BUENOS AYRES, _November 5th, 187-_.
DEAR DON GUILLERMO: You will be very much surprised, notwithstanding the
forewarning of intention, to find yourself unexpectedly greeted in
Heraclea by your little favorites Lovieta and Lavoca. It has cost us a
painful struggle to part with them; but we should have been unmindful of
our privilege and duty as conservators for their future welfare, in
joyous transmission, if we had consulted the disposition of our selfish
feelings. Even if our household was of the most suitable description
known to civilization for rearing children, I should not have hesitated
a moment in imploring your influence for their admission into the
Heraclean school. Consolata, with unprejudiced consideration, fully
appreciates the advantages of the protective course, for conferring
present and future happiness.
Realmente, the evidence appeals so directly to the affectionate
understanding, the niñas fully comprehend the advantages that it will
afford, which in thoughtful mood they expressed, by asking us if we did
not think the Manatitlans and Heracleans from having such nice parents
for so long a time were better than good? I am free to confess that I
felt a wince at the touch palpable the question conveyed; tears
glistened in the eyes of Consolata, as she enfolded the unconscious
challengers in her arms, with a languaged embrace that impressed them
with affirmative conviction, while it imparted a desire for their
forgiveness, which trebly admonished me of my own unworthiness. It is
strange how little use we now have for voiced words to give expression
to our thoughts. This silent source of happy intercourse bespeaks with
increasing flow our current perception of a joyous unity in affection,
including in its circle of communion M. Baudois and our neighborly
confluents. In our morning and evening walks for the exampled
demonstration of happy regeneration, that in practice its source may be
made known to others, reflections from objects are so similar in
impression that a glance is sufficient for the conveyance of coincident
thought comparisons. Last evening, while on our way to visit the
“industrial” establishments of our foreign “citizens” (by invitation),
who are constantly begging for governmental concessions for the
encouragement of their enterprising “undertakings,” we passed many of
our black priestly scentipedes, and it was with conscious emotions of
joy that I felt the confiding pressure of Consolata’s arm, as she
averted her face to avoid the necessity of hypocritical salutation. As
my governmental position had evoked from Mr. Hogg an invitation to visit
his distillery, I proposed to M. Baudois the advisability of taking the
family, that we might observe the effect produced by the improvements,
upon my wife and children. With his approval they were taken; and while
we were cautiously picking our path along the causeway crossing of the
slough that separates the brewery premises of Von Guzzledorf from those
of the distillery, Mr. Hogg, in his obsequious desire to honor our visit
with propitious attention, hastened to meet us with his ponderous body
and jowled cheeks and neck in jellied tremor from the emotions of a
waddling gait, in gloat of the expectant relish of selfish
gratification. After a wheezing prelude, with a cough that in fitful
gusts conveyed the foul odors of gamey engorgement, he lamented his
asthmatic affliction, that refused to yield to remedies, although he had
spared no expense to avail himself of the best talent that could be
secured for “love” or money. But recently, he said, he had obtained
great relief from the prescriptions of Dr. Bull, a member of the royal
college of surgeons, who had recently come out from London, at his
instigation; a man of eminent ability who had gained a great reputation
for his prophylactic pills, a box of which every family should keep in
their house, to be taken regular every morning. While engaged in this
preliminary detail of health and its providential means of preservation,
Lovieta and Lavoca with ill suppressed disdainful sniffs of comparison,
allowed their eyes to alternate between his person and a family of his
namesake’s, who, with a strong personal resemblance and odor, were
indulging in the luxurious contributions from the neighboring brewery
and kindred establishments bordering upon the slough.
Our visits to the distillery and brewery were certainly not propitious
for securing the desired grant of land, for the enlargement of their
industrial facilities, notwithstanding the sacrificial offering of a box
of Wolf’s Scheidam Schnapps and a dozen of old London Dock Sherry, of
1824. When leaving, Mr. Hogg begged me for the welfare of myself and
family, not to forget that Dr. Bull was for the present stopping at the
Hotel del Mundo. On our return home, a bath was held in requisition for
purification from the attaint of the visit. Under these contrasted
impressions, our thoughts have withheld us from instinctive
gratification by the force of repulsive comparison. Of course, our
singularity has evoked the despiteful recognition of the evil disposed,
but we feel an enduring recompense in the loving reciprocations of our
household; for we no longer suffer from those transitions which of old
subjected us in a day to mutations, that realized within the zones of
affection, tropical heats, with terror motor accompaniments of tornado,
thunder gusts, and intermediate alternations to the frosty stillness of
the frigid.
With realized happiness, we are encouraged with the approving
commendations of our Manatitlan sojourners to believe that a perfect
eradication of the parental past will be accomplished in the memories of
our children, under Heraclean tuition, for in the change they already
recognize the happy cause. When a sufficient time has elapsed for the
fulfillment of an end so desirable, we shall, with the prætor’s
permission, make Heraclea our permanent home. Then, with the privilege
of monthly visits to our daughters, we shall enter upon an era of
happiness that we feel assured will outlast the records of time; for we
have already tested the efficacy of purity and goodness, in sufficient
degree for an initial impression of immortality. In companionship with
you and the members of the corps, under the direction of the Dosch, and
the example of the Heracleans, I shall endeavor to amend my own
crotchety humors, which, if we except the superstitious devotion of
instinct to rites and ceremonies, and herding predilections, are in no
great degree above those I affect to despise, in the matter of
stability. But I am fully impressed with the belief, that Creative
wisdom devised purity and goodness, as the simple creed of self
legislation and approving test of immortality.
I will now offer for your remorseful consideration, a counterblast. Have
you reflected upon the responsibility you have incurred in leading us
astray from the glorious system of rewards and punishments offered for
the encouragement and correction of indulgences, by the “good” old
mother church? Why did you not leave us in ignorance of the audacious
Manatitlan system of education, that dares usurp with self legislation
the infallible promulgations of law and gospel for the correction of
excessive indulgences. The substitution of direct responsibility for
salvation by saving grace, deprives instinctive humanity of its barter
privilege of using the gold of its god as a compromising compensation
for indulgence, and the consolations of confession and absolution,
causing us, especially, to hold them in extreme contempt as subterfuges
begot from the vileness of hereditary cause and effect. The instinctive
reverence we once paid to priestly mediums of heavenly assurance against
the devices of hell, you have turned into the bitterness of shame, from
the reflection of past humiliation imposed by their impudent assumptions
of delegated divine authority.
Our present feeling of responsibility for perfection in purity and
goodness, revolts at the thought that our perceptions were ever so weak
as to believe there ever existed in the pampered bodies of priests,
other than a swinish divinity endowed with an instinctive audacity that
prefers deception to honest labor. We now avoid church and street
mummeries of host processions and masses, as a profanation of good
instinctive common sense, as our presence would implicate us in the
blasphemous degradation. To our chance acquaintance with you, fostered
with affectionate sympathy, I must charge this defection, also the
retrospective pangs of shame engendered from sensitive regrets for my
stupidity, which suffers from revival with every rattling peal of church
bells. Not content with casting these heretical shadows across our path,
you have devised to rob us of our niñas, our abiding source of love.
Bethink you of the accountability you have incurred, with your chances
of self-forgiveness.
With a falcon script in acknowledgment we shall feel assured that you
will bestow upon our niñétas a father’s care and love.... P. G.
* * * * *
Mr. Welson joyfully exclaimed, as he closed the letter, “It is really
reviving to hope, to hear a provincial, of Spanish descent, express
himself with such perceptive clearness, in freedom from the thraldom of
sensual embargo, which has rendered our race the phantasmal victims of
stomach indulgence, from time out of date!”
The Dosch, in confirmation of Mr. Welson’s train of thought, urged, “It
has required our utmost efforts to hold our feelings of contempt subdued
that they might not altogether usurp the rule of discreet generosity, in
view of the obstinate stupidity of civilized Giga races; who, with star
gazing, and moon conjectures, forget their preservative accountability
to Creative indications designed for the attainment of a living
realization of immortality. How it has been possible for the races of
civilized humanity to exist in individual communion with self, and the
advantage it affords for deductive comparison, aside from the mutations
of attrition, through so many cycles of re-degradation, without
discovering the active cause and remedial source, puzzles our
comprehension. The ridiculous abstractions of your philosophers, which
in thoughtless aberration leads them to lose the substance while
pursuing the shadow, was aptly illustrated by some of our frolicsome
dames, who decoyed Dr. Baāhar, in successful test of his lack of
discernment, to follow the shadow, more vehemently, from its supposed
evasions, than he had previously bestowed upon the gossamer substance of
a butterfly. While amusing themselves with a morning volant airing upon
a beautiful azure-tinted specimen of the L. Matutinal in its wafting
sips from the flowers of the latifundium, it caught the covetous gaze of
the doctor, who was on his way with his net for a hunt beyond the walls.
After pursuing its doubling variations in flight, which from graceful
composure seemed void of evasive intention, to the verge of vexatious
anxiety, while his back was to the sun, it suddenly soared, substituting
its shadow, which the dames made still more attractive by prismatic
colors rayed from their silicoth mantles. His efforts grew more frantic
from the apparently miraculous escape of the coveted prize through the
meshes of the net; which caused the infatuated pursuer to suppose that
its illusive power indicated a new species. To our surprise the illusive
chase continued with increased avidity as the prismatic colors were
varied, the shadow being kept just in advance of the net’s swoop, until
after an hour’s pursuit, the excited naturalist fell exhausted upon his
knees in the formulistic attitude of prayer. In this position, with
upraised eyes and hands, he watched imploringly the lessening shadow of
his morning’s devotions. Although surrounded with evidences, which
should have led to an impulsive detection of the cause of the
tantalizing movements, previous to substitution, there never was for a
moment the least hesitation that indicated suspicion or doubt of the
limn’s substance reality.”
In character, nothing has surprised us more than the insensibility of
Gigas, who claim the disciplined aid of collegiate education, to the
effects evolved from their own experience. Yet, notwithstanding the
contempt you personally feel for the selfish enactments of your past
life, your relapse, in partial degree, would not appear strange if
subjected to reversed example. But with the Heracleans, from hereditary
usage the impression has become immutable. The contrast will lead you to
realize the great difficulties that will attend the inceptive stages
required for reversing the progressive position of your people; as they
have been accustomed to advance with their backs to the future from time
immemorial, the change will prove embarrassing for many generations.
These contrasted facts, which expose in extremity the habits of usage,
with the inveteracy incurred for good or evil, has caused us to view the
act of self-denial on the part of the parents of your pets, as a
trustful deviation that exceeds any in our former experience, and it
will certainly insure a harmonious transmission. If the mother’s
affection had been void of delusive infatuation, permitting her to act
in accordance with the promptings of its natural expression, the
devisement of the children to the Heraclean school would not have
appeared strange, as unprejudiced by delusive agency and its evil
tendencies the love of maternity extends to the future. In
exemplification of the evil tendencies of your delusive legendary book
of creeds, that has defied the efforts of ninety-five thousand human
commentators to render it comprehensible, with accumulating legions of
preaching expounders, I will relate an event that transpired during the
inceptive period of my auramental labors.
The dramatis personæ in the triangular scriptural duel I am about to
relate, for exemplifying the utter perversion of intelligent affection,
wrought by this precedental tramway to discord, were in scenic
representation, a grandmother of Scotch extraction, derived from the
amiable clan McGregor, her daughter, and granddaughter, who in
passionate exacerbation occupied counter positions in domestic
antagonism. The _locale_ of the scenic enactment, for your more perfect
understanding of its mouthpat _entente cordiale_, we will award to
Londonderry, Ireland. Having, by a strange fatality peculiar to
auramentation in youth, been led by diverse circumstances to become a
member of the household, I was forced to witness the repulsive drama in
all the progressive stages to culmination. When in the morning
avocations the three “fell out” to disagree, from a flux of hereditary
passion, they would exhaust their store of word provocations, and then
have recourse to prayer, after the mid-mother had read a formal
challenge from the creed “omnium gatherum.” These formulistic rites
concluded, and the male members dispersed to their employments foreign
to the house, the three antagonists would enter the “sitting-room” to
decide their quarrel, each taking a corner of the room with their book
of missals in hand. With the room appropriately darkened, they would
each, with hasty avidity, hurriedly search for some virulent passage of
“scripture” of innuendic import, and when found it would be hurled in
venomous recital against her adversaries. Often the voices of the three
would be intermingled in the combined discharge of offensive
similitudes, each vying in the melée encounter for ascendancy in
loudness of report, and precision in the diabolic aim of their
denunciations. Slight wounds, of Jezabelic imputation, were borne
heroically, but the grandam of eighty when severely hurt by thrusts into
old wounds rankling with the personal reflection of her accountability
for whatever was amiss from lack of amiability in the tempers of
daughter and granddaughter, would seize her plaid, and, in defiance of
weather, would seek an asylum in the house of her son, distant two miles
from the scene of action. The flight of the grandam would add new vigor
to the vituperative discharge of invective quotation between mother and
daughter, which generally resulted in a drawn battle, leaving the
envenomed cause to smoulder in belligerent tendency, until their
magazines were replenished with holy war munitions, sufficient for the
adventure of another trial of anathematizing strength. When one of these
encounters had proved fatal to the grandam, from a severe cold caught
from wading through the snaw broo in her retreat from the battle-field,
her grandsons invoked from day the fall of darkness, to stay the
portended renewal of hostilities, in opposition to the commands of
Joshua, but coincident with the prayer of the modern battle hero of
Waterloo, for Blucher or night. These belligerent domestic
inconsistencies incited by creed incongruities, and indigestible food,
and lack of bodily exercise, are by no means rare among the civilized
peoples of the old and new world. As with the Scotch, singed sheep’s
head, haggis, and whiskey, were the inciting cause of religious
intolerance and border warfare, it will be found that like causes rule
as a source of provocation for distempered aberrations of every kind.
“We will now seek your infantile protégés, and see how it fares with the
newly united.”
“First resolve me of my doubts with regard to your consistency,” urged
Mr. Welson. “How do you reconcile the hasty unions you have sanctioned,
with your ‘invariable custom,’ that requires three months probationary
test of compatibility before the full consummation of unity.”
“You should be aware of a distinction that it would be impossible for us
to reconcile in your marriage adoption,” replied the Dosch. “You are
strangers to our system of education, so that we are obliged to accept
an alternative for your tests; as you must realize that the quarantine
of a lifetime would not render you compatible according to our
acceptation. But nominally all have complied with the probationary
requirements; even M. Hollydorf, as Correliana proxied her twin sister.
Still our chief dependence is in the incomparable beauty and goodness of
the bride, which will render disagreement impossible. But I perceive
that you have still another indigestible example that you would have
reconciled. We have claimed that our ‘system’ of education renders the
unity of affection between the marriage affiants indivisible; yet in
seeming contradiction, your thoughts refer to the second marriage of the
prætor with Correliana’s mother. We could have explained to you this
apparent discrepancy, but for our wish that you might discover from the
promptings of your own perception the admissibility of an association
designed for mutual solace and companionship in bodily representation.
The prætor Adinope when premonized of death’s approach, preferred the
tribune Adestus, who had lost his wife, to the prætorship, as the chosen
companion of his wife, under the temporal privilege of correlative
correspondence in the body. With the dying prætor’s sanction, Adestus
assumed the charge of the household and prætorial advisorship while the
husband yet lived. You have in thought questioned this as an impeachment
of the unity we profess in the assimilative fulfillment of our first
affection. But I can assure you there is neither divorce or abatement in
the troth unity of the first allegiance. In fact, they become more
perfectly wedded in thought with those who have preceded them to the
current realms of immortality; and in vicarious communion, commend
without stint or prevarication the ever present manifestations they
enjoy with their beatific spouses, and longings for the speedy
consummation of a disembodied reunion. If Heraclea could furnish wives
for Giga representatives, as well endowed with reason and as free from
prejudicial taint as you are, the labor of educational induction in its
inceptive stage would soon be accomplished. For in wifely Heraclean
example, the joyous brightness would be reflected with such purity that
it would irresistibly attract assimilative reciprocation, in thought,
from all within reach of its influence, causing vanity, with its
promptings for adornment, to become an exile beyond the reach of
material redemption. With the current of your women’s affections once
emancipated from the shallows of personal ornamentation, the clear depth
of the stream would purify itself from the undertow of man’s grosser
instincts, casting the refuse of precedental habits and customs back
upon themselves, and the cycle shores of the past, with their memorial
odors of instinctive corruption.”
_Mr. Welson._ “As you have answered these problems, which opposed
themselves to our understandings, as stumbling blocks preventing our
full appreciation of your wisdom’s infallibility, in a manner so
practically agreeable, will you apprise me of the method you propose for
reducing the appetites and passions of Giga humanity to an initial
accord with the Heraclean standard? This request I proffer under the
privilege conferred by your maxim, ‘that we should never cavil or
criticise without being practically able to amend.’”
_Dosch._ “Although our maxim in application to your race lacks, or has
hitherto lacked, the secondary power of example required for practical
efficiency, we will answer your inquiry by holding your example as our
prospective means of introduction. As an initiatory step for reciprocal
purification, in prefatory advisement for the introduction of our
protective system of education, and its inauguration of self-control and
legislation, we shall auramentally propose an international dietary
congress, for the studied adaptation of food in quality and quantity,
for the healthy requirements of the body. With this as a basis for
thought direction, we shall propose a method for the inductive
substitution of a common language, free from sectional prejudices, by
the introduction of international schools, kindred to our own, which in
hostage reciprocation will eradicate the seeds of instinctive jealousy.
Husband and wife are to be held as a unity for representative expression
in congress; with the special proviso that the voice of the man shall
alone bespeak the unity of intention in public assembly. Under the
ruling of the dietary congress, stomach codes could be established for
the mouth rejection of all indigestible and incompatible compounds, in
solid or liquid form. This would emancipate the stomach from the
arbitrary tyranny of individual hodge-podgery, relieving the body and
brain from the incubus imposed by the unreason of ages. The prestige of
a single generation’s restful rendering of these intuitive examples of
reason would result in the utter abolishment of such songs as the ‘Watch
on the Rhine,’ so characteristic in guttural expression of the
indigestible philosophy of a German diet, and the more musical, battle-
inspiring Marsellaise, instinct with the lighter French national régime,
suited to the Zouave accompaniment of ‘Leap on, leap on!’ while in
substitution there would arise blendings of song, and salutations
replete with joyful gladness in the new-fledged accents of affectionate
reciprocations. This innovation would effectually liberate the German
language from the bondage of nose and stomach, and the French from the
frothy sibilations of vanity, causing them to harmonize in peaceful
goodwill, with contributions from every tongue, until special idiomatism
would become involved in the sympathy of universal accord.”
The discourse of the Dosch was here interrupted by the voices of Lovieta
and Lavoca, calling for Don Guillermo, who gave an answering invitation
for them to come in and see where he lived. This brought them to his
knees in full chorus for the rehearsal of the marvelous impressions they
had received. But in the rapid scan their eyes gave to the alcoved
apartment they caught a view of the Dosch and Doschessa, with other
Manatitlans reflected in the field of the table tympano-microscope,
which hushed their voiced exuberance into regardful silence. The Dosch,
after watching for a few moments their curious awe, reminded Mr. Welson
that his wife was specially anxious for a personal introduction to his
children in trust. This given, the Doschessa soon won their confidence,
and imparted to the eager germ of Giga curiosity some of the winning
traits of affectionate reciprocation encouraged in the Manatitlan
schools for the enlightenment of thought perception. Her success was
soon evident from the gathering mists that sparkled in rayed mementos of
affection from their eyelashes to be resolved into tears, as an
accompaniment to the plaintive vocals, “mamma, papa.” As the dew of
inborn memories yielded to soothing direction, natural affection
expanded, until it included, with the “extreme unction” of goodness, the
infantile query of possibility for the redemption of Padre Molinero from
self. In questioning expression, from the impressions of memory, they
asked with a toddling perception of cause and effect, if it would not
change him if he ate and drank less, so that his mouth would not make a
noise so porcuno? Then, as if in thought consultation tracing the effect
of renovation, they asked if a priest could be made as loving and
respectable as Mr. Welson and Captain Greenwood by removing his hat,
gown, and fat?
The Dosch laughingly replied, that if he and his kind would adopt the
first restrictions mentioned, it would certainly indicate a desire to
become respectable in self-estimation, and show a disposition to merit
the confidence of others.
When well ingratiated in their affection, the Doschessa asked by what
token they wished to be made sensible of her watchful care? This seemed
to puzzle their ingenuity for the devisement of a tangible method of
communication. But Lavoca, after demure consideration, said, that she
thought it would be easy to kiss and embrace, if she could manage to
continue as large as she then appeared.
The Dosch then explained to their ready comprehension, that their
reflection in the field of the microscope was like the vanity of
personal adornment shadowed in a mirror, which when removed left nothing
but its vague impression for the delusive gratification of self. But the
Doschessa said, if they wished to retain a lasting impression of her as
she then appeared, they must keep themselves free from passion by
bestowing their thoughts upon others; then she would be ever present
with them to be kissed and embraced in thought, which was a reality that
with goodness would last forever. They promised that they would always
try to be good, but hoped if they sometimes forgot, she and the teachers
would forgive, and let them try again. “Because,” Lavoca urged, “our
people have not been good like yours, and we haven’t learned how to be
always the same.” She assured them, that with all their disadvantages,
if they tried to make their associates and teachers happy, they would
forget their own selfishness, and feel that the merited affection of
others would always make them joyous with gladness. Perceiving that they
were still anxious in thought for an intuitive token of her affection
conveyed in the language of a kiss, she proposed to comply with their
wish, but cautioned them to be gentle in their reciprocation when they
felt her pressure upon their lips. First to Lovieta, and then with an
ear premonition to the more impetuous Lavoca, she imparted the loving
thrill that ever attends the reciprocal blending of instinctive sense
with the animus of goodness. Both were exultant in declaring that her
kiss, although exceedingly small and tiny in its touch, was larger in
making them feel more happy everywhere than any they had ever felt of
their own kind, and were certain they should know whenever they were
kissed by a Manatitlan. After this happy introduction of the novecetas
to the Manatitlans, the Dosch and Doschessa accepted Mr. Welson’s
invitation, and occupied their accustomed seats on the tragus of his
ear; and then with the escort of Cleorita, Oviata, Lovieta, and Lavoca,
started in search of the newly unionized, who were found enjoying the
cool shade of the tamarisks on the terraced descent from the summit to
the basin of the falls.
The Dosch, while the presence of Mr. Welson’s party was yet
undiscovered, called his attention to the unity of expression exhibited
by their faces as they gazed in thoughtfully silent meditation upon the
fantastic sprays of falling water, whose misty vapor, bearing perennial
freshness in dispersion to air and vegetation, represented in similitude
their own thoughtful desires for the extension of their glad happiness
to others. Mr. Welson’s face became subject to regretful shadows, as he
passed in review the instinctive follies recalled to his memory in
contrast by the constantly recurring variations in manifestation of the
happy influence transmitted from hereditary self legislation. In thought
he expressed thankful praise that his life had been spared to witness
scenes which in truthful representation realized more of bliss than had
ever entered into his most sanguine conceptions. In thoughtful
admiration of the unionized beatitude expressed in the silent flow of
current reciprocations, stimulated by the stentorian promptings of the
Dosch in the lulls of the wind waft, he resolved to avail himself,
without delay, of an example so pregnant with current joy. With
lingering desire he motioned away his escort, then withdrawing himself
without disturbing the mystic harmony of the wafting ingraft of
affection, he sought within himself for an assurance of hopes that had
surprised him while visiting the school for nynetas.
At the descending junction of the avenue with those of the basin and
incrematium he met the prætor and his wife, who were accustomed on the
occasion of a marriage to visit its sweet scented groves for communion
with their current selves in purification from the body’s probation.
They were quick to detect in the subdued but hopefully eloquent
expression of Mr. Welson’s face, an undefined longing, and were not
surprised when he unburthened to them his desire for their censorial
consultation, and judgment after an explanatory intercession with the
object of his premised thoughtful affection. With warm commendations in
support of the wisdom of his choice, from her special adaptability, they
immediately entered upon the eliminary negotiations required for a
verdict of relief; the result of which will be detailed in a subsequent
chapter.