrieks.
+
+Suddenly the wind roared with unaccustomed rage, the sea rose into large
+billows, and a ship was seen tossing in the offing.  The Islanders,
+whose experience of navigation extended only to a slight paddling in
+their lagoon, in the half of a hollow trunk of a tree, for the purpose
+of fishing, mistook the tight little frigate for a great fish; and being
+now aware of the cause of this disturbance, and at the same time feeling
+confident that the monster could never make way through the shallow
+waters to the island, they recovered their courage, and gazed upon the
+labouring leviathan with the same interested nonchalance with which
+students at a modern lecture observe an expounding philosopher.
+
+'What a shadow he casts over the sky!' said the King, a young man, whose
+divine right was never questioned by his female subjects.  'What a
+commotion in the waters, and what a wind he snorts forth!  It certainly
+must be the largest fish that exists.  I remember my father telling me
+that a monstrous fish once got entangled among our rocks, and this part
+of the island really smelt for a month; I cannot help fancying that
+there is a rather odd smell now; pah!'
+
+A favourite Queen flew to the suffering monarch, and pressing her
+aromatic lips upon his offended nostrils, his Majesty recovered.
+
+The unhappy crew of the frigate, who, with the aid of their telescopes,
+had detected the crowds upon the shore, now fired their signal guns of
+distress, which came sullenly booming through the wind.
+
+'Oh! the great fish is speaking!' was the universal exclamation.
+
+'I begin to get frightened,' said the favourite Queen.  'I am sure the
+monster is coming here!'  So saying, her Majesty grasped up a handful of
+pearls from the shore, to defend herself.
+
+As screaming was now the fashion, all the women of course screamed; and
+animated by the example of their sovereign, and armed with the marine
+gems, the Amazons assumed an imposing attitude.
+
+Just at the moment that they had worked up their enthusiasm to the
+highest pitch, and were actually desirous of dying for their country,
+the ship sunk.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 3
+
+
+It is the flush of noon; and, strange to say, a human figure is seen
+wandering on the shore of the Isle of Fantaisie.
+
+'One of the crew of the wrecked frigate, of course?  What an escape!
+Fortunate creature! interesting man!  Probably the indefatigable Captain
+Parry; possibly the undaunted Captain Franklin; perhaps the adventurous
+Captain Lyon!'
+
+No! sweet blue-eyed girl! my plots are not of that extremely guessable
+nature so admired by your adorable sex.  Indeed, this book is so
+constructed that if you were even, according to custom, to commence its
+perusal by reading the last page, you would not gain the slightest
+assistance in finding out 'how the story ends.'
+
+The wanderer belongs to no frigate-building nation.  He is a true
+Fantaisian; who having, in his fright, during yesterday's storm, lost
+the lock of hair which, in a moment of glorious favour, he had ravished
+from his fair mistress's brow, is now, after a sleepless night, tracing
+every remembered haunt of yesterday, with the fond hope of regaining his
+most precious treasure.  Ye Gentlemen of England, who live at home at
+ease, know full well the anxiety and exertion, the days of management,
+and the nights of meditation which the rape of a lock requires, and you
+can consequently sympathize with the agitated feelings of the handsome
+and the hapless Popanilla.
+
+The favourite of all the women, the envy of all the men, Popanilla
+passed a pleasant life.  No one was a better judge of wine, no one had a
+better taste for fruit, no one danced with more elegant vivacity, and no
+one whispered compliments in a more meaning tone.  His stories ever had
+a point, his repartees were never ill-natured.  What a pity that such an
+amiable fellow should have got into such a scrape!
+
+In spite of his grief, however, Popanilla soon found that the ardency of
+his passion evaporated under a smoking sun; and, exhausted, he was about
+to return home from his fruitless search, when his attention was
+attracted by a singular appearance.  He observed before him, on the
+shore, a square and hitherto unseen form.  He watched it for some
+minutes, but it was motionless.  He drew nearer, and observed it with
+intense attention; but, if it were a being, it certainly was fast
+asleep.  He approached close to its side, but it neither moved nor
+breathed.  He applied his nose to the mysterious body, and the elegant
+Fantaisian drew back immediately from a most villanous smell of pitch.
+Not to excite too much, in this calm age, the reader's curiosity, let
+him know at once that this strange substance was a sea-chest.  Upon it
+was marked, in large black letters, S. D. K. No. 1.
+
+For the first time in his life Popanilla experienced a feeling of
+overwhelming curiosity.  His fatigue, his loss, the scorching hour, and
+the possible danger were all forgotten in an indefinite feeling that the
+body possessed contents more interesting than its unpromising exterior,
+and in a resolute determination that the development of the mystery
+should be reserved only for himself.
+
+Although he felt assured that he must be unseen, he could not refrain
+from throwing a rapid glance of anxiety around him.  It was a moment of
+perfect stillness: the island slept in sunshine, and even the waves had
+ceased to break over the opposing rocks.  A thousand strange and
+singular thoughts rushed into his mind, but his first purpose was ever
+uppermost; and at length, unfolding his girdle of skin, he tied the
+tough cincture round the chest, and, exerting all his powers, dragged
+his mysterious waif into the nearest wood.
+
+But during this operation the top fell off, and revealed the neatest
+collection of little packages that ever pleased the eye of the admirer
+of spruce arrangement.  Popanilla took up packets upon all possible
+subjects; smelt them, but they were not savory; he was sorely puzzled.
+At last, he lighted on a slender volume bound in brown calf, which, with
+the confined but sensual notions of a savage, he mistook for
+gingerbread, at least.  It was 'The Universal Linguist, by Mr. Hamilton;
+or, the Art of Dreaming in Languages.'
+
+No sooner had Popanilla passed that well-formed nose, which had been so
+often admired by the lady whose lock of hair he had unfortunately lost,
+a few times over a few pages of the Hamiltonian System than he sank upon
+his bed of flowers, and, in spite of his curiosity, was instantly
+overcome by a profound slumber.  But his slumber, though deep, was not
+peaceful, and he was the actor in an agitating drama.
+
+He found himself alone in a gay and glorious garden.  In the centre of
+it grew a pomegranate tree of prodigious size; its top was lost in the
+sky, and its innumerable branches sprang out in all directions, covered
+with large fruit of a rich golden hue.  Beautiful birds were perched
+upon all parts of the tree, and chanted with perpetual melody the
+beauties of their bower.  Tempted by the delicious sight, Popanilla
+stretched forward his ready hand to pluck; but no sooner had he grasped
+the fruit than the music immediately ceased, the birds rushed away, the
+sky darkened, the tree fell under the wind, the garden vanished, and
+Popanilla found himself in the midst of a raging sea, buffeting the
+waves.
+
+He would certainly have been drowned had he not been immediately
+swallowed up by the huge monster which had not only been the occasion of
+the storm of yesterday, but, ah! most unhappy business! been the
+occasion also of his losing that lock of hair.
+
+Ere he could congratulate himself on his escape he found fresh cause for
+anxiety, for he perceived that he was no longer alone.  No friends were
+near him; but, on, the contrary, he was surrounded by strangers of a far
+different aspect.  They were men certainly; that is to say, they had
+legs and arms, and heads, and bodies as himself; but instead of that
+bloom of youth, that regularity of feature, that amiable joyousness of
+countenance, which he had ever been accustomed to meet and to love in
+his former companions, he recoiled in horror from the swarthy
+complexions, the sad visages, and the haggard features of his present
+ones.  They spoke to him in a harsh and guttural accent.  He would have
+fled from their advances; but then he was in the belly of a whale!  When
+he had become a little used to their tones he was gratified by finding
+that their attentions were far from hostile; and, after having received
+from them a few compliments, he began to think that they were not quite
+so ugly.  He discovered that the object of their inquires was the fatal
+pomegranate which still remained in his hand.  They admired its beauty,
+and told him that they greatly esteemed an individual who possessed such
+a mass of precious ore.  Popanilla begged to undeceive them, and
+courteously presented the fruit.  No sooner, however, had he parted with
+this apple of discord, than the countenances of his companions changed.
+Immediately discovering its real nature, they loudly accused Popanilla
+of having deceived them; he remonstrated, and they recriminated; and the
+great fish, irritated by their clamour, lashed its huge tail, and with
+one efficacious vomit spouted the innocent Popanilla high in the air.
+He fell with such a dash into the waves that he was awakened by the
+sound of his own fall.
+
+The dreamer awoke amidst real chattering, and scuffling, and clamour.  A
+troop of green monkeys had been aroused by his unusual occupation, and
+had taken the opportunity of his slumber to become acquainted with some
+of the first principles of science.  What progress they had made it is
+difficult to ascertain; because, each one throwing a tract at
+Popanilla's head, they immediately disappeared.  It is said, however,
+that some monkeys have been since seen skipping about the island, with
+their tails cut off; and that they have even succeeded in passing
+themselves off for human beings among those people who do not read
+novels, and are consequently unacquainted with mankind.
+
+The morning's adventure immediately rushed into Popanilla's mind, and he
+proceeded forthwith to examine the contents of his chest; but with
+advantages which had not been yet enjoyed by those who had previously
+peeped into it.  The monkeys had not been composed to sleep by the
+'Universal Linguist' of Mr. Hamilton.  As for Popanilla, he took up a
+treatise on hydrostatics, and read it straight through on the spot.  For
+the rest of the day he was hydrostatically mad; nor could the commonest
+incident connected with the action or conveyance of water take place
+without his speculating on its cause and consequence.
+
+So enraptured was Popanilla with his new accomplishments and
+acquirements that by degrees he avoided attendance on the usual evening
+assemblages, and devoted himself solely to the acquirement of useful
+knowledge.  After a short time his absence was remarked; but the
+greatest and the most gifted has only to leave his coterie, called the
+world, for a few days, to be fully convinced of what slight importance
+he really is.  And so Popanilla, the delight of society and the especial
+favourite of the women, was in a very short time not even inquired
+after.  At first, of course, they supposed that he was in love, or that
+he had a slight cold, or that he was writing his memoirs; and as these
+suppositions, in due course, take their place in the annals of society
+as circumstantial histories, in about a week one knew the lady, another
+had beard him sneeze, and a third had seen the manuscript.  At the end
+of another week Popanilla was forgotten.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 4
+
+
+Six months had elapsed since the first chest of the cargo of Useful
+Knowledge destined for the fortunate Maldives had been digested by the
+recluse Popanilla; for a recluse he had now become.  Great students are
+rather dull companions.  Our Fantaisian friend, during his first
+studies, was as moody, absent, and querulous as are most men of genius
+during that mystical period of life.  He was consequently avoided by the
+men and quizzed by the women, and consoled himself for the neglect of
+the first and the taunts of the second by the indefinite sensation that
+he should, some day or other, turn out that little being called a great
+man.  As for his mistress, she considered herself insulted by being
+addressed by a man who had lost her lock of hair.  When the chest was
+exhausted Popanilla was seized with a profound melancholy.  Nothing
+depresses a man's spirits more completely than a self-conviction of
+self-conceit; and Popanilla, who had been accustomed to consider himself
+and his companions as the most elegant portion of the visible creation,
+now discovered, with dismay, that he and his fellow-islanders were
+nothing more than a horde of useless savages.
+
+This mortification, however, was soon succeeded by a proud consciousness
+that he, at any rate, was now civilised; and that proud consciousness by
+a fond hope that in a short time he might become a civiliser.  Like all
+projectors, he was not of a sanguine temperament; but he did trust that
+in the course of another season the Isle of Fantaisie might take its
+station among the nations.  He was determined, however, not to be too
+rapid.  It cannot be expected that ancient prejudices can in a moment be
+eradicated, and new modes of conduct instantaneously substituted and
+established.  Popanilla, like a wise man, determined to conciliate.  His
+views were to be as liberal, as his principles were enlightened.  Men
+should be forced to do nothing.  Bigotry, and intolerance, and
+persecution were the objects of his decided disapprobation; resembling,
+in this particular, all the great and good men who have ever existed,
+who have invariably maintained this opinion so long as they have been in
+the minority.
+
+Popanilla appeared once more in the world.
+
+'Dear me! is that you, Pop?' exclaimed the ladies.  'What have you been
+doing with yourself all this time?  Travelling, I suppose.  Every one
+travels now.  Really you travelled men get quite bores.  And where did
+you get that coat, if it be a coat?'
+
+Such was the style in which the Fantaisian females saluted the long
+absent Popanilla; and really, when a man shuts himself up from the world
+for a considerable time, and fancies that in condescending to re-enter
+it he has surely the right to expect the homage due to a superior being,
+these salutations are awkward.  The ladies of England peculiarly excel
+in this species of annihilation; and while they continue to drown
+puppies, as they daily do, in a sea of sarcasm, I think no true
+Englishman will hesitate one moment in giving them the preference for
+tact and manner over all the vivacious French, all the self-possessing
+Italian, and all the tolerant German women.  This is a claptrap, and I
+have no doubt will sell the book.
+
+Popanilla, however, had not re-entered society with the intention of
+subsiding into a nonentity; and he therefore took the opportunity, a few
+minutes after sunset, just as his companions were falling into the
+dance, to beg the favour of being allowed to address his sovereign only
+for one single moment.
+
+'Sire!' said he, in that mild tone of subdued superciliousness with
+which we should always address kings, and which, while it vindicates our
+dignity, satisfactorily proves that we are above the vulgar passion of
+envy, 'Sire!' but let us not encourage that fatal faculty of oratory so
+dangerous to free states, and therefore let us give only the 'substance
+of Popanilla's speech.' *  He commenced his address in a manner somewhat
+resembling the initial observations of those pleasing pamphlets which
+are the fashion of the present hour; and which, being intended to
+diffuse information among those who have not enjoyed the opportunity and
+advantages of study, and are consequently of a gay and cheerful
+disposition, treat of light subjects in a light and polished style.
+Popanilla, therefore, spoke of man in a savage state, the origin of
+society, and the elements of the social compact, in sentences which
+would not have disgraced the mellifluous pen of Bentham.  From these he
+naturally digressed into an agreeable disquisition on the Anglo-Saxons;
+and, after a little badinage on the Bill of Rights, flew off to an airy
+aper u of the French Revolution.  When he had arrived at the Isle of
+Fantaisie he begged to inform his Majesty that man was born for
+something else besides enjoying himself.  It was, doubtless, extremely
+pleasant to dance and sing, to crown themselves with chaplets, and to
+drink wine; but he was 'free to confess' that he did not imagine that
+the most barefaced hireling of corruption could for a moment presume to
+maintain that there was any utility in pleasure.  If there were no
+utility in pleasure, it was quite clear that pleasure could profit no
+one.  If, therefore, it were unprofitable, it was injurious; because
+that which does not produce a profit is equivalent to a loss; therefore
+pleasure is a losing business; consequently pleasure is not pleasant.
+
+     * Substance of a speech, in Parliamentary language, means a printed
+       edition of an harangue which contains all that was uttered in the
+       House, and about as much again.
+
+He also showed that man was not born for himself, but for society; that
+the interests of the body are alone to be considered, and not those of
+the individual; and that a nation might be extremely happy, extremely
+powerful, and extremely rich, although every individual member of it
+might at the same time be miserable, dependent, and in debt.  He
+regretted to observe that no one in the island seemed in the slightest
+decree conscious of the object of his being.  Man is created for a
+purpose; the object of his existence is to perfect himself.  Man is
+imperfect by nature, because if nature had made him perfect he would
+have had no wants; and it is only by supplying his wants that utility
+can be developed.  The development of utility is therefore the object of
+our being, and the attainment of this great end the cause of our
+existence.  This principle clears all doubts, and rationally accounts
+for a state of existence which has puzzled many pseudo-philosophers.
+
+Popanilla then went on to show that the hitherto received definitions of
+man were all erroneous; that man is neither a walking animal, nor a
+talking animal, nor a cooking animal, nor a lounging animal, nor a
+debt-incurring, animal, nor a tax-paying animal, nor a printing animal,
+nor a puffing animal, but a developing animal.  Development is the
+discovery of utility.  By developing the water we get fish; by
+developing the earth we get corn, and cash, and cotton; by developing
+the air we get breath; by developing the fire we get heat.  Thus, the
+use of the elements is demonstrated to the meanest capacity.  But it was
+not merely a material development to which he alluded; a moral
+development was equally indispensable.  He showed that it was impossible
+for a nation either to think too much or to do too much.  The life of
+man was therefore to be passed in a moral and material development until
+he had consummated his perfection.  It was the opinion of Popanilla that
+this great result was by no means so near at hand as some philosophers
+flattered themselves; and that it might possibly require another
+half-century before even the most civilised nation could be said to have
+completed the destiny of the human race.  At the same time, he intimated
+that there were various extraordinary means by which this rather
+desirable result might be facilitated; and there was no saying what the
+building of a new University might do, of which, when built, he had no
+objection to be appointed Principal.
+
+In answer to those who affect to admire that deficient system of
+existence which they style simplicity of manners, and who are
+perpetually committing the blunder of supposing that every advance
+towards perfection only withdraws man further from his primitive and
+proper condition, Popanilla triumphantly demonstrated that no such order
+as that which they associated with the phrase 'state of nature' ever
+existed.  'Man,' said he, 'is called the masterpiece of nature; and man
+is also, as we all know, the most curious of machines; now, a machine is
+a work of art, consequently, the masterpiece of nature is the
+masterpiece of art.  The object of all mechanism is the attainment of
+utility; the object of man, who is the most perfect machine, is utility
+in the highest degree.  Can we believe, therefore, that this machine was
+ever intended for a state which never could have called forth its
+powers, a state in which no utility could ever have been attained, a
+state in which there are no wants; consequently, no demand;
+consequently, no supply; consequently, no competition; consequently, no
+invention; consequently, no profits; only one great pernicious monopoly
+of comfort and ease?  Society without wants is like a world without
+winds.  It is quite clear, therefore, that there is no such thing as
+Nature; Nature is Art, or Art is Nature; that which is most useful is
+most natural, because utility is the test of nature; therefore a
+steam-engine is in fact a much more natural production than a mountain.*
+
+     * The age seems as anti-mountainous as it is anti-monarchical.
+       A late writer insinuates that if the English had spent their
+       millions in levelling the Andes, instead of excavating the
+       table-lands, society might have been benefited.  These
+       monstrosities are decidedly useless, and therefore can neither
+       be sublime nor beautiful, as has been unanswerably demonstrated
+       by another recent writer on political aesthetics -- See also a
+       personal attack on Mont Blanc, in the second number of the
+       Foreign Quarterly Review, 1828.
+
+'You are convinced, therefore,' he continued, 'by these observations,
+that it is impossible for an individual or a nation to be too artificial
+in their manners, their ideas, their laws, or their general policy;
+because, in fact, the more artificial you become the nearer you approach
+that state of nature of which you are so perpetually talking.'  Here
+observing that some of his audience appeared to be a little sceptical,
+perhaps only surprised, he told them that what he said must be true,
+because it entirely consisted of first principles. *
+
+     * First principles are the ingredients of positive truth.  They
+       are immutable, as may be seen by comparing the first principles
+       of the eighteenth century with the first principles of the
+       nineteenth.
+
+After having thus preliminarily descanted for about two hours, Popanilla
+informed his Majesty that he was unused to public speaking, and then
+proceeded to show that the grand characteristic of the social action *
+of the Isle of Fantaisie was a total want of development.  This he
+observed with equal sorrow and surprise; he respected the wisdom of
+their ancestors; at the same time, no one could deny that they were both
+barbarous and ignorant; he highly esteemed also the constitution, but
+regretted that it was not in the slightest degree adapted to the
+existing want of society: he was not for destroying any establishments,
+but, on the contrary, was for courteously affording them the opportunity
+of self-dissolution.  He finished by re-urging, in strong terms, the
+immediate development of the island.  In the first place, a great
+metropolis must be instantly built, because a great metropolis always
+produces a great demand; and, moreover, Popanilla had some legal doubts
+whether a country without a capital could in fact be considered a State.
+Apologising for having so long trespassed upon the attention of the
+assembly, he begged distinctly to state ** that he had no wish to see
+his Majesty and his fellow-subjects adopt these new principles without
+examination and without experience.  They might commence on a small
+scale; let them cut down their forests, and by turning them into ships
+and houses discover the utility of timber; let the whole island be dug
+up; let canals be cut, docks be built, and all the elephants be killed
+directly, that their teeth might yield an immediate article for
+exportation.  A short time would afford a sufficient trial.  In the
+meanwhile, they would not be pledged to further measures, and these
+might be considered only as an experiment. ***  Taking for granted that
+these principles would be acted on, and taking into consideration the
+site of the island in the map of the world, the nature and extent of its
+resources, its magnificent race of human beings, its varieties of the
+animal creation, its wonderfully fine timber, its undeveloped mineral
+treasures, the spaciousness of its harbours, and its various facilities
+for extended international communication, Popanilla had no hesitation in
+saying that a short time could not elapse ere, instead of passing their
+lives in a state of unprofitable ease and useless enjoyment, they might
+reasonably expect to be the terror and astonishment of the universe, and
+to be able to annoy every nation of any consequence.
+
+     * This simple and definite phrase we derive from the nation to
+       whom we were indebted during the last century for some other
+       phrases about as definite, but rather more dangerous.
+
+    ** Another phrase of Parliament, which, I need not observe, is
+       always made use of in oratory when the orator can see his
+       meaning about as distinctly as Sancho perceived the charms
+       of Dulcinea.
+
+   *** A very famous and convenient phrase this -- but in politics
+       experiments mean revolutions.  1828.
+
+Here, observing a smile upon his Majesty's countenance, Popanilla told
+the King that he was only a chief magistrate, and he had no more right
+to laugh at him than a parish constable.  He concluded by observing that
+although what he at present urged might appear strange, nevertheless, if
+the listeners had been acquainted with the characters and cases of
+Galileo and Turgot, they would then have seen, as a necessary
+consequence, that his system was perfectly correct, and he himself a man
+of extraordinary merit.
+
+Here the chief magistrate, no longer daring to smile, burst into a fit
+of laughter; and turning to his courtiers said, 'I have not an idea what
+this man is talking about, but I know that he makes my head ache: give
+me a cup of wine, and let us have a dance.'
+
+All applauded the royal proposition; and pushing Popanilla from one to
+another, until he was fairly hustled to the brink of the lagoon, they
+soon forgot the existence of this bore: in one word, he was cut.  When
+Popanilla found himself standing alone, and looking grave while all the
+rest were gay, he began to suspect that he was not so influential a
+personage as he previously imagined.  Rather crest-fallen, he sneaked
+home; and consoled himself for having nobody to speak to by reading some
+amusing 'Conversations on Political Economy.'
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 5
+
+
+Popanilla was discomposed, but he was not discomfited.  He consoled
+himself for the Royal neglect by the recollection of the many
+illustrious men who had been despised, banished, imprisoned, and burnt
+for the maintenance of opinions which, centuries afterwards, had been
+discovered to be truth.  He did not forget that in still further
+centuries the lately recognised truth had been re-discovered to be
+falsehood; but then these men were not less illustrious; and what wonder
+that their opinions were really erroneous, since they were not his
+present ones?  The reasoning was equally conclusive and consolatory.
+Popanilla, therefore, was not discouraged; and although he deemed it
+more prudent not to go out of his way to seek another audience of his
+sovereign, or to be too anxious again to address a public meeting, he
+nevertheless determined to proceed cautiously, but constantly,
+propagating his doctrines and proselytizing in private.
+
+Unfortunately for Popanilla, he did not enjoy one advantage which all
+founders of sects have duly appreciated, and by which they have been
+materially assisted.  It is a great and an unanswerable argument in
+favour of a Providence that we constantly perceive that the most
+beneficial results are brought about by the least worthy and most
+insignificant agents.  The purest religions would never have been
+established had they not been supported by sinners who felt the burthen
+of the old faith; and the most free and enlightened governments are
+often generated by the discontented, the disappointed, and the
+dissolute.  Now, in the Isle of Fantaisie, unfortunately for our
+revolutionizer, there was not a single grumbler.
+
+Unable, therefore, to make the bad passions of his fellow creatures the
+unconscious instruments of his good purposes, Popanilla must have been
+contented to have monopolised all the wisdom of the moderns, had he not,
+with the unbaffled wit of an inventor, hit upon a new expedient.  Like
+Socrates, our philosopher began to cultivate with sedulousness the
+society of youth.
+
+In a short time the ladies of Fantaisie were forced to observe that the
+fair sex most unfashionably predominated in their evening assemblages;
+for the young gentlemen of the island had suddenly ceased to pay their
+graceful homage at the altar of Terpsichore.  In an Indian isle not to
+dance was as bad as heresy.  The ladies rallied the recreants, but their
+playful sarcasms failed of their wonted effect.  In the natural course
+of things they had recourse to remonstrances, but their appeals were
+equally fruitless.  The delicate creatures tried reproaches, but the
+boyish cynics received them with a scowl and answered them with a sneer.
+
+The women fled in indignation to their friendly monarch; but the
+voluptuary of nature only shrugged his shoulders and smiled.  He kissed
+away their tears, and their frowns vanished as he crowned their long
+hair with roses.
+
+'If the lads really show such bad taste,' said his Majesty, 'why I and
+my lords must do double duty, and dance with a couple of you at once.'
+Consoled and complimented, and crowned by a King, who could look sad?
+The women forgot their anger in their increasing loyalty.
+
+But the pupils of Popanilla had no sooner mastered the first principles
+of science than they began to throw off their retired habits and
+uncommunicative manners.  Being not utterly ignorant of some of the
+rudiments of knowledge, and consequently having completed their
+education, it was now their duty, as members of society, to instruct and
+not to study.  They therefore courted, instead of shunned, their
+fellow-creatures; and on all occasions seized all opportunities of
+assisting the spread of knowledge.  The voices of lecturing boys
+resounded in every part of the island.  Their tones were so shrill,
+their manners so presuming, their knowledge so crude, and their general
+demeanour so completely unamiable, that it was impossible to hear them
+without delight, advantage, and admiration.
+
+The women were not now the only sufferers and the only complainants.
+Dinned to death, the men looked gloomy; and even the King, for the first
+time in his life, looked grave.  Could this Babel, he thought, be that
+empire of bliss, that delightful Fantaisie, where to be ruler only
+proved that you were the most skilful in making others happy!  His brow
+ached under his light flowery crown, as if it were bound by the
+barbarous circle of a tyrant, heavy with gems and gold.  In his despair
+he had some thoughts of leaving his kingdom and betaking himself to the
+mermaids.
+
+The determination of the most precious portion of his subjects saved his
+empire.  As the disciples of the new school were daily demanding, 'What
+is the use of dancing? what is the use of drinking wine? what is the use
+of smelling flowers?' the women, like prescient politicians, began to
+entertain a nervous suspicion that in time these sages might even
+presume to question the utility of that homage which, in spite of the
+Grecian Philosophers and the British Essayists, we have been in the
+habit of conceding to them ever since Eden; and they rushed again to the
+King like frightened deer.  Something now was to be done; and the
+monarch, with an expression of countenance which almost amounted to
+energy, whispered consolation.
+
+The King sent for Popanilla; the message produced a great sensation; the
+enlightened introducer of the new principles had not been at Court since
+he was cut.  No doubt his Majesty was at last impregnated with the
+liberal spirit of the age; and Popanilla was assuredly to be Premier.
+In fact, it must be so; he was 'sent for;' there was no precedent in
+Fantaisie, though there might be in other islands, for a person being
+'sent for' and not being Premier.  His disciples were in high spirits;
+the world was now to be regulated upon right principles, and they were
+to be installed into their right places.
+
+'Illustrious Popanilla!' said the King, 'you once did me the honour of
+making me a speech which, unfortunately for myself, I candidly confess,
+I was then incapable of understanding; no wonder, as it was the first I
+ever beard.  I shall not, however, easily forget the effect which it
+produced upon me.  I have since considered it my duty, as a monarch, to
+pay particular attention to your suggestions.  I now understand them
+with sufficient clearness to be fully convinced of their excellence, and
+in future I intend to act upon them, without any exception or deviation.
+To prove my sincerity, I have determined to commence the new system at
+once; and as I think that, without some extension of our international
+relations, the commercial interest of this island will be incapable of
+furnishing the taxes which I intend to levy, I have determined,
+therefore, to fit out an expedition for the purpose of discovering new
+islands and forming relations with new islanders.  It is but due to your
+merit that you should be appointed to the command of it; and further to
+testify my infinite esteem for your character, and my complete
+confidence in your abilities, I make you post-captain on the spot.  As
+the axiom of your school seems to be that everything can be made perfect
+at once, without time, without experience, without practice, and without
+preparation, I have no doubt, with the aid of a treatise or two, You
+will make a consummate naval commander, although you have never been at
+sea in the whole course of your life.  Farewell, Captain Popanilla!'
+
+No sooner was this adieu uttered than four brawny lords of the
+bed-chamber seized the Turgot of Fantaisie by the shoulders, and carried
+him with inconceivable rapidity to the shore.  His pupils, who would
+have fled to his rescue, were stifled with the embraces of their former
+partners, and their utilitarianism dissolved in the arms of those they
+once so rudely rejected.  As for their tutor, he was thrust into one of
+the canoes, with some fresh water, bread-fruit, dried fish, and a basket
+of alligator-pears.  A band of mermaids carried the canoe with exquisite
+management through the shallows and over the breakers, and poor
+Popanilla in a few minutes found himself out at sea.  Tremendously
+frightened, he offered to recant all his opinions, and denounce as
+traitors any individuals whom the Court might select.  But his former
+companions did not exactly detect the utility of his return.  His
+offers, his supplications, were equally fruitless; and the only answer
+which floated to him on the wind was, 'Farewell, Captain Popanilla!'
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 6
+
+
+Night fell upon the waters, dark and drear, and thick and misty.  How
+unlike those brilliant hours that once summoned him to revelry and love!
+Unhappy Popanilla!  Thy delicious Fantaisie has vanished!  Ah, pitiable
+youth!  What could possibly have induced you to be so very rash?  And
+all from that unlucky lock of hair!
+
+After a few natural paroxysms of rage, terror, anguish, and remorse, the
+Captain as naturally subsided into despair, and awaited with sullen
+apathy that fate which could not be far distant.  The only thing which
+puzzled the philosophical navigator was his inability to detect what
+useful end could be attained by his death.  At length, remembering that
+fish must be fed, his theory and his desperation were at the same time
+confirmed.
+
+A clear, dry morning succeeded the wet, gloomy night, and Popanilla had
+not yet gone down.  This extraordinary suspension of his fate roused him
+from his stupor, and between the consequent excitement and the morning
+air he acquired an appetite.  Philosophical physicians appear to have
+agreed that sorrow, to a certain extent, is not unfavourable to
+digestion; and as Popanilla began to entertain some indefinite and
+unreasonable hopes, the alligator-pears quickly disappeared.  In the
+meantime the little canoe cut her way, as if she were chasing a
+smuggler; and had it not been for a shark or two who, in anticipation of
+their services being required, never left her side for a second,
+Popanilla really might have made some ingenious observations on the
+nature of tides.  He was rather surprised, certainly, as he watched his
+frail bark cresting the waves; but he soon supposed that this was all in
+the natural course of things; and he now ascribed his previous fright,
+not to the peril of his situation, but to his inexperience of it.
+
+Although his apprehension of being drowned was now removed, yet when he
+gazed on the boundless vacancy before him, and also observed that his
+provisions rapidly decreased, he began to fear that he was destined for
+a still more horrible fate, and that, after having eaten his own slices,
+he must submit to be starved.  In this state of despondency, with
+infinite delight and exultation Le clearly observed, on the second clay,
+at twenty-seven minutes past three P.M., though at a considerable
+distance, a mountain and an island.  His joy and his pride were equal,
+and excessive: he called the first Alligator Mountain, in gratitude to
+the pears; and christened the second after his mistress, that unlucky
+mistress!  The swift canoe soon reached the discoveries, and the happy
+discoverer further found, to his mortification, that the mountain was a
+mist and the island a sea-weed.  Popanilla now grew sulky, and threw
+himself down in the bottom of his boat.
+
+On the third morning he was awakened by a tremendous roar; on looking
+around him he perceived that he was in a valley formed by two waves,
+each several hundred feet high.  This seemed the crisis of his fate; he
+shut his eyes, as people do when they are touched by a dentist, and in a
+few minutes was still bounding on the ocean in the eternal canoe, safe
+but senseless.  Some tremendous peals of thunder, a roaring wind, and a
+scathing lightning confirmed his indisposition; and had not the tempest
+subsided, Popanilla would probably have been an idiot for life.  The
+dead and soothing calm which succeeded this tornado called him back
+again gradually to existence.  He opened his eyes, and, scarcely daring
+to try a sense, immediately shut them; then hearing a deep sigh, he
+shrugged his shoulders, and looked as pitiable as a prime minister with
+a rebellious cabinet.  At length he ventured to lift up his head; there
+was not a wrinkle on the face of ocean; a halcyon fluttered over him,
+and then scudded before his canoe, and gamesome porpoises were tumbling
+at his side.  The sky was cloudless, except in the direction to which he
+was driving; but even as Popanilla observed, with some misgivings, the
+mass of vapours which had there congregated, the great square and solid
+black clouds drew off like curtains, and revealed to his entranced
+vision a magnificent city rising out of the sea.
+
+Tower, and dome, and arch, column, and spire, and obelisk, and lofty
+terraces, and many-windowed palaces, rose in all directions from a mass
+of building which appeared to him each instant to grow more huge, till
+at length it seemed to occupy the whole horizon.  The sun lent
+additional lustre to the dazzling quays of white marble which apparently
+surrounded this mighty city, and which rose immediately from the dark
+blue waters.  As the navigator drew nearer, he observed that in most
+parts the quays were crowded with beings who, he trusted, were human,
+and already the hum of multitudes broke upon his inexperienced ear: to
+him a sound far more mysterious and far more exciting than the most
+poetical of winds to the most wind of poets.  On the right of this vast
+city rose what was mistaken by Popanilla for an immense but leafless
+forest; but more practical men than the Fantaisian Captain have been
+equally confounded by the first sight of a million of masts.
+
+The canoe cut its way with increased rapidity, and ere Popanilla had
+recovered himself sufficiently to make even an ejaculation, he found
+himself at the side of a quay.  Some amphibious creatures, whom he
+supposed to be mermen, immediately came to his assistance, rather stared
+at his serpent-skin coat, and then helped him up the steps.  Popanilla
+was instantly surrounded.
+
+'Who are you?' said one.
+
+'What are you?' asked another.
+
+'Who is it?' exclaimed a third.
+
+'What is it?' screamed a fourth.
+
+'My friends, I am a man!'
+
+'A man!' said the women; 'are you sure you are a real man?'
+
+'He must be a sea-god!' said the females.
+
+'She must be a sea-goddess!' said the males.
+
+'A Triton!' maintained the women.
+
+'A Nereid!' argued the men.
+
+'It is a great fish!' said the boys.
+
+Thanks to the Universal Linguist, Captain Popanilla, under these
+peculiar circumstances, was more loquacious than could have been Captain
+Parry.
+
+'Good people! you see before you the most injured of human beings.'
+
+This announcement inspired general enthusiasm.  The women wept, the men
+shook hands with him, and all the boys huzzaed.  Popanilla proceeded: --
+
+'Actuated by the most pure, the most patriotic, the most noble, the most
+enlightened, and the most useful sentiments, I aspired to ameliorate the
+condition of my fellowmen.  To this grand object I have sacrificed all
+that makes life delightful: I have lost my station in society, my taste
+for dancing, my popularity with the men, my favour with the women; and
+last, but, oh! not least (excuse this emotion), I have lost a very
+particular lock of hair.  In one word, my friends, you see before you,
+banished, ruined, and unhappy, the victim of a despotic sovereign, a
+corrupt aristocracy, and a misguided people.'
+
+No sooner had he ceased speaking than Popanilla really imagined that he
+had only escaped the dangers of sedition and the sea to expire by less
+hostile, though not less effective, means.  To be strangled was not much
+better than to be starved: and certainly, with half-a-dozen highly
+respectable females clinging round his neck, he was not reminded for the
+first time in his life what a domestic bowstring is an affectionate
+woman.  In an agony of suffocation he thought very little of his arms,
+although the admiration of the men had already, in his imagination,
+separated these useful members from his miserable body and had it not
+been for some justifiable kicking and plunging, the veneration of the
+ingenuous and surrounding youth, which manifested itself by their active
+exertions to divide his singular garment into relics of a martyr of
+liberty, would soon have effectually prevented the ill-starred Popanilla
+from being again mistaken for a Nereid.  Order was at length restored,
+and a committee of eight appointed to regulate the visits of the
+increasing mob.
+
+The arrangements were judicious; the whole populace was marshalled into
+ranks; classes of twelve persons were allowed consecutively to walk past
+the victim of tyranny, corruption, and ignorance; and each person had
+the honour to touch his finger.  During this proceeding, which lasted a
+few hours, an influential personage generously offered to receive the
+eager subscriptions of the assembled thousands.  Even the boys
+subscribed, and ere six hours had passed since his arrival as a coatless
+vagabond in this liberal city, Captain Popanilla found himself a person
+of considerable means.
+
+The receiver of the subscriptions, while he crammed Popanilla's
+serpent-skin pockets fall of gold pieces, at the same time kindly
+offered the stranger to introduce him to an hotel.  Popanilla, who was
+quite beside himself, could only bow his assent, and mechanically
+accompanied his conductor.  When he had regained his faculty of speech,
+he endeavoured, in wandering sentences of grateful incoherency, to
+express his deep sense of this unparalleled liberality.  'It was an
+excess of generosity in which mankind could never have before indulged!'
+
+'By no means!' said his companion, with great coolness; 'far from this
+being an unparalleled affair, I assure you it is a matter of hourly
+occurrence; make your mind quite easy.  You are probably not aware that
+you are now living in the richest and the most charitable country in the
+world?'
+
+'Wonderful!' said Popanilla; 'and what is the name, may I ask, of this
+charitable city?'
+
+'Is it possible,' said his companion, with a faint smile, 'that you are
+ignorant of the great city of Hubbabub; the largest city not only that
+exists, but that ever did exist, and the capital of the island of
+Vraibleusia, the most famous island not only that is known, but that
+ever was known?'
+
+While he was speaking they were accosted by a man upon crutches, who,
+telling them in a broken voice that he had a wife and twelve infant
+children dependent on his support, supplicated a little charity.
+Popanilla was about to empty part of his pocketfuls into the mendicant's
+cap, but his companion repressed his unphilosophical facility.  'By no
+means!' said his friend, who, turning round to the beggar, advised him,
+in a mild voice, to work; calmly adding, that if he presumed to ask
+charity again he should certainly have him bastinadoed.  Then they
+walked on.
+
+Popanilla's attention was so distracted by the variety, the number, the
+novelty, and the noise of the objects which were incessantly hurried
+upon his observation, that he found no time to speak; and as his
+companion, though exceedingly polite, was a man of few words,
+conversation rather flagged.
+
+At last, overwhelmed by the magnificence of the streets, the splendour
+of the shops, the number of human beings, the rattling of the vehicles,
+the dashing of the horses, and a thousand other sounds and objects,
+Popanilla gave loose to a loud and fervent wish that his hotel might
+have the good fortune of being situated in this interesting quarter.
+
+'By no means!' said his companion; 'we have yet much further to go.  Far
+from this being a desirable situation for you, my friend, no civilised
+person is ever seen here; and had not the cause of civil and religious
+liberty fortunately called me to the water-side to-day, I should have
+lost the opportunity of showing how greatly I esteem a gentleman who has
+suffered so severely in the cause of national amelioration.'
+
+'Sir!' said Popanilla, 'your approbation is the only reward which I ever
+shall desire for my exertions.  You will excuse me for not quite keeping
+up with you; but the fact is, my pockets are so stuffed with cash that
+the action of my legs is greatly impeded.'
+
+'Credit me, my friend, that you are suffering from an inconvenience
+which you will not long experience in Hubbabub.  Nevertheless, to remedy
+it at present, I think the best thing we can do is to buy a purse.'
+
+They accordingly entered a shop where such an article might be found,
+and taking up a small sack, for Popanilla was very rich, his companion
+inquired its price, which he was informed was four crowns.  No sooner
+had the desired information been given than the proprietor of the
+opposite shop rushed in, and offered him the same article for three
+crowns.  The original merchant, not at all surprised at the intrusion,
+and not the least apologising for his former extortion, then demanded
+two.  His rival, being more than his match, he courteously dropped upon
+his knee, and requested his customer to accept the article gratis, for
+his sake.  The generous dealer would infallibly have carried the day,
+had not his rival humbly supplicated the purchaser not only to receive
+his article as a gift, but also the compliment of a crown inside.
+
+'What a terrible cheat the first merchant must have been!' said the
+puzzled Popanilla, as they proceeded on their way.
+
+'By no means!' said his calm companion; 'the purse was sufficiently,
+cheap even at four crowns.  This is not Cheatery; this is Competition!'
+
+'What a wonderful nation, then, this must be, where you not only get
+purses gratis but even well loaded!  What use, then, is all this heavy
+gold?  It is a tremendous trouble to carry; I will empty the bag into
+this kennel, for money surely can be of no use in a city where, when in
+want of cash, you have only to go into a shop and buy a purse!'
+
+'Your pardon!' said his companion; 'far from this being the case,
+Vraibleusia is, without doubt, the dearest country in the world.'
+
+'If, then,' said the inquisitive Popanilla, with great animation, 'if,
+then, this country be the dearest in the world; if, how -- '
+
+'My good friend!' said his companion, 'I really am the last person in
+the world to answer questions.  All that I know is, that this country is
+extremely dear, and that the only way to get things cheap is to
+encourage Competition.'
+
+Here the progress of his companion was impeded for some time by a great
+crowd, which had assembled to catch a glimpse of a man who was to fly
+off a steeple, but who had not yet arrived.  A chimney-sweeper observed
+to a scientific friend that probably the density of the atmosphere might
+prevent the intended volitation; and Popanilla, who, having read almost
+as many pamphlets as the observer, now felt quite at home, exceedingly
+admired the observation.
+
+'He must be a very superior man, this gentleman in black!' said
+Popanilla to his companion.
+
+'By no means! he is of the lowest class in society.  But you are
+probably not aware that you are in the most educated country in the
+world.'
+
+'Delightful!' said Popanilla.
+
+The Captain was exceedingly desirous of witnessing the flight of the
+Vraibleusian Daedalus, but his friend advised their progress.  This,
+however, was not easy; and Popanilla, animated for the moment by his
+natural aristocratic disposition, and emboldened by his superior size
+and strength, began to clear his way in a manner which was more cogent
+than logical.  The chimney-sweeper and his comrades were soon in arms,
+and Popanilla would certainly have been killed or ducked by this
+superior man and his friends, had it not been for the mild remonstrance
+of his conductor and the singular appearance of his costume.
+
+'What could have induced you to be so imprudent?' said his rescuer, when
+they had escaped from the crowd.
+
+'Truly,' said Popanilla, 'I thought that in a country where you may
+bastinado the wretch who presumes to ask you for alms, there could
+surely be no objection to my knocking down the scoundrel who dared to
+stand in my way.'
+
+'By no means!' said his friend, slightly elevating his eye-brows.  'Here
+all men are equal.  You are probably not aware that you are at present
+in the freest country in the world.'
+
+'I do not exactly understand you; what is this freedom?'
+
+'My good friend, I really am the last person in the world to answer
+questions.  Freedom is, in one word, Liberty: a kind of thing which you
+foreigners never can understand, and which mere theory can make no man
+understand.  When you have been in the island a few weeks all will be
+quite clear to you.  In the meantime, do as others do, and never knock
+men down!'
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 7
+
+
+'Although we are yet some way from our hotel,' remarked Popanilla's
+conductor, 'we have now arrived at a part of the city where I can ease
+you, without difficulty, from your troublesome burthen; let us enter
+here!'
+
+As he spoke, they stopped before a splendid palace, and proceeding
+through various halls full of individuals apparently intently busied,
+the companions were at last ushered into an apartment of smaller size,
+but of more elegant character.  A personage of prepossessing appearance
+was lolling on a couch of an appearance equally prepossessing.  Before
+him, on a table, were some papers, exquisite fruits, and some liqueurs.
+Popanilla was presented, and received with fascinating complaisance.
+His friend stated the object of their visit, and handed the sackful of
+gold to the gentleman on the sofa.  The gentleman on the sofa ordered a
+couple of attendants to ascertain its contents.  While this computation
+was going on he amused his guests by his lively conversation, and
+charmed Popanilla by his polished manners and easy civility.  He offered
+him, during his stay in Vraibleusia, the use of a couple of equipages, a
+villa, and an opera-box; insisted upon sending to his hotel some
+pine-apples and some rare wine, and gave him a perpetual ticket to his
+picture-gallery.  When his attendants had concluded their calculation,
+he ordered them to place Popanilla's precious metal in his treasury; and
+then, presenting the Captain with a small packet of pink shells, he
+kindly inquired whether he could be of any further use to him.
+Popanilla was loth to retire without his gold, of the utility of which,
+in spite of the convenience of competition, he seemed to possess an
+instinctive conception; but as his friend rose and withdrew, he could do
+nothing less than accompany him; for, having now known him nearly half a
+day, his confidence in his honour and integrity was naturally unbounded.
+
+'That was the King, of course?' said Popanilla, when they were fairly
+out of the palace.
+
+'The King!' said the unknown, nearly surprised into an exclamation; 'by
+no means!'
+
+'And what then?'
+
+'My good friend! is it possible that you have no bankers in your
+country?'
+
+'Yes, it is very possible; but we have mermaids, who also give us shells
+which are pretty.  What then are your bankers?'
+
+'Really, my good friend, that is a question which I never remember
+having been asked before; but a banker is a man who keeps our money for
+us.'
+
+'Ah! and he is bound, I suppose, to return your money, when you choose?'
+
+'Most assuredly!'
+
+'He is, then, in fact, your servant: you must pay him handsomely, for
+him to live so well?'
+
+'By no means! we pay him nothing.'
+
+'That is droll; he must be very rich then?'
+
+'Really, my dear friend, I cannot say.  Why, yes!  I -- I suppose he may
+be very rich!'
+
+'Tis singular that a rich man should take so much trouble for others!'
+
+'My good friend! of course he lives by his trouble.'
+
+'Ah!  How, then,' continued the inquisitive Fantaisian, 'if you do not
+pay him for his services, and he yet lives by them; how, I pray, does he
+acquire these immense riches?'
+
+'Really, my good sir, I am, in truth, the very last man in the world to
+answer questions: he is a banker; bankers are always rich; but why they
+are, or how they are, I really never had time to inquire.  But I
+suppose, if the truth were known, they must have very great
+opportunities.'
+
+'Ah!  I begin to see,' said Popanilla.  'It was really very kind of
+him,' continued the Captain, 'to make me a present of these little pink
+shells: what would I not give to turn them into a necklace, and send it
+to a certain person at Fantaisie !'
+
+'It would be a very expensive necklace,' observed his companion, almost
+surprised.  'I had no idea, I confess, from your appearance, that in
+your country they indulged in such expensive tastes in costume.'
+
+'Expensive !' said Popanilla.  'We certainly have no such shells as
+these in Fantaisie; but we have much more beautiful ones.  I should
+think, from their look, they must be rather common.'
+
+His conductor for the first time nearly laughed.  'I forgot,' said he,
+'that you could not be aware that these pink shells are the most
+precious coin of the land, compared with which those bits of gold with
+which you have recently parted are nothing; your whole fortune is now in
+that little packet.  The fact is,' continued the unknown, making an
+effort to communicate, 'although we possess in this country more of the
+precious metals than all the rest of the world together, the quantity is
+nevertheless utterly disproportioned to the magnitude of our wealth and
+our wants.  We have been, therefore, under the necessity of resorting to
+other means of representing the first and supplying the second; and,
+taking advantage of our insular situation, we have introduced these
+small pink shells, which abound all round the coast.  Being much more
+convenient to carry, they are in general circulation, and no genteel
+person has ever anything else in his pocket.'
+
+'Wonderful!  But surely, then, it is no very difficult thing in this
+country to accumulate a fortune, since all that is necessary to give you
+every luxury of life is a stroll one morning of your existence along the
+beach?'
+
+'By no means, my friend! you are really too rapid.  The fact is, that no
+one has the power of originally circulating these shells but our
+Government; and if any one, by any chance, choose to violate this
+arrangement, we make up for depriving him of his solitary walks on the
+shore by instant submersion in the sea.'
+
+'Then the whole circulation of the country is at the mercy of your
+Government?' remarked Popanilla, summoning to his recollection the
+contents of one of those shipwrecked brochures which had exercised so
+strange an influence on his destiny.  'Suppose they do not choose to
+issue?'
+
+'That is always guarded against.  The mere quarterly payments of
+interest upon our national debt will secure an ample supply.'
+
+'Debt!  I thought you were the richest nation in the world?'
+
+'Tis true; nevertheless, if there were a golden pyramid with a base as
+big as the whole earth and an apex touching the heavens, it would not
+supply us with sufficient metal to satisfy our creditors.'
+
+'But, my dear sir,' exclaimed the perplexed Popanilla, 'if this really
+be true, how then can you be said to be the richest nation in the
+world?'
+
+'It is very simple.  The annual interest upon our debt exceeds the whole
+wealth of the rest of the world; therefore we must be the richest nation
+in the world.'
+
+'Tis true,' said Popanilla; 'I see I have yet much to learn.  But with
+regard to these pink shells, how can you possibly create for them a
+certain standard of value?  It is merely agreement among yourselves that
+fixes any value to them.'
+
+'By no means! you are so rapid!  Each shell is immediately convertible
+into gold; of which metal, let me again remind you, we possess more than
+any other nation; but which, indeed, we only keep as a sort of dress
+coin, chiefly to indulge the prejudices of foreigners.'
+
+'But,' said the perpetual Popanilla, 'suppose every man who held a shell
+on the same day were to -- '
+
+'My good friend!  I really am the last person in the world to give
+explanations.  In Vraibleusia, we have so much to do that we have no
+time to think; a habit which only becomes nations who are not employed.
+You are now fast approaching the Great Shell Question; a question which,
+I confess, affects the interests of every man in this island more than
+any other; but of which, I must candidly own, every man in this island
+is more ignorant than of any other.  No one, however, can deny that the
+system works well; and if anything at any time go wrong, why really Mr.
+Secretary Periwinkle is a wonderful man, and our most eminent
+conchologist.  He, no doubt, will set it right; and if, by any chance,
+things are past even his management, why then, I suppose, to use our
+national motto, something will turn up.'
+
+Here they arrived at the hotel.  Having made every arrangement for the
+comfort and convenience of the Fantaisian stranger, Popanilla's
+conductor took his leave, previously informing him that his name was
+Skindeep; that he was a member of one of the largest families in the
+island; that, had he not been engaged to attend a lecture, he would have
+stayed and dined with him; but that he would certainly call upon him on
+the morrow.
+
+Compared with his hotel the palace of his banker was a dungeon; even the
+sunset voluptuousness of Fantaisie was now remembered without regret in
+the blaze of artificial light and in the artificial gratification of
+desires which art had alone created.  After a magnificent repast, his
+host politely inquired of Popanilla whether he would like to go to the
+Opera, the comedy, or a concert; but the Fantaisian philosopher was not
+yet quite corrupted; and, still inspired with a desire to acquire useful
+knowledge, he begged his landlord to procure him immediately a pamphlet
+on the Shell Question.
+
+While his host was engaged in procuring this luxury a man entered the
+room and told Popanilla that he had walked that day two thousand five
+hundred paces, and that the tax due to the Excise upon this promenade
+was fifty crowns.  The Captain stared, and remarked to the
+excise-officer that he thought a man's paces were a strange article to
+tax.  The excise-officer, with great civility, answered that no doubt at
+first sight it might appear rather strange, but that it was the only
+article left untaxed in Vraibleusia; that there was a slight deficiency
+in the last quarter's revenue, and that therefore the Government had no
+alternative; that it was a tax which did not press heavily upon the
+individual, because the Vraibleusians were of a sedentary habit; that,
+besides, it was an opinion every day more received among the best judges
+that the more a man was taxed the richer he ultimately would prove; and
+he concluded by saying that Popanilla need not make himself uneasy about
+these demands, because, if he were ruined to-morrow, being a foreigner,
+he was entitled by the law of the land to five thousand a-year; whereas
+he, the excise-man, being a native-born Vraibleusian, had no claims
+whatever upon the Government; therefore he hoped his honour would give
+him something to drink.
+
+His host now entered with the 'Novum Organon' of the great Periwinkle.
+While Popanilla devoured the lively pages of this treatise, he
+discovered that the system which had been so subtilely introduced by the
+Government, and which had so surprised him in the morning, had soon been
+adopted in private life; and although it was a drowning matter to pick
+up pink shells, still there was nothing to prevent the whole commerce of
+the country from being carried on by means of a system equally
+conchological.  He found that the social action in every part of the
+island was regulated and assisted by this process.  Oyster-shells were
+first introduced; muscle-shells speedily followed; and, as commerce
+became more complicate, they had even been obliged to have recourse to
+snail-shells.  Popanilla retired to rest with admiration of the people
+who thus converted to the most useful purposes things apparently so
+useless.  There was no saying now what might not be done even with a
+nutshell.  It was evident that the nation who contrived to be the
+richest people in the world while they were over head and ears in debt
+must be fast approaching to a state of perfection.  Finally, sinking to
+sleep in a bed of eiderdown, Popanilla was confirmed in his prejudices
+against a state of nature.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 8
+
+
+Skindeep called upon Popanilla on the following morning in an elegant
+equipage, and with great politeness proposed to attend him in a drive
+about the city.
+
+The island of Vraibleusia is one hundred and fifty miles in
+circumference, two-thirds of which are covered by the city of Hubbabub.
+It contains no other city, town, or village.  The rest of the island
+consists of rivers, canals, and railroads.  Popanilla was surprised when
+he was informed that Hubbabub did not contain more than five millions of
+inhabitants; but his surprise was decreased when their journey
+occasionally lay through tracts of streets, consisting often of
+capacious mansions entirely tenantless.  On seeking an explanation of
+this seeming desolation, he was told that the Hubbabubians were
+possessed by a frenzy of always moving on, westward; and that
+consequently great quarters of the city are perpetually deserted.  Even
+as Skindeep was speaking their passage was stopped by a large caravan of
+carriages and wagons heavily laden with human creatures and their
+children and chattels.  On Skindeep inquiring the cause of this great
+movement, he was informed by one on horseback, who seemed to be the
+leader of the horde, that they were the late dwellers in sundry squares
+and streets situated far to the east; that their houses having been
+ridiculed by an itinerant balladeer, the female part of the tribe had
+insisted upon immediately quitting their unfashionable fatherland; and
+that now, after three days' journey, they had succeeded in reaching the
+late settlement of a horde who had migrated to the extreme west.
+
+Quitting regions so subject to revolutions and vicissitudes, the
+travellers once more emerged into quarters of a less transitory
+reputation; and in the magnificent parks, the broad streets, the ample
+squares, the palaces, the triumphal arches, and the theatres of
+occidental Hubbabub, Popanilla lost those sad and mournful feelings
+which are ever engendered by contemplating the gloomy relics of departed
+greatness.  It was impossible to admire too much the architecture of
+this part of the city.  The elevations were indeed imposing.  In
+general, the massy Egyptian appropriately graced the attic-stories;
+while the finer and more elaborate architecture of Corinth was placed on
+a level with the eye, so that its beauties might be more easily
+discovered.  Spacious colonnades were flanked by porticoes, surmounted
+by domes; nor was the number of columns at all limited, for you
+occasionally met with porticos of two tiers, the lower one of which
+consisted of three, the higher one of thirty columns.  Pedestals of the
+purest Ionic Gothic were ingeniously intermixed with Palladian
+pediments; and the surging spire exquisitely harmonised with the
+horizontal architecture of the ancients.  But perhaps, after all, the
+most charming effect was produced by the pyramids, surmounted by
+weather-cocks.
+
+Popanilla was particularly pleased by some chimneys of Caryatides, and
+did not for a moment hesitate in assenting to the assertion of Skindeep
+that the Vraibleusians were the most architectural nation in the world.
+True it was, they had begun late; their attention as a people having
+been, for a considerable time, attracted to much more important affairs;
+but they had compensated for their tardy attention by their speedy
+excellence. *
+
+     * See a work which will be shortly published, entitled, 'The
+       difference detected between Architecture and Parchitecture,'
+       by Sansovino the Second.
+
+Before they returned home Skindeep led Popanilla to the top of a tower,
+from whence they had a complete view of the whole island.  Skindeep
+particularly directed the Captain's attention to one spot, where
+flourished, as he said, the only corn-fields in the country, which
+supplied the whole nation, and were the property of one individual.  So
+unrivalled was his agricultural science that the vulgar only accounted
+for his admirable produce by a miraculous fecundity!  The proprietor of
+these hundred golden acres was a rather mysterious sort of personage.
+He was an aboriginal inhabitant, and, though the only one of the
+aborigines in existence, had lived many centuries, and, to the
+consternation of some of the Vraibleusians and the exultation of others,
+exhibited no signs of decay.  This awful being was without a name.  When
+spoken of by his admirers he was generally described by such panegyrical
+periphrases as 'soul of the country,' 'foundation of the State,' 'the
+only real, and true, and substantial being;' while, on the other hand,
+those who presumed to differ from those sentiments were in the habit of
+styling him 'the dead weight,' 'the vampire,' 'the night-mare,' and
+other titles equally complimentary.  They also maintained that, instead
+of being either real or substantial, he was, in fact, the most flimsy
+and fictitious personage in the whole island; and then, lashing
+themselves up into metaphor, they would call him a meteor, or a vapour,
+or a great windy bubble, that would some day burst.
+
+The Aboriginal insisted that it was the common law of the land that the
+islanders should purchase their corn only of him.  They grumbled, but he
+growled; he swore that it was the constitution of the country; that
+there was an uninterrupted line of precedents to confirm the claim; and
+that, if they did not approve of the arrangement, they and their fathers
+should not have elected to have settled, or presumed to have been
+spawned, upon his island.  Then, as if he were not desirous of resting
+his claim on its mere legal merits, he would remind them of the
+superiority of his grain, and the impossibility of a scarcity, in the
+event of which calamity an insular people could always find a plentiful
+though temporary resource in sea-weed.  He then clearly proved to them
+that, if ever they had the imprudence to change any of their old laws,
+they would necessarily never have more than one meal a day as long as
+they lived.  Finally, he recalled to their recollection that he had made
+the island what it was, that he was their mainstay, and that his counsel
+and exertions had rendered them the wonder of the world.  Thus, between
+force, and fear, and flattery, the Vraibleusians paid for their corn
+nearly its weight in gold; but what did that signify to a nation with so
+many pink shells!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 9
+
+
+The third day after his drive with his friend Skindeep, Popanilla was
+waited upon by the most eminent bookseller in Hubbabub, who begged to
+have the honour of introducing to the public a Narrative of Captain
+Popanilla's Voyage.  This gentleman assured Popanilla that the
+Vraibleusian public were nervously alive to anything connected with
+discovery; that so ardent was their attachment to science and natural
+philosophy that voyages and travels were sure to be read with eagerness,
+particularly if they had coloured plates.  Popanilla was charmed with
+the proposition, but blushingly informed the mercantile Maecenas that he
+did not know how to write.  The publisher told him that this
+circumstance was not of the slightest importance; that he had never for
+a moment supposed that so sublime a savage could possess such a vulgar
+accomplishment; and that it was by no means difficult for a man to
+publish his travels without writing a line of them.
+
+Popanilla having consented to become an author upon these terms, the
+publisher asked him to dine with him, and introduced him to an
+intelligent individual.  This intelligent individual listened
+attentively to all Popanilla's adventures.  The Captain concealed
+nothing.  He began with the eternal lock of hair, and showed how
+wonderfully this world was constituted, that even the loss of a thing
+was not useless; from which it was clear that Utility was Providence.
+After drinking some capital wine, the intelligent individual told
+Popanilla that he was wrong in supposing Fantaisie to be an island;
+that, on the contrary, it was a great continent; that this was proved by
+the probable action of the tides in the part of the island which had not
+yet been visited; that the consequence of these tides would be that, in
+the course of a season or two, Fantaisie would become a great receptacle
+for icebergs, and be turned into the North Pole; that, therefore, the
+seasons throughout the world would be changed; that this year, in
+Vraibleusia, the usual winter would be omitted, and that when the
+present summer was finished the dog-days would again commence.
+Popanilla took his leave highly delighted with this intelligent
+individual and with the bookseller's wine.
+
+Owing to the competition which existed between the publishers, the
+printers, and the engravers of the city of Hubbabub, and the great
+exertions of the intelligent individual, the Narrative of Captain
+Popanilla's Voyage was brought out in less than a week, and was
+immediately in everybody's hand.  The work contained a detailed account
+of everything which took place daring the whole of the three days, and
+formed a quarto volume.  The plates were numerous and highly
+interesting, There was a line engraving of Alligator Mountain and a
+mezzotint of Seaweed Island; a view of the canoe N.E.; a view of the
+canoe N.W.; a view of the canoe S.E.; a view of the canoe S.W.  There
+were highly-finished coloured drawings of the dried fish and the
+breadfruit, and an exquisitely tinted representation of the latter in a
+mouldy state.  But the chef-d'oeuvre was the portrait of the Author
+himself.  He was represented trampling on the body of a boa constrictor
+of the first quality, in the skin of which he was dressed; at his back
+were his bow and arrows; his right hand rested on an uprooted pine-tree;
+he stood in a desert between two volcanoes; at his feet was a lake of
+magnitude; the distance lowered with an approaching tornado; but a lucky
+flash of lightning revealed the range of the Andes and both oceans.
+Altogether he looked the most dandified of savages, and the most savage
+of dandies.  It was a sublime lithograph, and produced scarcely less
+important effects upon Popanilla's fortune than that lucky 'lock of
+hair;' for no sooner was the portrait published than Popanilla received
+a ticket for the receptions of a lady of quality.  On showing it to
+Skindeep, he was told that the honour was immense, and therefore he must
+go by all means.  Skindeep regretted that he could not accompany him,
+but he was engaged to a lecture on shoemaking; and a lecture was a thing
+he made it a point never to miss, because, as he very properly observed,
+'By lectures you may become extremely well informed without any of the
+inconveniences of study.  No fixity of attention, no continuity of
+meditation, no habits of reflection, no aptitude of combination, are the
+least requisite; all which things only give you a nervous headache; and
+yet you gain all the results of all these processes.  True it is that
+that which is so easily acquired is not always so easily remembered; but
+what of that?  Suppose you forget any subject, why then you go to
+another lecture.'  'Very true!' said Popanilla.
+
+Popanilla failed not to remember his invitation from Lady Spirituelle;
+and at the proper hour his announcement produced a sensation throughout
+her crowded saloons.
+
+Spirituelle was a most enchanting lady; she asked Popanilla how tall he
+really was, and whether the women in Fantaisie were as handsome as the
+men.  Then she said that the Vraibleusians were the most intellectual
+and the most scientific nation in the world, and that the society at her
+house was the most intellectual and the most scientific in Vraibleusia.
+She told him also that she had hoped by this season the world would have
+been completely regulated by mind; but that the subversion of matter was
+a more substantial business than she and the Committee of Management had
+imagined: she had no doubt, however, that in a short time mind must
+carry the day, because matter was mortal and mind eternal; therefore
+mind had the best chance.  Finally, she also told him that the passions
+were the occasion of all the misery which had ever existed; and that it
+was impossible for mankind either to be happy or great until, like
+herself and her friends, they were 'all soul.'
+
+Popanilla was charmed with his company.  What a difference between the
+calm, smiling, easy, uninteresting, stupid, sunset countenances of
+Fantaisie and those around him.  All looked so interested and so
+intelligent; their eyes were so anxious, their gestures so animated,
+their manners so earnest.  They must be very clever!  He drew nearer.
+If before he were charmed, now he was enchanted.  What an universal
+acquisition of useful knowledge!  Three or four dukes were earnestly
+imbibing a new theory of gas from a brilliant little gentleman in black,
+who looked like a Will-o'-the-wisp.  The Prime Minister was anxious
+about pin-making; a Bishop equally interested in a dissertation on the
+escapements of watches; a Field-Marshal not less intent on a new
+specific from the concentrated essence of hellebore.  But what most
+delighted Popanilla was hearing a lecture from the most eminent lawyer
+and statesman in Vraibleusia on his first and favourite study of
+hydrostatics.  His associations quite overcame him: all Fantaisie rushed
+upon his memory, and he was obliged to retire to a less frequented part
+of the room to relieve his too excited feelings.
+
+He was in a few minutes addressed by the identical little gentleman who
+had recently been speculating with the three dukes.
+
+The little gentleman told him that he had heard with great pleasure that
+in Fantaisie they had no historians, poets, or novelists.  He proved to
+Popanilla that no such thing as experience existed; that, as the world
+was now to be regulated on quite different principles from those by
+which it had hitherto been conducted, similar events to those which had
+occurred could never again take place; and therefore it was absolutely
+useless to know anything about the past.  With regard to literary
+fiction, he explained that, as it was absolutely necessary, from his
+nature, that man should experience a certain quantity of excitement, the
+false interest which these productions created prevented their readers
+from obtaining this excitement by methods which, by the discovery of the
+useful, might greatly benefit society.
+
+'You are of opinion, then,' exclaimed the delighted Popanilla, 'that
+nothing is good which is not useful?'
+
+'Is it possible that an individual exists in this world who doubts this
+great first principle?' said the little man, with great animation.
+
+'Ah, my dear friend!' said Popanilla, 'if you only knew what an avowal
+of this great first principle has cost me; what I have suffered; what I
+have lost!'
+
+'What have you lost?' asked the little gentleman.
+
+'In the first place, a lock of hair -- '
+
+'Poh, nonsense!'
+
+'Ah! you may say Poh! but it was a particular lock of hair.'
+
+'My friend, that word is odious.  Nothing is particular, everything is
+general.  Rules are general, feelings are general, and property should
+be general; and, sir, I tell you what, in a very short time it must be
+so.  Why should Lady Spirituelle, for instance, receive me at her house,
+rather than I receive her at mine?'
+
+'Why don't you, then?' asked the simple Popanilla.
+
+'Because I have not got one, sir!' roared the little gentleman.
+
+He would certainly have broken away had not Popanilla begged him to
+answer one question.  The Captain, reiterating in the most solemn manner
+his firm belief in the dogma that nothing was good which was not useful,
+and again detailing the persecutions which this conviction had brought
+upon him, was delighted that an opportunity was now afforded to gain
+from the lips of a distinguished philosopher a definition of what
+utility really was.  The distinguished philosopher could not refuse so
+trifling a favour.
+
+'Utility,' said he, 'is -- '
+
+At this critical moment there was a universal buzz throughout the rooms,
+and everybody looked so interested that the philosopher quite forgot to
+finish his answer.  On inquiring the cause of this great sensation,
+Popanilla was informed that a rumour was about that a new element had
+been discovered that afternoon.  The party speedily broke up, the
+principal philosophers immediately rushing to their clubs to ascertain
+the truth of this report.  Popanilla was unfashionable enough to make
+his acknowledgments to his hostess before he left her house.  As he
+gazed upon her ladyship's brilliant eyes and radiant complexion, he felt
+convinced of the truth of her theory of the passions; he could not
+refrain from pressing her hand in a manner which violated etiquette, and
+which a nativity in the Indian Ocean could alone excuse; the pressure
+was graciously returned.  As Popanilla descended the staircase, he
+discovered a little note of pink satin paper entangled in his ruffle.
+He opened it with curiosity.  It was 'All soul.'  He did not return to
+his hotel quite so soon as he expected.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 10
+
+
+Popanilla breakfasted rather late the next morning, and on looking over
+the evening papers, which were just published, his eyes lighted on the
+following paragraph: --
+
+'Arrived yesterday at the Hotel Diplomatique, His Excellency Prince
+Popanilla, Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from
+the newly-recognised State of Fantaisie.'
+
+Before his Excellency could either recover from his astonishment or make
+any inquiries which might throw any illustration upon its cause, a loud
+shout in the street made him naturally look out of the window.  He
+observed three or four magnificent equipages drawing up at the door of
+the hotel, and followed by a large crowd.  Each carriage was drawn by
+four horses, and attended by footmen so radiant with gold and scarlet
+that, had Popanilla been the late ingenious Mr. Keates, he would have
+mistaken them for the natural children of Phoebus and Aurora.  The
+Ambassador forgot the irregularity of the paragraph in the splendour of
+the liveries.  He felt triumphantly conscious that the most beautiful
+rose in the world must look extremely pale by the side of scarlet cloth;
+and this new example of the superiority of art over nature reminding him
+of the inferiority of bread-fruit to grilled muffin, he resolved to
+return to breakfast.
+
+But it was his fate to be reminded of the inutility of the best
+resolutions, for ere the cup of coffee had touched his parched lips the
+door of his room flow open, and the Marquess of Moustache was announced.
+
+His Lordship was a young gentleman with an expressive countenance; that
+is to say, his face was so covered with hair, and the back of his head
+cropped so bald, that you generally addressed him in the rear by
+mistake.  He did not speak, but continued bowing for a considerable
+time, in that diplomatic manner which means so much.  By the time he had
+finished bowing his suite had gained the apartment, and his Private
+Secretary, one of those uncommonly able men who only want an
+opportunity, seized the present one of addressing Popanilla.
+
+Bowing to the late Captain with studied respect, he informed him that
+the Marquess Moustache was the nobleman appointed by the Government of
+Vraibleusia to attend upon his Excellency during the first few weeks of
+his mission, with the view of affording him all information upon those
+objects which might naturally be expected to engage the interest or
+attract the attention of so distinguished a personage.  The 'ancien
+marin' and present Ambassador had been so used to miracles since the
+loss of that lock of hair, that he did not think it supernatural, having
+during the last few days been in turn a Fantaisian nobleman, a
+post-captain, a fish, a goddess, and, above all, an author, he should
+now be transformed into a plenipotentiary.  Drinking, therefore, his cup
+of coffee, he assumed an air as if he really were used to have a
+Marquess for an attendant, and said that he was at his Lordship's
+service.
+
+The Marquess bowed low, and the Private Secretary remarked that the
+first thing to be done by his Excellency was to be presented to the
+Government.  After that he was to visit all the manufactories in
+Vraibleusia, subscribe to all the charities, and dine with all the
+Corporations, attend a dejeuner a la fourchette at a palace they were at
+present building under the sea, give a gold plate to be run for on the
+fashionable racecourse, be present at morning prayers at the Government
+Chapel, hunt once or twice, give a dinner or two himself, make one pun,
+and go to the Play, by which various means, he said, the good
+understanding between the two countries would be materially increased
+and, in a manner, established.
+
+As the Fantaisian Ambassador and his suite entered their carriages, the
+sky, if it had not been for the smoke, would certainly have been rent by
+the acclamations of the mob.  'Popanilla for ever!' sounded from all
+quarters, except where the shout was varied by 'Vraibleusia and
+Fantaisie against the world!' which perhaps was even the most popular
+sentiment of the two.  The Ambassador was quite agitated, and asked the
+Marquess what he was to do.  The Private Secretary told his Excellency
+to bow.  Popanilla bowed with such grace that in five minutes the horses
+were taken out of his carriage, and that carriage dragged in triumph by
+the enthusiastic populace.  He continued bowing, and their enthusiasm
+continued increasing.  In the meantime his Excellency's portrait was
+sketched by an artist who hung upon his wheel, and in less than half an
+hour a lithographic likeness of the popular idol was worshipped in every
+print-shop in Hubbabub.
+
+As they drew nearer the Hall of Audience the crowd kept increasing, till
+at length the whole city seemed poured forth to meet him.  Although now
+feeling conscious that he was the greatest man in the island, and
+therefore only thinking of himself, Popanilla's attention was
+nevertheless at this moment attracted by, a singular figure.  He was
+apparently a man: in stature a Patagonian, and robust as a well-fed
+ogre.  His countenance was jolly, but consequential; and his costume a
+curious mixture of a hunting-dress and a court suit.  He was on foot,
+and in spite of the crowd, with the aid of a good whip and his left fist
+made his way with great ease.  On inquiring who this extraordinary
+personage might be, Popanilla was informed that it was THE ABORIGINAL
+INHABITANT.  As the giant passed the Ambassador's carriages, the whole
+suite, even Lord Moustache, rose and bent low; and the Secretary told
+Popanilla that there was no person in the island for whom the Government
+of Vraibleusia entertained so profound a respect.
+
+The crowd was now so immense that even the progress of the Aboriginal
+Inhabitant was for a moment impeded.  The great man got surrounded by a
+large body of little mechanics.  The contrast between the pale
+perspiring visages and lean forms of these emaciated and half-generated
+creatures, and the jolly form and ruddy countenance, gigantic limbs and
+ample frame, of the Aboriginal, was most striking; nor could any one
+view the group for an instant without feeling convinced that the latter
+was really a superior existence.  The mechanics, who were worn by
+labour, not reduced by famine, far from being miserable, were impudent.
+They began rating the mighty one for the dearness of his corn.  He
+received their attacks with mildness.  He reminded them that the
+regulation by which they procured their bread was the aboriginal law of
+the island, under which they had all so greatly flourished.  He
+explained to them that it was owing to this protecting principle that he
+and his ancestors, having nothing to do but to hunt and shoot, had so
+preserved their health that, unlike the rest of the human race, they had
+not degenerated from the original form and nature of man.  He showed
+that it was owing to the vigour of mind and body consequent upon this
+fine health that Vraibleusia had become the wonder of the world, and
+that they themselves were so actively employed; and he inferred that
+they surely could not grudge him the income which he derived, since that
+income was, in fact, the foundation of their own profits.  He then
+satisfactorily demonstrated to them that if by any circumstances he were
+to cease to exist, the whole island would immediately sink under the
+sea.  Having thus condescended to hold a little parley with his
+fellow-subjects, though not follow-creatures, he gave them all a good
+sound flogging, and departed amidst the enthusiastic cheering of those
+whom he had so briskly lashed.
+
+By this time Popanilla had arrived at the Hall of Audience.
+
+'It was a vast and venerable pile.'
+
+His Excellency and suite quitted their carriages amidst the renewed
+acclamations of the mob.  Proceeding through a number of courts and
+quadrangles, crowded with guards and officials, they stopped before a
+bronze gate of great height.  Over it was written, in vast characters of
+living flame, this inscription:
+
+                 TO
+       THE WISEST AND THE BEST,
+    THE RICHEST AND THE MIGHTIEST,
+     THE GLORY AND THE ADMIRATION,
+  THE DEFENCE AND THE CONSTERNATION.
+
+On reading this mysterious inscription his Excellency experienced a
+sudden and awful shudder.  Lord Moustache, however, who was more used to
+mysteries, taking up a silver trumpet, which was fixed to the portal by
+a crimson cord, gave a loud blast.  The gates flew open with the sound
+of a whirlwind, and Popanilla found himself in what at first appeared an
+illimitable hall.  It was crowded, but perfect order was preserved.  The
+Ambassador was conducted with great pomp to the upper end of the
+apartment, where, after an hour's walk, his Excellency arrived.  At the
+extremity of the hall was a colossal and metallic Statue of
+extraordinary appearance.  It represented an armed monarch.  The head
+and bust were of gold, and the curling hair was crowned with an imperial
+diadem; the body and arms were of silver, worked in the semblance of a
+complete suit of enamelled armour of the feudal ages; and the thighs and
+legs were of iron, which the artist had clothed in the bandaged hose of
+the old Saxons.  The figure bore the appearance of great antiquity, but
+had evidently been often repaired and renovated since its first
+formation.  The workmanship was clearly of different eras, and the
+reparations, either from ignorance or intention, had often been effected
+with little deference to the original design.  Part of the shoulders had
+been supplied by the other, though less precious, metal, and the Roman
+and Imperial ornaments had unaccountably been succeeded by the less
+classic, though more picturesque, decorations of Gothic armour.  On the
+other hand, a great portion of the chivalric and precious material of
+the body had been removed, and replaced by a style and substance
+resembling those of the lower limbs.  In its right hand the Statue
+brandished a naked sword, and with its left leant upon a huge, though
+extremely rich and elaborately carved, crosier.  It trampled upon a
+shivered lance and a broken chain.
+
+'Your Excellency perceives,' said the Secretary, pointing to the Statue,
+'that ours is a mixed Government.'
+
+Popanilla was informed that this extraordinary Statue enjoyed all the
+faculties of an intellectual being, with the additional advantage of
+some faculties which intellectual beings do not enjoy.  It possessed not
+only the faculty of speech, but of speaking truth; not only the power of
+judgment, but of judging rightly; not only the habit of listening, but
+of listening attentively.  Its antiquity was so remote that the most
+profound and acute antiquarians had failed in tracing back its origin.
+The Aboriginal Inhabitant, however, asserted that it was the work of one
+of his ancestors; and as his assertion was confirmed by all traditions,
+the allegation was received.  Whatever might have been its origin,
+certain it was that it was now immortal, for it could never die; and to
+whomsoever it might have been originally indebted for its power, not
+less sure was it that it was now omnipotent, for it could do all things.
+Thus alleged and thus believed the Vraibleusians, marvellous and sublime
+people! who, with all the impotence of mortality, have created a
+Government which is both immortal and omnipotent!
+
+Generally speaking, the Statue was held in great reverence and viewed
+with great admiration by the whole Vraibleusian people.  There were a
+few persons, indeed, who asserted that the creation of such a Statue was
+by no means so mighty a business as it had been the fashion to suppose;
+and that it was more than probable that, with the advantages afforded by
+the scientific discoveries of modern times, they would succeed in making
+a more useful one.  This, indeed, they offered to accomplish, provided
+the present Statue were preliminarily destroyed; but as they were well
+assured that this offer would never be accepted, it was generally
+treated by those who refused it as a braggadocio.  There were many also
+who, though they in general greatly admired and respected the present
+Statue, affected to believe that, though the execution was wonderful,
+and the interior machinery indeed far beyond the powers of the present
+age, nevertheless the design was in many parts somewhat rude, and the
+figure altogether far from being well-proportioned.  Some thought the
+head too big, some too small; some that the body was disproportionately
+little; others, on the contrary, that it was so much too large that it
+had the appearance of being dropsical; others maintained that the legs
+were too weak for the support of the whole, and that they should be
+rendered more important and prominent members of the figure; while, on
+the contrary, there were yet others who cried out that really these
+members were already so extravagantly huge, so coarse, and so ungenteel,
+that they quite marred the general effect of a beautiful piece of
+sculpture.
+
+The same differences existed about the comparative excellence of the
+three metals and the portions of the body which they respectively
+formed.  Some admired the gold, and maintained that if it were not for
+the head the Statue would be utterly useless; others preferred the
+silver, and would assert that the body, which contained all the
+machinery, must clearly be the most precious portion; while a third
+party triumphantly argued that the iron legs which supported both body
+and head must surely be the most valuable part, since without them the
+Statue must fall.  The first party advised that in all future
+reparations gold only should be introduced; and the other parties, of
+course, recommended with equal zeal their own favourite metals.  It is
+observable, however, that if, under these circumstances, the iron race
+chanced to fail in carrying their point, they invariably voted for gold
+in preference to silver.  But the most contradictory opinions, perhaps,
+were those which were occasioned by the instruments with which the
+Statue was armed and supported.  Some affected to be so frightened by
+the mere sight of the brandished sword, although it never moved, that
+they pretended it was dangerous to live even under the same sky with it;
+while others, treating very lightly the terrors of this warlike
+instrument, would observe that much more was really to be apprehended
+from the remarkable strength and thickness of the calm and
+peace-inspiring crosier; and that as long as the Government was
+supported by this huge pastoral staff nothing could prevail against it;
+that it could dare all things, and even stand without the help of its
+legs.  All these various opinions at least proved that, although the
+present might not be the most miraculous Statue that could possibly be
+created, it was nevertheless quite impossible ever to form one which
+would please all parties.
+
+The care of this wonderful Statue was entrusted to twelve 'Managers,'
+whose duty it was to wind-up and regulate its complicated machinery, and
+who answered for its good management by their heads.  It was their
+business to consult the oracle upon all occasions, and by its decisions
+to administer and regulate all the affairs of the State.  They alone
+were permitted to hear its voice; for the Statue never spoke in public
+save on rare occasions, and its sentences were then really so extremely
+commonplace that, had it not been for the deep wisdom of its general
+conduct, the Vraibleusians would have been almost tempted to believe
+that they really might exist without the services of the capital member.
+The twelve Managers surrounded the Statue at a respectful distance;
+their posts were the most distinguished in the State; and indeed the
+duties attached to them were so numerous, so difficult, and so
+responsible, that it required no ordinary abilities to fulfil, and
+demanded no ordinary courage to aspire to, them.
+
+The Fantaisian Ambassador, having been presented, took his place on the
+right hand of the Statue, next to the Aboriginal Inhabitant, and public
+business then commenced.
+
+There came forward a messenger, who, knocking his nose three times with
+great reverence on the floor, a knock for each metal of the figure, thus
+spoke:
+
+'O thou wisest and best! thou richest and mightiest! thou glory and
+admiration! then defence and consternation!  Lo! the King of the North
+is cutting all his subjects' heads off!'
+
+This announcement produced a great sensation.  The Marquess Moustache
+took snuff; the Private Secretary said he had long suspected that this
+would be the case; and the Aboriginal Inhabitant remarked to Popanilla
+that the corn in the North was of an exceedingly coarse grain.  While
+they were making these observations the twelve Managers had assembled in
+deep consultation around the Statue, and in a very few minutes the
+Oracle was prepared.  The answer was very simple, but the exordium was
+sublime.  It professed that the Vraibleusian nation was the saviour and
+champion of the world; that it was the first principle of its policy to
+maintain the cause of any people struggling for their rights as men; and
+it avowed itself to be the grand patron of civil and religious liberty
+in all quarters of the globe.  Forty-seven battalions of infantry and
+eighteen regiments of cavalry, twenty-four sail of the line, seventy
+transports, and fifteen bombketches, were then ordered to leave
+Vraibleusia for the North in less than sixty minutes!
+
+'What energy!' said Popanilla; 'what decision! what rapidity of
+execution!'
+
+'Ay!' said the Aboriginal, smacking his thigh; 'let them say what they
+like about their proportions, and mixtures, and metals -- abstract
+nonsense!  No one can deny that our Government works well.  But see!
+here comes another messenger!'
+
+'O thou wisest and best! thou richest and mightiest! thou glory and
+admiration! thou defence and consternation!  Lo! the people of the South
+have cut their king's head off!'
+
+'Well! I suppose that is exactly what you all want,' said the innocent
+Popanilla.
+
+The Private Secretary looked mysterious, and said that he was not
+prepared to answer; that his department never having been connected with
+this species of business he was unable at the moment to give his
+Excellency the requisite information.  At the same time, he begged to
+state that, provided anything he said should not commit him, he had no
+objection to answer the question hypothetically.  The Aboriginal
+Inhabitant said that he would have no hypotheses or Jacobins; that he
+did not approve of cutting off kings' heads; and that the Vraibleusians
+were the most monarchical people in the world.  So saying, he walked up,
+without any ceremony, to the chief Manager, and taking him by the
+button, conversed with him some time in an earnest manner, which made
+the stocks fall two per cent.
+
+The Statue ordered three divisions of the grand army and a
+battering-train of the first grade off to the South without the loss of
+a second.  A palace and establishment were immediately directed to be
+prepared for the family of the murdered monarch, and the
+commander-in-chief was instructed to make every exertion to bring home
+the body of his Majesty embalmed.  Such an immense issue of pink shells
+was occasioned by this last expedition that stocks not only recovered
+themselves, but rose considerably.
+
+The excitement occasioned by this last announcement evaporated at the
+sight of a third messenger.  He informed the Statue that the Emperor of
+the East was unfortunately unable to pay the interest upon his national
+debt; that his treasury was quite empty and his resources utterly
+exhausted.  He requested the assistance of the most wealthy and the most
+generous of nations; and he offered them as security for their advances
+his gold and silver mines, which, for the breadth of their veins and the
+richness of their ores, he said, were unequalled.  He added, that the
+only reason they were unworked was the exquisite flavour of the
+water-melons in his empire, which was so delicious that his subjects of
+all classes, passing their whole day in devouring them, could be induced
+neither by force nor persuasion to do anything else.  The cause was so
+reasonable, and the security so satisfactory, that the Vraibleusian
+Government felt themselves authorised in shipping off immediately all
+the gold in the island.  Pink shells abounded, and stocks were still
+higher.
+
+'You have no mines in Vraibleusia, I believe?' said Popanilla to the
+Aboriginal.
+
+'No! but we have taxes.'
+
+'Very true!' said Popanilla.
+
+'I understand that a messenger has just arrived from the West,' said the
+Secretary to the Fantaisian Plenipotentiary.  'He must bring interesting
+intelligence from such interesting countries.  Next to ourselves, they
+are evidently the most happy, the most wealthy, the most enlightened,
+and the most powerful Governments in the world.  Although founded only
+last week, they already rank in the first class of nations.  I will send
+you a little pamphlet to-morrow, which I have just published upon this
+subject, in which you will see that I have combated, I trust not
+unsuccessfully, the ridiculous opinions of those cautious statesmen who
+insinuate that the stability of these Governments is even yet
+questionable.'
+
+The messenger from the Republics of the West now prostrated himself
+before the Statue.  He informed it that two parties had, unfortunately,
+broken out in these countries, and threatened their speedy dissolution;
+that one party maintained that all human government originated in the
+wants of man; while the other party asserted that it originated in the
+desires of man.  That these factions had become so violent and so
+universal that public business was altogether stopped, trade quite
+extinct, and the instalments due to Vraibleusia not forthcoming.
+Finally, he entreated the wisest and the best of nations to send to
+these distracted lands some discreet and trusty personages, well
+instructed in the first principles of government, in order that they
+might draw up constitutions for the ignorant and irritated multitude.
+
+The Private Secretary told Popanilla that this was no more than he had
+long expected; that all this would subside, and that he should publish a
+postscript to his pamphlet in a few days, which he begged to dedicate to
+him.
+
+A whole corps diplomatique and another shipful of abstract philosophers,
+principally Scotchmen, were immediately ordered off to the West; and
+shortly after, to render their first principles still more effective and
+their administrative arrangements still more influential, some brigades
+of infantry and a detachment of the guards followed.  Free constitutions
+are apt to be misunderstood until half of the nation are bayoneted and
+the rest imprisoned.
+
+As this mighty Vraibleusian nation had, within the last half-hour,
+received intelligence from all quarters of the globe, and interfered
+in all possible affairs, civil and military, abstract, administrative,
+diplomatic, and financial, Popanilla supposed that the assembly would
+now break up.  Some petty business, however, remained.  War was
+declared against the King of Sneezeland, for presuming to buy pocket-
+handkerchiefs of another nation; and the Emperor of Pastilles was
+threatened with a bombardment for daring to sell his peppers to another
+people.  There were also some dozen commercial treaties to be signed, or
+canvassed, or cancelled; and a report having got about that there was a
+rumour that some disturbance had broken out in some parts unknown, a
+flying expedition was despatched, with sealed orders, to circumnavigate
+the globe and arrange affairs.  By this time Popanilla thoroughly
+understood the meaning of the mysterious inscription.
+
+Just as the assembly was about to be dissolved another messenger, who,
+in his agitation, even forgot the accustomed etiquette of salutation,
+rushed into the presence.
+
+'O most mighty!  Sir Bombastes Furioso, who commanded our last
+expedition, having sailed, in the hurry, with wrong orders, has attacked
+our ancient ally by mistake, and utterly destroyed him!'
+
+Here was a pretty business for the Best and Wisest!  At first the
+Managers behaved in a manner the most undiplomatic, and quite lost their
+temper; they raved, they stormed, they contradicted each other, they
+contradicted themselves, and swore that Sir Bombastes' head should
+answer for it.  Then they subsided into sulkiness, and at length,
+beginning to suspect that the fault might ultimately attach only to
+themselves, they got frightened, and held frequent consultations with
+pale visages and quivering lips.  After some time they thought they
+could do nothing wiser than put a good face upon the affair; whatever
+might be the result, it was, at any rate, a victory, and a victory would
+please the vainest of nations: and so these blundering and blustering
+gentlemen determined to adopt the conqueror, whom they were at first
+weak enough to disclaim, then vile enough to bully, and finally forced
+to reward.  The Statue accordingly whispered a most elaborate panegyric
+on Furioso, which was of course duly delivered.  The Admiral, who was
+neither a coward nor a fool, was made ridiculous by being described as
+the greatest commander that ever existed; one whom Nature, in a gracious
+freak, had made to shame us little men; a happy compound of the piety of
+Noah, the patriotism of Themistocles, the skill of Columbus, and the
+courage of Nelson; and his exploit styled the most glorious and
+unrivalled victory that was ever achieved, even by the Vraibleusians!
+Honours were decreed in profusion, a general illumination ordered for
+the next twenty nights, and an expedition immediately despatched to
+attack the right man.
+
+All this time the conquerors were in waiting in an anteroom, in great
+trepidation, and fully prepared to be cashiered or cut in quarters.
+They were rather surprised when, bowing to the ground, they were saluted
+by some half-dozen lords-in-waiting as the heroes of the age,
+congratulated upon their famous achievements, and humbly requested to
+appear in the Presence.
+
+The warriors accordingly walked up in procession to the Statue, who,
+opening its mighty mouth, vomited forth a flood of ribbons, stars, and
+crosses, which were divided among the valiant band.  This oral discharge
+the Vraibleusians called the 'fountain of honour.'
+
+Scarcely had the mighty Furioso and his crew disappeared than a body of
+individuals arrived at the top of the hall, and, placing themselves
+opposite the Managers, began rating them for their inefficient
+administration of the island, and expatiated on the inconsistency of
+their late conduct to the conquering Bombastes.  The Managers defended
+themselves in a manner perfectly in character with their recent
+behaviour; but their opponents were not easily satisfied with their
+confused explanations and their explained confusions, and the speeches
+on both sides grew warmer.  At length the opposition proceeded to expel
+the administration from their places by force, and an eager scuffle
+between the two parties now commenced.  The general body of spectators
+continued only to observe, and did not participate in the fray.  At
+first, this melee only excited amusement; but as it lengthened some
+wisely observed that public business greatly suffered by these private
+squabbles; and some even ventured to imagine that the safety of the
+Statue might be implicated by their continuance.  But this last fear was
+futile.
+
+Popanilla asked the Private Secretary which party he thought would
+ultimately succeed.  The Private Secretary said that, if the present
+Managers retained their places, he thought that they would not go out;
+but if, on the other hand, they were expelled by the present opposition,
+it was probable that the present opposition would become Managers.  The
+Aboriginal thought both parties equally incompetent; and told Popanilla
+some long stories about a person who was chief Manager in his youth,
+about five hundred years ago, to whom he said he was indebted for all
+his political principles, which did not surprise Popanilla.
+
+At this moment a noise was heard throughout the hall which made his
+Excellency believe that something untoward had again happened, and that
+another conqueror by mistake had again arrived.  A most wonderful being
+galloped up to the top of the apartment.  It was half man and half
+horse.  The Secretary told Popanilla that this was the famous Centaur
+Chiron; that his Horseship, having wearied of his ardent locality in the
+constellations, had descended some years back to the island of
+Vraibleusia; that he had commanded the armies of the nation in all the
+great wars, and had gained every battle in which he had ever been
+engaged.  Chiron was no less skilful, he said, in civil than in military
+affairs; but the Vraibleusians, being very jealous of allowing
+themselves to be governed by their warriors, the Centaur had lately been
+out of employ.  While the Secretary was giving him this information
+Popanilla perceived that the great Chiron was attacking the combatants
+on both sides.  The tutor of Achilles, Hercules, and Aeneas, of course,
+soon succeeded in kicking them all out, and constituted himself chief
+and sole Manager of the Statue.  Some grumbled at this autocratic
+conduct 'upon principle,' but they were chiefly connections of the
+expelled.  The great majority, wearied with public squabbles occasioned
+by private ends, rejoiced to see the public interest entrusted to an
+individual who had a reputation to lose.  Intelligence of the
+appointment of the Centaur was speedily diffused throughout the island,
+and produced great and general satisfaction.  There were a few, indeed,
+impartial personages, who had no great taste for Centaurs in civil
+capacities, from an apprehension that, if he could not succeed in
+persuading them by his eloquence, his Grace might chance to use his
+heels.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 11
+
+
+On the evening of his presentation day his Excellency the Fantaisian
+Ambassador and suite honoured the national theatre with their presence.
+Such a house was never known!  The pit was miraculously over-flown
+before the doors were opened, although the proprietor did not permit a
+single private entrance.  The enthusiasm was universal, and only twelve
+persons were killed.  The Private Secretary told Popanilla, with an air
+of great complacency, that the Vraibleusian theatres were the largest in
+the world.  Popanilla had little doubt of the truth of this information,
+as a long time elapsed before he could even discover the stage.  He
+observed that every person in the theatre carried a long black glass,
+which he kept perpetually fixed to his eye.  To sit in a huge room
+hotter than a glass-house, in a posture emulating the most sanctified
+Faquir, with a throbbing head-ache, a breaking back, and twisted legs,
+with a heavy tube held over one eye, and the other covered with the
+unemployed hand, is in Vraibleusia called a public amusement.
+
+The play was by the most famous dramatist that Vraibleusia ever
+produced; and certainly, when his Excellency witnessed the first scenes,
+it was easier to imagine that he was once more in his own sunset Isle of
+Fantaisie than in the railroad state of Vraibleusia: but, unfortunately,
+this evening the principal characters and scenes were omitted, to make
+room for a moving panorama, which lasted some hours, of the chief and
+most recent Vraibleusian victories.  The audience fought their battles
+o'er again with great fervour.  During the play one of the inferior
+actors was supposed to have saluted a female chorus-singer with an
+ardour which was more than theatrical, and every lady in the house
+immediately fainted; because, as the eternal Secretary told Popanilla,
+the Vraibleusians are the most modest and most moral nation in the
+world.  The male part of the audience insisted, in indignant terms, that
+the offending performer should immediately be dismissed.  In a few
+minutes he appeared upon the stage to make a most humble apology for an
+offence which he was not conscious of having committed; but the most
+moral and the most modest of nations was implacable, and the wretch was
+expelled.  Having a large family dependent upon his exertions, the
+actor, according to a custom prevalent in Vraibleusia, went immediately
+and drowned himself in the nearest river.  Then the ballet commenced.
+
+It was soon discovered that the chief dancer, a celebrated foreigner,
+who had been announced for this evening, was absent.  The uproar was
+tremendous, and it was whispered that the house would be pulled down;
+because, as Popanilla was informed, the Vraibleusians are the most
+particular and the freest people in the world, and never will permit
+themselves to be treated with disrespect.  The principal chandelier
+having been destroyed, the manager appeared, and regretted that Signor
+Zephyrino, being engaged to dine with a Grandee of the first class, was
+unable to fulfil his engagement.  The house became frantic, and the
+terrified manager sent immediately for the Signor.  The artist, after a
+proper time had elapsed, appeared with a napkin round his neck and a
+fork in his hand, with which he stood some moments, until the uproar had
+subsided, picking his teeth.  At length, when silence was obtained, he
+told them that he was surprised that the most polished and liberal
+nation in the world should behave themselves in such a brutal and
+narrow-minded manner.  He threatened them that he would throw up his
+engagement immediately, and announce to all foreign parts that they were
+a horde of barbarians; then, abusing them for a few seconds in round
+terms, be retired, amidst the cheerings of the whole house, to finish
+his wine.
+
+When the performances were finished the audience rose and joined in
+chorus.  On Popanilla inquiring the name and nature of this effusion, he
+was told that it was the national air of the Isle of Fantaisie, sung in
+compliment to himself.  His Excellency shrugged his shoulders and bowed
+low.
+
+The next morning, attended by his suite, Popanilla visited the most
+considerable public offices and manufactories in Hubbabub.  He was
+received in all places with the greatest distinction.  He was invariably
+welcomed either by the chiefs of the department or the proprietors
+themselves, and a sumptuous collation was prepared for him in every
+place.  His Excellency evinced the liveliest interest in everything that
+was pointed out to him, and instantaneously perceived that the
+Vraibleusians exceeded the rest of the world in manufactures and public
+works as much as they did in arms, morals, modesty, philosophy, and
+politics.  The Private Secretary being absent upon his postscript,
+Popanilla received the most satisfactory information upon all subjects
+from the Marquess himself.  Whenever he addressed any question to his
+Lordship, his noble attendant, with the greatest politeness, begged him
+to take some refreshment.  Popanilla returned to his hotel with a great
+admiration of the manner in which refined philosophy in Vraibleusia was
+applied to the common purposes of life; and found that he had that
+morning acquired a general knowledge of the chief arts and sciences,
+eaten some hundred sandwiches, and tasted as many bottles of sherry.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 12
+
+
+The most commercial nation in the world was now busily preparing to
+diffuse the blessings of civilisation and competition throughout the
+native country of their newly-acquired friend.  The greatest exporters
+that ever existed had never been acquainted with such a subject for
+exportation as the Isle of Fantaisie.  There everything was wanted.  It
+was not a partial demand which was to be satisfied, nor a particular
+deficiency which was to be supplied; but a vast population was
+thoroughly to be furnished with every article which a vast population
+must require.  From the manufacturer of steam-engines to the
+manufacturer of stockings, all were alike employed.  There was no branch
+of trade in Vraibleusia which did not equally rejoice at this new
+opening for commercial enterprise, and which was not equally interested
+in this new theatre for Vraibleusian industry, Vraibleusian invention,
+Vraibleusian activity, and, above all, Vraibleusian competition.
+
+Day and night the whole island was employed in preparing for the great
+fleet and in huzzaing Popanilla.  When at borne, every ten minutes he
+was obliged to appear in the balcony, and then, with hand on heart and
+hat in hand, ah! that bow! that perpetual motion of popularity!  If a
+man love ease, let him be most unpopular.  The Managers did the
+impossible to assist and advance the intercourse between the two
+nations.  They behaved in a liberal and enlightened manner, and a
+deputation of liberal and enlightened merchants consequently waited upon
+them with a vote of thanks.  They issued so many pink shells that the
+price of the public funds was doubled, and affairs arranged so skilfully
+that money was universally declared to be worth nothing, so that every
+one in the island, from the Premier down to the Mendicant whom the
+lecture-loving Skindeep threatened with the bastinado, was enabled to
+participate, in some degree, in the approaching venture, if we should
+use so dubious a term in speaking of profits so certain.
+
+Compared with the Fantaisian connection, the whole commerce of the world
+appeared to the Vraibleusians a retail business.  All other customers
+were neglected or discarded, and each individual seemed to concentrate
+his resources to supply the wants of a country where they dance by
+moonlight, live on fruit, and sleep on flowers.  At length the first
+fleet of five hundred sail, laden with wonderful specimens of
+Vraibleusian mechanism, and innumerable bales of Vraibleusian
+manufactures; articles raw and refined, goods dry and damp, wholesale
+and retail; silks and woollen cloths; cottons, cutlery, and camlets;
+flannels and ladies' albums; under waistcoats, kid gloves, engravings,
+coats, cloaks, and ottomans; lamps and looking-glasses; sofas, round
+tables, equipages, and scent-bottles; fans and tissue-flowers;
+porcelain, poetry, novels, newspapers, and cookery books; bear's-grease,
+blue pills, and bijouterie; arms, beards, poodles, pages, mustachios,
+court-guides, and bon-bons; music, pictures, ladies' maids, scrapbooks,
+buckles, boxing-gloves, guitars, and snuff-boxes; together with a
+company of opera-singers, a band of comedians, a popular preacher, some
+quacks, lecturers, artists, and literary gentlemen, principally
+sketch-book men, quitted, one day, with a favourable wind, and amid the
+exultation of the inhabitants, the port of Hubbabub!
+
+When his Excellency Prince Popanilla heard of the contents of this
+stupendous cargo, notwithstanding his implicit confidence in the
+superior genius and useful knowledge of the Vraibleusians, he could not
+refrain from expressing a doubt whether, in the present undeveloped
+state of his native land, any returns could be made proportionate to so
+curious and elaborate an importation; but whenever he ventured to
+intimate his opinion to any of the most commercial nation in the world
+he was only listened to with an incredulous smile which seemed to pity
+his inexperience, or told, with an air of profound self-complacency,
+that in Fantaisie 'there must be great resources.'
+
+In the meantime, public companies were formed for working the mines,
+colonizing the waste lands, and cutting the coral rocks of the Indian
+Isle, of all which associations Popanilla was chosen Director by
+acclamation.  These, however, it must be confessed, were speculations of
+a somewhat doubtful nature; but the Branch Bank Society of the Isle of
+Fantaisie really held out flattering prospects.
+
+When the fleet had sailed they gave Popanilla a public dinner.  It was
+attended by all the principal men in the island, and he made a speech,
+which was received in a rather different manner than was his sunset
+oration by the monarch whom he now represented.  Faintaisie and its
+accomplished Envoy were at the same time the highest and the universal
+fashion.  The ladies sang   la Syrene, dressed their hair   la Mermede,
+and themselves   la Fantastique; which, by-the-bye, was not new; and the
+gentlemen wore boa-constrictor cravats and waltzed   la mer Indienne --
+a title probably suggested by a remembrance of the dangers of the sea.
+
+It was soon discovered that, without taking into consideration the
+average annual advantages which would necessarily spring from their new
+connection, the profits which must accrue upon the present expedition
+alone had already doubled the capital of the island.  Everybody in
+Vraibleusia had either made a fortune, or laid the foundation of one.
+The penniless had become prosperous, and the principal merchants and
+manufacturers, having realised large capitals, retired from business.
+But the colossal fortunes were made by the gentlemen who had assisted
+the administration in raising the price of the public funds and in
+managing the issues of the pink shells.  The effect of this immense
+increase of the national wealth and of this creation of new and powerful
+classes of society was speedily felt.  Great moves to the westward were
+perpetual, and a variety of sumptuous squares and streets were
+immediately run up in that chosen land.  Butlers were at a premium;
+coach-makers never slept; card-engravers, having exhausted copper, had
+recourse to steel; and the demand for arms at the Heralds' College was
+so great that even the mystical genius of Garter was exhausted, and
+hostile meetings were commenced between the junior members of some
+ancient families, to whom the same crest had been unwittingly
+apportioned; but, the seconds interfering, they discovered themselves to
+be relations.  All the eldest sons were immediately to get into
+Parliament, and all the younger ones as quickly into the Guards; and the
+simple Fantaisian Envoy, who had the peculiar felicity of taking
+everything au pied du lettre, made a calculation that, if these
+arrangements were duly effected, in a short time the Vraibleusian
+representatives would exceed the Vraibleusian represented; and that
+there would be at least three officers in the Vraibleusian guards to
+every private.  Judging from the beards and mustachios which now
+abounded, this great result was near at hand.  With the snub nose which
+is the characteristic of the millionaires, these appendages produce a
+pleasing effect.
+
+When the excitement had a little subsided; when their mighty mansions
+were magnificently furnished; when their bright equipages were fairly
+launched, and the due complement of their liveried retainers perfected;
+when, in short, they had imitated the aristocracy in every point in
+which wealth could rival blood: then the new people discovered with
+dismay that one thing was yet wanting, which treasure could not
+purchase, and which the wit of others could not supply -- Manner.  In
+homely phrase, the millionaires did not know how to behave themselves.
+Accustomed to the counting-house, the factory, or the exchange, they
+looked queer in saloons, and said 'Sir!' when they addressed you; and
+seemed stiff, and hard, and hot.  Then the solecisms they committed in
+more formal society, oh! they were outrageous; and a leading article in
+an eminent journal was actually written upon the subject.  I dare not
+write the deeds they did; but it was whispered that when they drank wine
+they filled their glasses to the very brim.  All this delighted the old
+class, who were as envious of their riches as the new people were
+emulous of their style.
+
+In any other country except Vraibleusia persons so situated would have
+consoled themselves for their disagreeable position by a consciousness
+that their posterity would not be annoyed by the same deficiencies; but
+the wonderful Vraibleusian people resembled no other, even in their
+failings.  They determined to acquire in a day that which had hitherto
+been deemed the gradual consequence of tedious education.
+
+A 'Society for the Diffusion of Fashionable Knowledge' was announced;
+the Millionaires looked triumphantly mysterious, the aristocrats
+quizzed.  The object of the society is intimated by its title; and the
+method by which its institutors proposed to attain this object was the
+periodical publication of pamphlets, under the superintendence of a
+competent committee.  The first treatise appeared: its subject was
+NONCHALANCE.  It instructed its students ever to appear inattentive in
+the society of men, and heartless when they conversed with women.  It
+taught them not to understand a man if he were witty; to misunderstand
+him if he were eloquent; to yawn or stare if he chanced to elevate his
+voice, or presumed to ruffle the placidity of the social calm by
+addressing his fellow-creatures with teeth unparted.  Excellence was
+never to be recognised, but only disparaged with a look: an opinion or a
+sentiment, and the nonchalant was lost for ever.  For these, he was to
+substitute a smile like a damp sunbeam, a moderate curl of the upper
+lip, and the all-speaking and perpetual shrug of the shoulders.  By a
+skilful management of these qualities it was shown to be easy to ruin
+another's reputation and ensure your own without ever opening your
+mouth.  To woman, this exquisite treatise said much in few words:
+'Listlessness, listlessness, listlessness,' was the edict by which the
+most beautiful works of nature were to be regulated, who are only truly
+charming when they make us feel and feel themselves.  'Listlessness,
+listlessness, listlessness;' for when you choose not to be listless, the
+contrast is so striking that the triumph must be complete.
+
+The treatise said much more, which I shall omit.  It forgot, however, to
+remark that this vaunted nonchalance may be the offspring of the most
+contemptible and the most odious of passions: and that while it may be
+exceedingly refined to appear uninterested when others are interested,
+to witness excellence without emotion, and to listen to genius without
+animation, the heart of the Insensible may as often be inflamed by Envy
+as inspired by Fashion.
+
+Dissertations 'On leaving cards,' 'On cutting intimate friends,' 'On
+cravats,' 'On dinner courses,' 'On poor relations.' 'On bores,' 'On
+lions,' were announced as speedily to appear.  In the meantime, the
+Essay on Nonchalance produced the best effects.  A ci-devant stockbroker
+cut a Duke dead at his club the day after its publication; and his
+daughter yawned while his Grace's eldest son, the Marquess, made her an
+offer as she was singing 'Di tanti palpiti.'  The aristocrats got a
+little frightened, and when an eminent hop-merchant and his lady had
+asked a dozen Countesses to dinner, and forgot to be at home to receive
+them, the old class left off quizzing.
+
+The pamphlets, however, continued issuing forth, and the new people
+advanced at a rate which was awful.  They actually began to originate
+some ideas of their own, and there was a whisper among the leaders of
+voting the aristocrats old-fashioned.  The Diffusion Society now caused
+these exalted personages great anxiety and uneasiness.  They argued that
+Fashion was a relative quality; that it was quite impossible, and not to
+be expected, that all people were to aspire to be fashionable; that it
+was not in the nature of things, and that, if it were, society could not
+exist; that the more their imitators advanced the more they should
+baffle their imitations; that a first and fashion able class was a
+necessary consequence of the organisation of man; and that a line of
+demarcation would for ever be drawn between them and the other
+islanders.  The warmth and eagerness with which they maintained and
+promulgated their opinions might have tempted, however, an impartial
+person to suspect that they secretly entertained some doubts of their
+truth and soundness.
+
+On the other hand, the other party maintained that Fashion was a
+positive quality; that the moment a person obtained a certain degree of
+refinement he or she became, in fact and essentially, fashionable; that
+the views of the old class were unphilosophical and illiberal, and
+unworthy of an enlightened age; that men were equal, and that everything
+is open to everybody; and that when we take into consideration the
+nature of man, the origin of society, and a few other things, and duly
+consider the constant inclination and progression towards perfection
+which mankind evince, there was no reason why, in the course of time,
+the whole nation should not go to Almack's on the same night.
+
+At this moment of doubt and dispute the Government of Vraibleusia, with
+that spirit of conciliation and liberality and that perfect wisdom for
+which it had been long celebrated, caring very little for the old class,
+whose interest, it well knew, was to support it, and being exceedingly
+desirous of engaging the affections of the new race, declared in their
+favour; and acting upon that sublime scale of measures for which this
+great nation has always been so famous, the Statue issued an edict that
+a new literature should be invented, in order at once to complete the
+education of the Millionaires and the triumph of the Romantic over the
+Classic School of Manners.
+
+The most eminent writers were, as usual, in the pay of the Government,
+and BURLINGTON, A TALE OF FASHIONABLE LIFE in three volumes post octavo,
+was sent forth.  Two or three similar works, bearing titles equally
+euphonious and aristocratic, were published daily; and so exquisite was
+the style of these productions, so naturally artificial the construction
+of their plots, and so admirably inventive the conception of their
+characters, that many who had been repulsed by the somewhat abstract
+matter and arid style of the treatises, seduced by the interest of a
+story, and by the dazzling delicacies of a charming style, really now
+picked up a considerable quantity of very useful knowledge; so that when
+the delighted students had eaten some fifty or sixty imaginary dinners
+in my lord's dining-room, and whirled some fifty or sixty imaginary
+waltzes in my lady's dancing-room, there was scarcely a brute left among
+the whole Millionaires.  But what produced the most beneficial effects
+on the new people, and excited the greatest indignation and despair
+among the old class, were some volumes which the Government, with
+shocking Machiavelism, bribed some needy scions of nobility to scribble,
+and which revealed certain secrets vainly believed to be quite sacred
+and inviolable.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 13
+
+
+Shortly after the sailing of the great fleet the Private Secretary
+engaged in a speculation which was rather more successful than any one
+contained in his pamphlet on 'The Present State of the Western
+Republics.'
+
+One morning, as he and Popanilla were walking on a quay, and
+deliberating on the clauses of the projected commercial treaty between
+Vraibleusia and Fantaisie, the Secretary suddenly stopped, as if he had
+seen his father's ghost or lost the thread of his argument, and asked
+Popanilla, with an air of suppressed agitation, whether he observed
+anything in the distance.  Popanilla, who, like all savages, was
+long-sighted, applying to his eye the glass which, in conformity to the
+custom of the country, he always wore round his neck, confessed that he
+saw nothing.  The Secretary, who had never unfixed his glass nor moved a
+step since he asked the question, at length, by pointing with his
+finger, attracted Popanilla's attention to what his Excellency conceived
+to be a porpoise bobbing up and down in the waves.  The Secretary,
+however, was not of the same opinion as the Ambassador.  He was not very
+communicative, indeed, as to his own opinion upon this grave subject,
+but he talked of making farther observations when the tide went down;
+and was so listless, abstracted, and absent, during the rest of their
+conversation, that it soon ceased, and they speedily parted.
+
+
+The next day, when Popanilla read the morning papers, a feat which he
+regularly performed, for spelling the newspaper was quite delicious to
+one who had so recently learned to read, he found that they spoke of
+nothing but of the discovery of a new island, information of which had
+been received by the Government only the preceding night.  The
+Fantaisian Ambassador turned quite pale, and for the first time in his
+life experienced the passion of jealousy, the green-eyed monster, so
+called from only being experienced by green-horns.  Already the
+prominent state he represented seemed to retire to the background.  He
+did not doubt that the Vraibleusians were the most capricious as well as
+the most commercial nation in the world.  His reign was evidently over.
+The new island would send forth a Prince still more popular.  His
+allowance of pink shells would be gradually reduced, and finally
+withdrawn.  His doubts, also, as to the success of the recent expedition
+to Fantaisie began to revive.  His rising reminiscences of his native
+land, which, with the joint assistance of popularity and philosophy, he
+had hitherto succeeded in stifling, were indeed awkward.  He could not
+conceive his mistress with a page and a poodle.  He feared much that the
+cargo was not well assorted.  Popanilla determined to inquire after his
+canoe.
+
+His courage, however, was greatly reassured when, on reading the second
+edition, he learned that the new island was not of considerable size,
+though most eligibly situate; and, moreover, that it was perfectly void
+of inhabitants.  When the third edition was published he found, to his
+surprise, that the Private Secretary was the discoverer of this
+opposition island.  This puzzled the Plenipotentiary greatly.  He read
+on; he found that this acquisition, upon which all Vraibleusia was
+congratulated in such glowing terms by all its journals, actually
+produced nothing.  His Excellency began to breathe; another paragraph,
+and he found that the rival island was, a rock!  He remembered the
+porpoise of yesterday.  The island certainly could not be very large,
+even at low water.  Popanilla once more felt like a Prince: he defied
+all the discoverers that could ever exist.  He thought of the great
+resources of the great country he represented with proud satisfaction.
+He waited with easy, confidence the return of the fleet which had
+carried out the most judicious assortment with which he had ever been
+acquainted to the readiest market of which he had any knowledge.  He had
+no doubt his mistress would look most charmingly in a barege.  Popanilla
+determined to present his canoe to the National Museum.
+
+Although his Excellency had been in the highest state of astonishment
+daring his whole mission to Vraibleusia, it must be confessed, now that
+he understood his companion's question of yesterday, he particularly
+stared.  His wonder was not decreased in the evening, when the
+'Government Gazette' appeared.  It contained an order for the immediate
+fortification of the new island by the most skilful engineers, without
+estimates.  A strong garrison was instantly embarked.  A Governor, and a
+Deputy-Governor, and Storekeepers, more plentiful than stores, were to
+accompany them.  The Private Secretary went out as President of Council.
+A Bishop was promised; and a complete Court of Judicature, Chancery,
+King's Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer, were to be off the next week.
+It is only due to the characters of courtiers, who are so often
+reproached with ingratitude to their patrons, to record that the Private
+Secretary, in the most delicate manner, placed at the disposal of his
+former employer, the Marquess Moustache, the important office of Agent
+for the Indemnity Claims of the original Inhabitants of the Island; the
+post being a sinecure, the income being considerable, and local
+attendance being unnecessary, the noble Lord, in a manner equally
+delicate, appointed himself.
+
+'Upon what system,' one day inquired that unwearied political student,
+the Fantaisian Ambassador, of his old friend Skindeep, 'does your
+Government surround a small rock in the middle of the sea with
+fortifications, and cram it full of clerks, soldiers, lawyers, and
+priests?'
+
+'Why, really, your Excellency, I am the last man in the world to answer
+questions; but I believe we call it THE COLONIAL SYSTEM!'
+
+Before the President, and Governor, and Deputy-Governor, and
+Storekeepers had embarked, the Vraibleusian journals, who thought that
+the public had been satiated with congratulations on the Colonial
+System, detected that the present colony was a job.  Their reasoning was
+so convincing, and their denunciations so impressive, that the Managers
+got frightened, and cut off one of the Deputy-Storekeepers.  The
+President of Council now got more frightened than the Managers.  He was
+one of those men who think that the world can be saved by writing a
+pamphlet.  A pamphlet accordingly appeared upon the subject of the new
+colony.  The writer showed that the debateable land was the most
+valuable acquisition ever attained by a nation famous for their
+acquisitions; that there was a spring of water in the middle of the rock
+of a remarkable freshness, and which was never dry except during the
+summer and the earlier winter months; that all our outward-bound ships
+would experience infinite benefit from this fresh water; that the scurvy
+would therefore disappear from the service; and that the naval victories
+which the Vraibleusians would gain in future wars would consequently be
+occasioned by the present colony.  No one could mistake the felicitous
+reasoning of the author of 'The Present State of the Western Republics!'
+
+About this time Popanilla fell ill.  He lost his appetite and his
+spirits, and his digestion was sadly disordered.  His friends
+endeavoured to console him by telling him that dyspepsia was the
+national disease of Vraibleusia; that its connection with civil and
+religious liberty was indissoluble; that every man, woman, and child
+above fifteen in the island was a martyr to it; that it was occasioned
+by their rapid mode of despatching their meals, which again was
+occasioned by the little time which the most active nation in the world
+could afford to bestow upon such a losing business as eating.
+
+All this was no consolation to a man who had lost his appetite; and so
+Popanilla sent for a gentleman who, he was told, was the most eminent
+physician in the island.  The most eminent physician, when he arrived,
+would not listen to a single syllable that his patient wished to address
+to him.  He told Popanilla that his disorder was 'decidedly liver;' that
+it was occasioned by his eating his meat before his bread instead of
+after it, and drinking at the end of the first course instead of the
+beginning of the second; that he had only to correct these ruinous
+habits, and that he would then regain his tone.
+
+Popanilla observed the instructions of the eminent physician to the very
+letter.  He invariably eat his bread before his meat, and watched the
+placing of the first dish of the second course upon the table ere he
+ventured to refresh himself with any liquid.  At the end of a week he
+was infinitely worse.
+
+He now called in a gentleman who was recommended to him as the most
+celebrated practitioner in all Vraibleusia.  The most celebrated
+practitioner listened with great attention to every particular that his
+patient had to state, but never condescended to open his own mouth.
+Popanilla was delighted, and revenged himself for the irritability of
+the eminent physician.  After two more visits, the most celebrated
+practitioner told Popanilla that his disorder was 'unquestionably
+nervous;' that he had over-excited himself by talking too much; that in
+future he must count five between each word be uttered, never ask any
+questions, and avoid society; that is, never stay at an evening party on
+any consideration later than twenty-two minutes past two, and never be
+induced by any persuasion to dine out more than once on the same day.
+The most celebrated practitioner added that he had only to observe these
+regulations, and that he would speedily recover his energy.
+
+Popanilla never asked a question for a whole week, and Skindeep never
+knew him more delightful.  He not only counted five, but ten, between
+every word he uttered; and determining that his cure should not be
+delayed, whenever he had nobody to speak to he continued counting.  In a
+few days this solitary computation brought on a slow fever.
+
+He now determined to have a consultation between the most eminent
+physician and the most celebrated practitioner.  It was delightful to
+witness the meeting of these great men.  Not a shade of jealousy dimmed
+the sunshine of their countenances.  After a consultation, they agreed
+that Popanilla's disorder was neither 'liver,' nor 'nervous,' but
+'mind:' that he had done too much; that he had overworked his brain;
+that he must take more exercise; that he must breathe more air; that he
+must have relaxation; that he must have a change of scene.
+
+'Where shall I go?' was the first question which Popanilla had sent
+forth for a fortnight, and it was addressed to Skindeep.
+
+'Really, your Excellency, I am the last man in the world to answer
+questions; but the place which is generally frequented by us when we are
+suffering from your complaint is Blunderland.'
+
+'Well, then, to Blunderland let us go!'
+
+Shortly before Popanilla's illness he had been elected a member of the
+Vraibleusian Horticultural Society, and one evening he had endeavoured
+to amuse himself by reading the following CHAPTER ON FRUIT.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 14
+
+
+That a taste for fruit is inherent in man is an opinion which is
+sanctioned by the conduct of man in all ages and in all countries.
+While some nations have considered it profanation or pollution to
+nourish themselves with flesh or solace themselves with fish, while
+almost every member of the animal creation has in turn been considered
+either sacred or unclean, mankind, in all climes and in all countries,
+the Hindoo and the Hebrew, the Egyptian and the Greek, the Roman and the
+Frank, have, in some degree, made good their boastful claim to reason,
+by universally feeding upon those delightful productions of Nature which
+are nourished with the dews of heaven, and which live for ever in its
+breath.
+
+And, indeed, when we consider how exceedingly refreshing at all times is
+the flavour of fruit; how very natural, and, in a manner, born in him,
+is man's inclination for it; how little it is calculated to pall upon
+his senses; and how conducive, when not eaten to excess, it is to his
+health, as well as to his pleasure; we must not be surprised that a
+conviction of its excellence should have been one of those few subjects
+on which men have never disagreed.
+
+That some countries are more favoured in their fruit than others is a
+fact so notorious that its notice is unnecessary; but we are not
+therefore to suppose that their appetite for it is more keen than the
+appetite of other nations for their fruit who live in less genial
+climes.  Indeed, if we were not led to believe that all nations are
+inspired by an equal love for this production, it might occasionally be
+suspected that some of those nations who are least skilful as
+horticulturists evince a greater passion for their inferior growths than
+more fortunate people for their choicer produce.  The effects of bad
+fruit, however, upon the constitution, and consequently upon the
+national character, are so injurious that every liberal man must regret
+that any people, either from ignorance or obligation, should be forced
+to have recourse to anything so fatal, and must feel that it is the duty
+of everyone who professes to be a philanthropist to propagate and
+encourage a taste for good fruit throughout all countries of the globe.
+
+A vast number of centuries before Popanilla had the fortune to lose his
+mistress's lock of hair, and consequently to become an ambassador to
+Vraibleusia, the inhabitants of that island, then scarcely more
+civilised than their new allies of Fantaisie were at present, suffered
+very considerably from the trash which they devoured, from that innate
+taste for fruit already noticed.  In fact, although there are
+antiquaries who pretend that the Vraibleusians possessed some of the
+species of wild plums and apples even at that early period, the majority
+of inquirers are disposed to believe that their desserts were solely
+confined to the wildest berries, horse-chestnuts, and acorns.
+
+A tradition runs, that while they were committing these abominations a
+ship, one of the first ships that had ever touched at the island,
+arrived at the present port of Hubbabub, then a spacious and shipless
+bay.  The master of the vessel, on being brought before the King (for
+the story I am recording happened long before the construction of the
+miraculous Statue), presented, with his right hand, to his Majesty, a
+small pyramidal substance of a golden hue, which seemed to spring out of
+green and purple leaves.  His Majesty did not exactly understand the
+intention of this ceremony; but of course, like a true legitimate,
+construed it into a symbol of homage.  No sooner had the King brought
+the unknown substance near to his eyes, with the intention of
+scrutinising its nature, than the fragrance was so delightful that by
+mistake he applied it to his mouth.  The King, only took one mouthful,
+and then, with a cry of rapture, instantly handed the delicacy to his
+favourite, who, to the great mortification of the Secretary of State,
+finished it.  The stranger, however, immediately supplied the
+surrounding courtiers from a basket which was slung on his left arm; and
+no sooner had they all tasted his gift than they fell upon their knees
+to worship him, vowing that the distributor of such delight must be more
+than man.  If this avowal be considered absurd and extraordinary in this
+present age of philosophy, we must not forget to make due allowance for
+the palates of individuals who, having been so long accustomed merely to
+horse-chestnuts and acorns, suddenly, for the first time in their lives,
+tasted Pine-apple.
+
+The stranger, with an air of great humility, disclaimed their proffered
+adoration, and told them that, far from being superior to common
+mortals, he was, on the contrary, one of the lowliest of the human race;
+in fact, he did not wish to conceal it; in spite of his vessel and his
+attendants, he was merely a market-gardener on a great scale.  This
+beautiful fruit he had recently discovered in the East, to which quarter
+of the world he annually travelled in order to obtain a sufficient
+quantity to supply the great Western hemisphere, of which he himself was
+a native.  Accident had driven him, with one of his ships, into the
+Island of Vraibleusia; and, as the islanders appeared to be pleased with
+his cargo, he said that he should have great pleasure in supplying them
+at present and receiving their orders for the future.
+
+The proposition was greeted with enthusiasm, The King immediately
+entered into a contract with the market-gardener on his own terms.  The
+sale, or cultivation, or even the eating of all other fruits was
+declared high-treason, and pine-apple, for weighty reasons duly recited
+in the royal proclamation, announced as the established fruit of the
+realm.  The cargo, under the superintendence of some of the most trusty
+of the crew, was unshipped for the immediate supply of the island; and
+the merchant and his customers parted, mutually delighted and mutually
+profited.
+
+Time flew on.  The civilisation of Vraibleusia was progressive, as
+civilisation always is; and the taste for pine-apples ever on the
+increase, as the taste for pine-apples ever should be.  The supply was
+regular and excellent, the prices reasonable, and the tradesmen civil.
+They, of course, had not failed to advance in fair proportion with the
+national prosperity.  Their numbers had much increased as well as their
+customers.  Fresh agents arrived with every fresh cargo.  They had long
+quitted the stalls with which they had been contented on their first
+settlement in the island, and now were the dapper owners of neat depots
+in all parts of the kingdom where depots could find customers.
+
+A few more centuries, and affairs began to change.  All that I have
+related as matter of fact, and which certainly is not better
+authenticated than many other things that happened two or three thousand
+years ago, which, however, the most sceptical will not presume to
+maintain did not take place, was treated as the most idle and ridiculous
+fable by the dealers in pine-apples themselves.  They said that they
+knew nothing about a market-gardener; that they were, and had always
+been, the subjects of the greatest Prince in the world, compared with
+whom all other crowned heads ranked merely as subjects did with their
+immediate sovereigns.  This Prince, they said, lived in the most
+delicious region in the world, and the fruit which they imported could
+only be procured from his private gardens, where it sprang from one of
+the trees that had bloomed in the gardens of the Hesperides.  The
+Vraibleusians were at first a little surprised at this information, but
+the old tradition of the market-gardener was certainly an improbable
+one; and the excellence of the fruit and the importance assumed by those
+who supplied it were deemed exceedingly good evidence of the truth of
+the present story.  When the dealers had repeated their new tale for a
+certain number of years, there was not an individual in the island who
+in the slightest degree suspected its veracity.  One more century, and
+no person had ever heard that any suspicions had ever existed.
+
+The immediate agents of the Prince of the World could, of course, be no
+common personages; and the servants of the gardener, who some centuries
+before had meekly disclaimed the proffered reverence of his delighted
+customers, now insisted upon constant adoration from every eater of
+pine-apples in the island.  In spite, however, of the arrogance of the
+dealers, of their refusal to be responsible to the laws of the country
+in which they lived, and of the universal precedence which, on all
+occasions, was claimed even by the shop-boys, so decided was the taste
+which the Vraibleusians had acquired for pine-apples that there is
+little doubt that, had the dealers in this delicious fruit been
+contented with the respect and influence and profit which were the
+consequences of their vocation, the Vraibleusians would never have
+presumed to have grumbled at their arrogance or to have questioned their
+privileges.  But the agents, wearied of the limited sphere to which
+their exertions were confined, and encouraged by the success which every
+new claim and pretence on their part invariably experienced, began to
+evince an inclination to interfere in other affairs besides those of
+fruit, and even expressed their willingness to undertake no less an
+office than the management of the Statue.
+
+A century or two were solely occupied by conflicts occasioned by the
+unreasonable ambition of these dealers in pine-apples.  Such great
+political effects could be produced by men apparently so unconnected
+with politics as market-gardeners!  Ever supported by the lower ranks,
+whom they supplied with fruit of the most exquisite flavour without
+charge, they were, for a long time, often the successful opponents,
+always the formidable adversaries, of the Vraibleusian aristocracy, who
+were the objects of their envy and the victims of their rapaciousness.
+The Government at last, by a vigorous effort, triumphed.  In spite of
+the wishes of the majority of the nation, the whole of the dealers were
+one day expelled the island, and the Managers of the Statue immediately
+took possession of their establishments.
+
+By distributing the stock of fruit which was on hand liberally, the
+Government, for a short time, reconciled the people to the chance; but
+as their warehouses became daily less furnished they were daily reminded
+that, unless some system were soon adopted, the Islanders must be
+deprived of a luxury to which they had been so long accustomed that its
+indulgence had, in fact, become a second nature.  No one of the managers
+had the hardihood to propose a recurrence to horse-chestnuts.  Pride and
+fear alike forbade a return to their old purveyor.  Other fruits there
+were which, in spite of the contract with the market-gardener, had at
+various times been secretly introduced into the island; but they had
+never greatly flourished, and the  Statue was loth to recommend to the
+notice of his subjects productions an indulgence in which, through the
+instigation of the recently-expelled agents, it had so often denounced
+as detrimental to the health, and had so often discouraged by the
+severest punishments.
+
+At this difficult and delicate crisis, when even expedients seemed
+exhausted and statesmen were at fault, the genius of an individual
+offered a substitute.  An inventive mind discovered the power of
+propagating suckers.  The expelled dealers had either been ignorant of
+this power, or had concealed their knowledge of it.  They ever
+maintained that it was impossible for pine-apples to grow except in one
+spot, and that the whole earth must be supplied from the gardens of the
+palace of the Prince of the World.  Now, the Vraibleusians were
+flattered with the patriotic fancy of eating pine-apples of a
+home-growth; and the blessed fortune of that nation, which did not
+depend for their supply of fruit upon a foreign country, was eagerly
+expatiated on.  Secure from extortion and independent of caprice, the
+Vraibleusians were no longer to be insulted by the presence of
+foreigners; who, while they violated their laws with impunity, referred
+the Vraibleusians, when injured and complaining, to a foreign master.
+
+No doubt this appeal to the patriotism, and the common sense, and the
+vanity of the nation would have been successful had not the produce of
+the suckers been both inferior in size and deficient in flavour.  The
+Vraibleusians tasted and shook their heads.  The supply, too, was as
+imperfect as the article; for the Government gardeners were but sorry
+horticulturists, and were ever making experiments and alterations in
+their modes of culture.  The article was scarce, though the law had
+decreed it universal; and the Vraibleusians were obliged to feed upon
+fruit which they considered at the same time both poor and expensive.
+They protested as strongly against the present system as its
+promulgators had protested against the former one, and they revenged
+themselves for their grievances by breaking the shop-windows.
+
+As any result was preferable, in the view of the Statue, to the
+re-introduction of foreign fruit and foreign agents, and as the Managers
+considered it highly important that an indissoluble connection should in
+future exist between the Government and so influential and profitable a
+branch of trade, they determined to adopt the most vigorous measures to
+infuse a taste for suckers in the discontented populace.  But the eating
+of fruit being clearly a matter of taste, it is evidently a habit which
+should rather be encouraged by a plentiful supply of exquisite produce
+than enforced by the introduction of burning and bayonets.  The
+consequences of the strong measures of the Government were universal
+discontent and partial rebellion.  The Islanders, foolishly ascribing
+the miseries which they endured, not so much to the folly of the
+Government as to the particular fruit through which the dissensions had
+originated, began to entertain a disgust for pine-apples altogether, and
+to sicken at the very mention of that production which had once
+occasioned them so much pleasure, and which had once commanded such
+decided admiration.  They universally agreed that there were many other
+fruits in the world besides Pine-apple which had been too long
+neglected.  One dilated on the rich flavour of Melon; another
+panegyrised Pumpkin, and offered to make up by quantity for any slight
+deficiency in gout; Cherries were not without their advocates;
+Strawberries were not forgotten.  One maintained that the Fig had been
+pointed out for the established fruit of all countries; while another
+asked, with a reeling eye, whether they need go far to seek when a God
+had condescended to preside over the Grape!  In short, there was not a
+fruit which flourishes that did not find its votaries.  Strange to say,
+another foreign product, imported from a neighbouring country famous for
+its barrenness, counted the most; and the fruit faction which chiefly
+frightened the Vraibleusian Government was an acid set, who crammed
+themselves with Crab-apples.
+
+It was this party which first seriously and practically conceived the
+idea of utterly abolishing the ancient custom of eating pine-apples.
+While they themselves professed to devour no other fruit save crabs,
+they at the same time preached the doctrine of an universal fruit
+toleration, which they showed would be the necessary and natural
+consequence of the destruction of the old monopoly.  Influenced by these
+representations, the great body of the people openly joined the
+Crab-apple men in their open attacks.  The minority, who still retained
+a taste for pines, did not yield without an arduous though ineffectual
+struggle.  During the riots occasioned by this rebellion the Hall of
+Audience was broken open, and the miraculous Statue, which was reputed
+to have a great passion for pine-apples, dashed to the ground.  The
+Managers were either slain or disappeared.  The whole affairs of the
+kingdom were conducted by a body called 'the Fruit Committee;' and thus
+a total revolution of the Government of Vraibleusia was occasioned by
+the prohibition of foreign pine-apples.  What an argument in favour of
+free-trade!
+
+Every fruit, except that one which had so recently been supported by the
+influence of authority and the terrors of law, might now be seen and
+devoured in the streets of Hubbabub.  In one corner men were sucking
+oranges, as if they had lived their whole lives on salt: in another,
+stuffing pumpkin, like cannibals at their first child.  Here one took in
+at a mouthful a bunch of grapes, from which might have been pressed a
+good quart.  Another was lying on the ground from a surfeit of
+mulberries.  The effect of this irrational excess will be conceived by
+the judicious reader.  Calcutta itself never suffered from a cholera
+morbus half so fearful.  Thousands were dying.  Were I Thucydides or
+Boccaccio, I would write pages on this plague.  The commonwealth itself
+must soon have yielded its ghost, for all order had ceased throughout
+the island ever since they had deserted pine-apples.  There was no
+Government: anarchy alone was perfect.  Of the Fruit Committee, many of
+the members were dead or dying, and the rest were robbing orchards.
+
+At this moment of disorganisation and dismay a stout soldier, one of the
+crab-apple faction, who had possessed sufficient command over himself,
+in spite of the seeming voracity of his appetite, not to indulge to a
+dangerous excess, made his way one morning into the old Hall of
+Audience, and there, groping about, succeeded in finding the golden head
+of the Statue; which placing on the hilt of his sword, the point of
+which he had stuck in the pedestal, he announced to the city that he had
+discovered the secret of conversing with this wonderful piece of
+mechanism, and that in future he would take care of the health and
+fortune of the State.
+
+There were some who thought it rather strange that the head-piece should
+possess the power of resuming its old functions, although deprived of
+the aid of the body which contained the greater portion of the
+machinery.  As it was evidently well supported by the sword, they were
+not surprised that it should stand without the use of its legs.  But the
+stout soldier was the only one in the island who enjoyed the blessing of
+health.  He was fresh, vigorous, and vigilant; they, exhausted, weak,
+and careless of everything except cure.  He soon took measures for the
+prevention of future mischief and for the cure of the present; and when
+his fellow-islanders had recovered, some were grateful, others fearful,
+and all obedient.
+
+So long as the stout soldier lived, no dissensions on the subject of
+fruit ever broke out.  Although he himself never interfered in the sale
+of the article, and never attempted to create another monopoly, still,
+by his influence and authority, he prevented any excess being occasioned
+by the Fruit toleration which was enjoyed.  Indeed, the Vraibleusians
+themselves had suffered so severely from their late indiscretions that
+such excesses were not likely again to occur.  People began to discover
+that it was not quite so easy a thing as they had imagined for every man
+to be his own Fruiterer; and that gardening was a craft which, like
+others, required great study, long practice, and early experience.
+Unable to supply themselves, the majority became the victims of quack
+traders.  They sickened of spongy apricots, and foxy pears, and withered
+plums, and blighted apples, and tasteless berries.  They at length
+suspected that a nation might fare better if its race of fruiterers were
+overseen and supported by the State, if their skill and their market
+were alike secured.  Although, no longer being tempted to suffer from a
+surfeit, the health of the Islanders had consequently recovered, this
+was, after all, but a negative blessing, and they sadly missed a luxury
+once so reasonable and so refreshing.  They sighed for an established
+fruit and a protected race of cultivators.  But the stout soldier was so
+sworn an enemy to any Government Fruit, and so decided an admirer of the
+least delightful, that the people, having no desire of being forced to
+cat crab-apples, only longed for more delicious food in silence.
+
+At length the stout soldier died, and on the night of his death the
+sword which had so long supported the pretended Government snapped in
+twain.  No arrangement existed for carrying on the administration of
+affairs.  The master-mind was gone, without having imported the secret
+of conversing with the golden head to any successor.  The people
+assembled in agitated crowds.  Each knew his neighbour's thoughts
+without their being declared.  All smacked their lips, and a cry for
+pine-apples rent the skies.
+
+At this moment the Aboriginal Inhabitant appeared, and announced that in
+examining the old Hall of Audience, which had been long locked up, he
+had discovered in a corner, where they had been flung by the stout
+soldier when he stole away the head, the remaining portions of the
+Statue; that they were quite uninjured, and that on fixing the head once
+more upon them, and winding up the works, he was delighted to find that
+this great work of his ancestor, under whose superintendence the nation
+had so flourished, resumed all its ancient functions.  The people were
+in a state of mind for a miracle, and they hailed the joyful wonder with
+shouts of triumph.  The State was placed under the provisional care of
+the Aboriginal.  All arrangements for its superintendence were left to
+his discretion, and its advice was instantly to be taken upon that
+subject which at present was nearest the people's hearts.
+
+But that subject was encompassed with difficulties.  Pine-apples could
+only be again procured by an application to the Prince of the World,
+whose connection they had rejected, and by an introduction into the
+island of those foreign agents, who, now convinced that the
+Vraibleusians could not exist without their presence, would be more
+arrogant and ambitious and turbulent than ever.  Indeed, the Aboriginal
+feared that the management of the Statue would be the sine qua non of
+negotiation with the Prince.  If this were granted, it was clear that
+Vraibleusia must in future only rank as a dependent state of a foreign
+power, since the direction of the whole island would actually be at the
+will of the supplier of pine-apples.  Ah! this mysterious taste for
+fruit!  In politics it has often occasioned infinite embarrassment.
+
+At this critical moment the Aboriginal received information that,
+although the eating of pine-apples had been utterly abolished, and
+although it was generally supposed that a specimen of this fruit had
+long ceased to exist in the country, nevertheless a body of persons,
+chiefly consisting of the descendants of the Government gardeners who
+had succeeded the foreign agents, and who had never lost their taste for
+this pre-eminent fruit, had long been in the habit of secretly raising,
+for their private eating, pine-apples from the produce of those suckers
+which had originally excited such odium and occasioned such misfortunes.
+Long practice, they said, and infinite study, had so perfected them in
+this art that they now succeeded in producing pine-apples which, both
+for size and flavour, were not inferior to the boasted produce of a
+foreign clime.  Their specimens verified their assertion, and the whole
+nation were invited to an instant trial.  The long interval which had
+elapsed since any man had enjoyed a treat so agreeable lent, perhaps, an
+additional flavour to that which was really excellent; and so enraptured
+and enthusiastic were the great majority of the people that the
+propagators of suckers would have had no difficulty, had they pushed the
+point, in procuring as favourable and exclusive a contract as the
+market-gardener of ancient days.
+
+But the Aboriginal and his advisers were wisely mindful that the
+passions of a people are not arguments for legislation; and they felt
+conscious that when the first enthusiasm had subsided and when their
+appetites were somewhat satisfied, the discontented voices of many who
+had been long used to other fruits would be recognised even amidst the
+shouts of the majority.  They therefore greatly qualified the contract
+between the nation and the present fruiterers.  An universal Toleration
+of Fruit was allowed; but no man was to take office under Government, or
+enter the services, or in any way become connected with the Court, who
+was not supplied from the Government depots.
+
+Since this happy restoration Pine-apple has remained the established
+fruit of the Island of Vraibleusia; and, it must be confessed, has been
+found wonderfully conducive to the health and happiness of the
+Islanders.  Some sectarians still remain obstinate, or tasteless enough
+to prefer pumpkin, or gorge the most acid apples, or chew the commonest
+pears; but they form a slight minority, which will gradually altogether
+disappear.  The votaries of Pine-apple pretend to observe the
+characteristic effect which such food produces upon the feeders.  They
+denounce them as stupid, sour, and vulgar.
+
+But while, notwithstanding an universal toleration, such an unanimity of
+taste apparently prevails throughout the island, as if Fruit were a
+subject of such peculiar nicety that difference of opinion must
+necessarily rise among men, great Fruit factions even now prevail in
+Vraibleusia; and, what is more extraordinary, prevail even among the
+admirers of pine-apples themselves.  Of these, the most important is a
+sect which professes to discover a natural deficiency not only in all
+other fruits, but even in the finest pine-apples.  Fruit, they maintain,
+should never be eaten in the state in which Nature yields it to man; and
+they consequently are indefatigable in prevailing upon the less
+discriminating part of mankind to heighten the flavour of their
+pine-apples with ginger, or even with pepper.  Although they profess to
+adopt these stimulants from the great admiration which they entertain
+for a high flavour, there are, nevertheless, some less ardent people who
+suspect that they rather have recourse to them from the weakness of
+their digestion.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 15
+
+
+As his Excellency Prince Popanilla really could not think of being
+annoyed by the attentions of the mob during his visit to Blunderland, he
+travelled quite in a quiet way, under the name of the Chevalier de
+Fantaisie, and was accompanied only by Skindeep and two attendants.  As
+Blunderland was one of the islands of the Vraibleusian Archipelago, they
+arrived there after the sail of a few hours.
+
+The country was so beautiful that the Chevalier was almost reminded of
+Fantaisie.  Green meadows and flourishing trees made him remember the
+railroads and canals of Vraibleusia without regret, or with disgust,
+which is much the same.  The women were angelic, which is the highest
+praise; and the men the most light-hearted, merry, obliging,
+entertaining fellows that he had met with in the whole course of his
+life.  Oh! it was delicious.
+
+After an hour's dashing drive, he arrived at a city which, had he not
+seen Hubbabub, he should have imagined was one of the most considerable
+in the world; but compared with the Vraibleusian capital it was a
+street.
+
+Shortly after his arrival, according to the custom of the place,
+Popanilla joined the public table of his hotel at dinner.  He was rather
+surprised that, instead of knives and forks being laid for the
+convenience of the guests, the plates were flanked by daggers and
+pistols.  As Popanilla now made a point of never asking a question of
+Skindeep, he addressed himself for information to his other neighbour,
+one of the civilest, most hospitable, and joyous rogues that ever set a
+table in a roar.  On Popanilla inquiring the reason of their using these
+singular instruments, his neighbour, with an air of great astonishment,
+confessed his ignorance of any people ever using any other; and in his
+turn asked how they could possibly eat their dinner without.  The
+Chevalier was puzzled, but he was now too well bred ever to pursue an
+inquiry.
+
+Popanilla, being thirsty, helped himself to a goblet of water, which was
+at hand.  It was the most delightful water that he ever tasted.  In a
+few minutes he found that he was a little dizzy, and, supposing this
+megrim to be occasioned by the heat of the room, he took another draught
+of water to recover himself.
+
+As his neighbour was telling him an excellent joke a man entered the
+room and shot the joker through the head.  The opposite guest
+immediately charged his pistol with effect, and revenged the loss.  A
+party of men, well armed, now rushed in, and a brisk conflict
+immediately ensued.  Popanilla, who was very dizzy, was fortunately
+pushed under the table.  When the firing and slashing had ceased, he
+ventured to crawl out.  He found that the assailants had been beaten
+off, though unfortunately with the total loss of all the guests, who lay
+lifeless about the room.  Even the prudent Skindeep, who had sought
+refuge in a closet, had lost his nose, which was a pity; because,
+although this gentleman had never been in Blunderland before, he had
+passed his whole life in maintaining that the accounts of the
+disturbances in that country were greatly exaggerated.  Popanilla rang
+the bell, and the waiters, who were remarkably attentive, swept away the
+dead bodies, and brought him a roasted potato for supper.
+
+The Chevalier soon retired to rest.  He found at the side of his bed a
+blunderbuss, a cutlass, and a pike; and he was directed to secure the
+door of his chamber with a great chain and a massy iron bar.  Feeling
+great confidence in his securities, although he was quite ignorant of
+the cause of alarm, and very much exhausted with the bustle of the day,
+he enjoyed sounder sleep than had refreshed him for many weeks.  He was
+awakened in the middle of the night by a loud knocking at his door.  He
+immediately seized his blunderbuss, but, recognising the voice of his
+own valet, he only took his pike.  His valet told him to unbar without
+loss of time, for the house had been set on fire.  Popanilla immediately
+made his escape, but found himself surrounded by the incendiaries.  He
+gave himself up for lost, when a sudden charge of cavalry brought him
+off in triumph.  He was convinced of the utility of light-horse.
+
+The military had arrived with such despatch that the fire was the least
+effective that had wakened the house for the whole week.  It was soon
+extinguished, and Popanilla again retired to his bedroom, not forgetting
+his bar and his chain.
+
+In the morning Popanilla was roused by his landlord, who told him that a
+large party was about to partake of the pleasures of the chase, and most
+politely inquired whether he would like to join them.  Popanilla
+assented, and after having eaten an excellent breakfast, and received a
+favourable bulletin of Skindeep's wound, he mounted his horse.  The
+party was numerous and well armed.  Popanilla inquired of a huntsman
+what sport they generally followed in Blunderland.  According to the
+custom of this country, where they never give a direct answer, the
+huntsman said that he did not know that there was any other sport but
+one.  Popanilla thought him a brute, and dug his spurs into his horse.
+
+They went off at a fine rate, and the exercise was most exhilarating.
+In a short time, as they were cantering along a defile, they received a
+sharp fire from each side, which rather reduced their numbers; but they
+revenged themselves for this loss when they regained the plain, where
+they burnt two villages, slew two or three hundred head of women, and
+bagged children without number.  On their, return home to dinner they
+chased a small body of men over a heath for nearly two hours, which
+afforded good sport; but they did not succeed in running them down, as
+they themselves were in turn chased by another party.  Altogether, the
+day was not deficient in interest, and Popanilla found in the evening
+his powers of digestion improved.
+
+After passing his days in this manner for about a fortnight, Popanilla
+perfectly recovered from his dyspepsia; and Skindeep's wound having now
+healed, he retired with regret from this healthy climate.  He took
+advantage of the leisure moment which was afforded during the sail to
+inquire the reason of the disturbed state of this interesting country.
+He was told that it was in consequence of the majority of the
+inhabitants persisting in importing their own pine-apples.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 16
+
+
+On his return to Hubbabub, the Chevalier de Fantaisie found the city in
+the greatest confusion.  The military were marshalled in all directions;
+the streets were lined with field-pieces; no one was abroad; all the
+shops were shut.  Although not a single vehicle was visible, Popanilla's
+progress was slow, from the quantity of shells of all kinds which choked
+up the public way.  When he arrived at his hotel he found that all the
+windows were broken.  He entered, and his landlord immediately presented
+him with his bill.  As the landlord was pressing, and as Popanilla
+wished for an opportunity of showing his confidence in Skindeep's
+friendship, he requested him to pay the amount.  Skindeep sent a
+messenger immediately to his banker, deeming an ambassador almost as
+good security as a nation, which we all know to be the very best.
+
+This little arrangement being concluded, the landlord resumed his usual
+civility.  He informed the travellers that the whole island was in a
+state of the greatest commotion, and that martial law universally
+prevailed.  He said that this disturbance was occasioned by the return
+of the expedition destined to the Isle of Fantaisie.  It appeared, from
+his account, that after sailing about from New Guinea to New Holland,
+the expedition had been utterly unable not only to reach their new
+customers, but even to obtain the slightest intelligence of their
+locality.  No such place as Fantaisie was known at Ceylon.  Sumatra gave
+information equally unsatisfactory.  Java shook its head.  Celebes
+conceived the inquirers were jesting.  The Philippine Isles offered to
+accommodate them with spices, but could assist them in no other way.
+Had it not been too hot at Borneo, they would have fairly laughed
+outright.  The Maldives and the Moluccas, the Luccadives and the
+Andamans, were nearly as impertinent.  The five hundred ships and the
+judiciously-assorted cargo were therefore under the necessity of
+returning home.
+
+No sooner, however, had they reached Vraibleusia than the markets were
+immediately glutted with the unsold goods.  All the manufacturers, who
+had been working day and night in preparing for the next expedition,
+were instantly thrown out of employ.  A run commenced on the Government
+Bank.  That institution perceived too late that the issues of pink
+shells had been too unrestricted.  As the Emperor of the East had all
+the gold, the Government Bank only protected itself from failure by
+bayoneting its creditors.  The manufacturers, who were starving,
+consoled themselves for the absence of food by breaking all the windows
+in the country with the discarded shells.  Every tradesman failed.  The
+shipping interest advertised two or three fleets for firewood.  Riots
+were universal.  The Aboriginal was attacked on all sides, and made so
+stout a resistance, and broke so many cudgels on the backs of his
+assailants, that it was supposed he would be finally exhausted by his
+own exertions.  The public funds sunk ten per cent. daily.  All the
+Millionaires crashed.  In a word, dismay, disorganisation, despair,
+pervaded in all directions the wisest, the greatest, and the richest
+nation in the world.  The master of the hotel added, with an air of
+becoming embarrassment, that, had not his Excellency been fortunately
+absent, he probably would not have had the pleasure of detailing to him
+this little narrative; that he had often been inquired for by the
+populace at his old balcony; and that a crowd had perpetually surrounded
+the house till within the last day, when a report had got about that his
+Excellency had turned into steam and disappeared.  He added that
+caricatures of his Highness might be procured in any shop, and his
+account of his voyage obtained at less than half-price.
+
+'Ah!' said Popanilla, in a tone of great anguish, 'and all this from
+losing a lock of hair!'
+
+At this moment the messenger whom Skindeep had despatched returned, and
+informed him with great regret that his banker, to whom he had entrusted
+his whole fortune, had been so unlucky as to stop payment during his
+absence.  It was expected, however, that when his stud was sold a
+respectable dividend might be realised.  This was the personage of
+prepossessing appearance who had presented Popanilla with a perpetual
+ticket to his picture gallery.  On examining the banker's accounts, it
+was discovered that his chief loss had been incurred by supporting that
+competition establishment where purses were bought full of crowns.
+
+In spite of his own misfortunes, Popanilla hastened to console his
+friend.  He explained to him that things were not quite so bad as they
+appeared; that society consisted of two classes, those who laboured, and
+those who paid the labourers; that each class was equally useful,
+because, if there were none to pay, the labourers would not be
+remunerated, and if there were none to labour, the payers would not be
+accommodated; that Skindeep might still rank in one of these classes;
+that he might therefore still be a useful member of society; that, if he
+were useful, he must therefore be good; and that, if he were good, he
+must therefore be happy; because happiness is the consequence of
+assisting the beneficial development of the ameliorating principles of
+the social action.
+
+As he was speaking, two gentlemen in blue, with red waistcoats, entered
+the chamber and seized Popanilla by the collar.  The Vraibleusian
+Government, which is so famous for its interpretation of National Law,
+had arrested the Ambassador for high treason.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 17
+
+
+A prison conveyed the most lugubrious ideas to the mind of the unhappy
+Plenipotentiary; and shut up in a hackney-coach, with a man on each side
+of him with a most gloomy conceptions of overwhelming fetters, black
+bread, and green water.  He arrived at the principal gaol in Hubbabub.
+He was ushered into an elegantly furnished apartment, with French sash
+windows and a piano.  Its lofty walls were entirely hung with a fanciful
+paper, which represented a Tuscan vineyard; the ceiling was covered with
+sky and clouds; roses were in abundance; and the windows, though well
+secured, excited no jarring associations in the mind of the individual
+they illumined, protected, as they were, by polished bars of cut steel.
+This retreat had been fitted up by a poetical politician, who had
+recently been confined for declaring that the Statue was an old idol
+originally imported from the Sandwich Isles.  Taking up a brilliantly
+bound volume which reposed upon a rosewood table, Popanilla recited
+aloud a sonnet to Liberty; but the account given of the goddess by the
+bard was so confused, and he seemed so little acquainted with his
+subject, that the reader began to suspect it was an effusion of the
+gaoler.
+
+Next to being a Plenipotentiary, Popanilla preferred being a prisoner.
+His daily meals consisted of every delicacy in season: a marble bath was
+ever at his service; a billiard-room and dumb-bells always ready; and
+his old friends, the most eminent physician and the most celebrated
+practitioner in Hubbabub, called upon him daily to feel his pulse and
+look at his tongue.  These attentions authorised a hope that he might
+yet again be an Ambassador, that his native land might still be
+discovered, and its resources still be developed: but when his gaoler
+told him that the rest of the prisoners were treated in a manner equally
+indulgent, because the Vraibleusians are the most humane people in the
+world, Popanilla's spirits became somewhat depressed.
+
+He was greatly consoled, however, by a daily visit from a body of the
+most beautiful, the most accomplished, and the most virtuous females in
+Hubbabub, who tasted his food to see that his cook did his duty,
+recommended him a plentiful use of pine-apple well peppered, and made
+him a present of a very handsome shirt, with worked frills and ruffles,
+to be hanged in.  This enchanting committee generally confined their
+attentions to murderers and other victims of the passions, who were
+deserted in their hour of need by the rest of the society they had
+outraged; but Popanilla, being a foreigner, a Prince, and a
+Plenipotentiary, and not ill-looking, naturally attracted a great deal
+of notice from those who desire the amelioration of their species.
+
+Popanilla was so pleased with his mode of life, and had acquired such a
+taste for poetry, pin-apples, and pepper since he had ceased to be an
+active member of society, that he applied to have his trial postponed,
+on the ground of the prejudice which had been excited against him by the
+public press.  As his trial was at present inconvenient to the
+Government, the postponement was allowed on these grounds.
+
+In the meantime, the public agitation was subsiding.  The nation
+reconciled itself to the revolution in its fortunes.  The ci-devant
+millionaires were busied with retrenchment; the Government engaged in
+sweeping in as many pink shells as were lying about the country; the
+mechanics contrived to live upon chalk and sea-weed; and as the
+Aboriginal would not give his corn away gratis, the Vraibleusians
+determined to give up bread.  The intellectual part of the nation were
+intently interested in discovering the cause of the National Distress.
+One of the philosophers said that it might all be traced to the effects
+of a war in which the Vraibleusians had engaged about a century before.
+Another showed that it was altogether clearly ascribable to the
+pernicious custom of issuing pink shells; but if, instead of this mode
+of representing wealth, they had had recourse to blue shells, the nation
+would now have advanced to a state of prosperity which it had never yet
+reached.  A third demonstrated to the satisfaction of himself and his
+immediate circle that it was all owing to the Statue having recently
+been repaired with silver instead of iron.  The public were unable to
+decide between these conflicting opinions; but they were still more
+desirous of finding out a remedy for the evil than the cause of it.
+
+An eloquent and philosophical writer, who entertains consolatory
+opinions of human nature, has recently told us that 'it is in the nature
+of things that the intellectual wants of society should be supplied.
+Whenever the man is required invariably the man will appear.'  So it
+happened in the present instance.  A public instructor jumped up in the
+person of Mr. Flummery Flam, the least insinuating and the least
+plausible personage that ever performed the easy task of gulling a
+nation.  His manners were vulgar, his voice was sharp, and his language
+almost unintelligible.  Flummery Flam was a provisional optimist.  He
+maintained that everything would be for the best, if the nation would
+only follow his advice.  He told the Vraibleusians that the present
+universal and overwhelming distress was all and entirely and merely to
+be ascribed to 'a slight over-trading,' and that all that was required
+to set everything right again was 'a little time.'  He showed that this
+over-trading and every other injudicious act that had ever been
+committed were entirely to be ascribed to the nation being imbued with
+erroneous and imperfect ideas of the nature of Demand and Supply.  He
+proved to them that if a tradesman cannot find customers his goods will
+generally stay upon his own hands.  He explained to the Aboriginal the
+meaning of rent; to the mechanics the nature of wages; to the
+manufacturers the signification of profits.  He recommended that a large
+edition of his own work should be printed at the public expense and sold
+for his private profit.  Finally, he explained how immediate, though
+temporary, relief would be afforded to the State by the encouragement of
+EMIGRATION.
+
+The Vraibleusians began to recover their spirits.  The Government had
+the highest confidence in Flummery Flam, because Flummery Flam served to
+divert the public thoughts.  By his direction lectures were instituted
+at the corner of every street, to instil the right principles of
+politics into the mind of the great body of the people.  Every person,
+from the Managers of the Statue down to the chalk-chewing mechanics,
+attended lectures on Flummery-Flammism.  The Vraibleusians suddenly
+discovered that it was the great object of a nation not to be the most
+powerful, or the richest, or the best, or the wisest, but to be the most
+Flummery-Flammistical.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 18
+
+
+The day fixed for Popanilla's trial was at hand.  The Prince was not
+unprepared for the meeting.  For some weeks before the appointed day he
+had been deeply studying the published speeches of the greatest
+rhetorician that flourished at the Vraibleusian bar.  He was so inflated
+with their style that he nearly blew down the gaoler every morning when
+he rehearsed a passage before him.  Indeed, Popanilla looked forward to
+his trial with feelings of anticipated triumph.  He determined boldly
+and fearlessly to state the principles upon which his public conduct had
+been founded, the sentiments he professed on most of the important
+subjects which interest mankind, and the views he entertained of the
+progress of society.  He would then describe, in the most glowing
+language, the domestic happiness which he enjoyed in his native isle.
+He would paint, in harrowing sentences, the eternal misery and disgrace
+which his ignominious execution would entail upon the grey-headed
+father, who looked up to him as a prop for his old age; the affectionate
+mother, who perceived in him her husband again a youth; the devoted
+wife, who could never survive his loss; and the sixteen children,
+chiefly girls, whom his death would infallibly send upon the parish.
+This, with an eulogistic peroration on the moral qualities of the
+Vraibleusians and the political importance of Vraibleusia, would, he had
+no doubt, not only save his neck, but even gain him a moderate pension.
+
+The day arrived, the Court was crowded, and Popanilla had the
+satisfaction of observing in the newspapers that tickets for the best
+gallery to witness his execution were selling at a premium.
+
+The indictment was read.  He listened to it with intense attention.  To
+his surprise, he found himself accused of stealing two hundred and
+nineteen Camelopards.  All was now explained.  He perceived that he had
+been mistaken the whole of this time for another person.  He could not
+contain himself.  He burst into an exclamation.  He told the judge, in a
+voice of mingled delight, humility, and triumph, that it was possible he
+might be guilty of high treason, because he was ignorant of what the
+crime consisted; but as for stealing two hundred and nineteen
+Camelopards, he declared that such a larceny was a moral impossibility,
+because he had never seen one such animal in the whole course of his
+life.
+
+The judge was kind and considerate.  He told the prisoner that the
+charge of stealing Camelopards was a fiction of law; that he had no
+doubt he had never seen one in the whole course of his life, nor in all
+probability had any one in the whole Court.  He explained to Popanilla,
+that originally this animal greatly abounded in Vraibleusia; that the
+present Court, the highest and most ancient in the kingdom, had then
+been instituted for tile punishment of all those who molested or injured
+that splendid animal.  The species, his lordship continued, had been
+long extinct; but the Vraibleusians, duly reverencing the institutions
+of their ancestors, had never presumed to abrogate the authority of the
+Camelopard Court, or invest any other with equal privileges.  Therefore,
+his lordship added, in order to try you in this Court for a modern
+offence of high treason, you must first be introduced by fiction of law
+as a stealer of Camelopards, and then being in praesenti regio, in a
+manner, we proceed to business by a special power for the absolute
+offence.  Popanilla was so confounded by the kindness of the judge and
+the clearness of his lordship's statement that he quite lost the thread
+of his peroration.
+
+The trial proceeded.  Everybody with whom Popanilla had conversed during
+his visit to Vraibleusia was subpoenaed against him, and the evidence was
+conclusive.  Skindeep, who was brought up by a warrant from the King's
+Bench, proved the fact of Popanilla's landing; and that he had given
+himself out as a political exile, the victim of a tyrant, a corrupt
+aristocracy, and a misguided people.  But, either from a secret feeling
+towards his former friend or from his aversion to answer questions, this
+evidence was on the whole not very satisfactory.
+
+The bookseller proved the publication of that fatal volume whose
+deceptive and glowing statements were alone sufficient to ensure
+Popanilla's fate.  It was in vain that the author avowed that he had
+never written a line of his own book.  This only made his imposture more
+evident.  The little philosopher with whom he had conversed at Lady
+Spirituelle's, and who, being a friend of Flummery Flam, had now
+obtained a place under Government, invented the most condemning
+evidence.  The Marquess of Moustache sent in a state paper, desiring to
+be excused from giving evidence, on account of the delicate situation in
+which he had been placed with regard to the prisoner; but he referred
+them to his former Private Secretary, who, he had no doubt, would afford
+every information.  Accordingly, the President of Fort Jobation, who had
+been brought over specially, finished the business.
+
+The Judge, although his family had suffered considerably by the late
+madness for speculation, summed up in the most impartial manner.  He
+told the jury that, although the case was quite clear against the
+prisoner, they were bound to give him the advantage of every reasonable
+doubt.  The foreman was about to deliver the verdict, when a trumpet
+sounded, and a Government messenger ran breathless into Court.
+Presenting a scroll to the presiding genius, he informed him that a
+remarkably able young man, recently appointed one of the Managers of the
+Statue, in consequence of the inconvenience which the public sustained
+from the innumerable quantity of edicts of the Statue at present in
+force, had last night consolidated them all into this single act, which,
+to render its operation still more simple, was gifted with a
+retrospective power for the last half century.
+
+His lordship, looking over the scroll, passed a high eulogium upon the
+young consolidator, compared to whom, he said, Justinian was a country
+attorney.  Observing, however, that the crime of high treason had been
+accidentally omitted in the consolidated legislation of Vraibleusia, he
+directed the jury to find the prisoner 'not guilty.'  As in Vraibleusia
+the law believes every man's character to be perfectly pure until a jury
+of twelve persons finds the reverse, Popanilla was kicked out of court,
+amid the hootings of the mob, without a stain upon his reputation.
+
+It was late in the evening when he left the court.  Exhausted both in
+mind and body, the mischief being now done, and being totally
+unemployed, according to custom, he began to moralise.  'I begin to
+perceive,' said he, 'that it is possible for a nation to exist in too
+artificial a state; that a people may both think too much and do too
+much.  All here exists in a state of exaggeration.  The nation itself
+professes to be in a situation in which it is impossible for any nation
+ever to be naturally placed.  To maintain themselves in this false
+position, they necessarily have recourse to much destructive conduct and
+to many fictitious principles.  And as the character of a people is
+modelled on that of their Government, in private life this system of
+exaggeration equally prevails, and equally produces a due quantity of
+ruinous actions and false sentiment!  In the meantime, I am starving,
+and dare not show my face in the light of day!'
+
+As he said this the house opposite was suddenly lit up, and the words
+'EMIGRATION COMMITTEE' were distinctly visible on a transparent blind.
+A sudden resolution entered Popanilla's mind to make an application to
+this body.  He entered the Committee-room, and took his place at the end
+of a row of individuals, who were severally examined.  When it was his
+turn to come forward he began to tell his story from the beginning, and
+would certainly have got to the lock of hair had not the President
+enjoined silence.  Popanilla was informed that the last
+Emigration-squadron was about to sail in a few minutes; and that,
+although the number was completed, his broad shoulders and powerful
+frame had gained him a place.  He was presented with a spade, a blanket,
+and a hard biscuit, and in a quarter of an hour was quitting the port of
+Hubbabub.
+
+Once more upon the waters, yet once more!
+
+As the Emigration-squadron quitted the harbour two large fleets hove in
+sight.  The first was the expedition which had been despatched against
+the decapitating King of the North, and which now returned heavily laden
+with his rescued subjects.  The other was the force which had flown to
+the preservation of the body of the decapitated King of the South, and
+which now brought back his Majesty embalmed, some Princes of the blood,
+and an emigrant Aristocracy.
+
+What became of the late Fantaisian Ambassador; whether he were destined
+for Van Diemen's Land or for Canada; what rare adventures he experienced
+in Sydney, or Port Jackson, or Guelph City, or Goodrich Town; and
+whether he discovered that man might exist in too natural a state, as
+well as in too artificial a one, will probably be discovered, if ever we
+obtain Captain Popanilla's Second Voyage.
+
+
+
+
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