One of the most curious and pleasing sights in Mizora was the flower
gardens and conservatories. Roses of all sizes and colors and shades of
color were there. Some two feet across were placed by the side of others
not exceeding the fourth of an inch in order to display the disparity in
size.
To enter into a minute description of all the discoveries made by the
Mizora people in fruit and floriculture, would be too tedious; suffice
to say they had laid their hands upon the beautiful and compelled nature
to reveal to them the secret of its formation. The number of petals,
their color, shape and size, were produced as desired. The only thing
they could neither create nor destroy was its perfume. I questioned the
Preceptress as to the possibility of its ever being discovered? She
replied:
"It is the one secret of the rose that Nature refuses to reveal. I do
not believe we shall ever possess the power to increase or diminish the
odor of a flower. I believe that Nature will always reserve to herself
the secret of its creation. The success that we enjoy in the wonderful
cultivation of our fruits and flowers was one of our earliest scientific
conquests."
I learned that their orchards never failed to yield a bounteous harvest.
They had many fruits that were new to me, and some that were new and
greatly improved species of kinds that I had already seen and eaten in
my own or other countries. Nothing that they cultivated was ever without
its own peculiar beauty as well as usefulness. Their orchards, when the
fruit was ripe, presented a picture of unique charm. Their trees were
always trained into graceful shapes, and when the ripe fruit gleamed
through the dark green foliage, every tree looked like a huge bouquet. A
cherry tree that I much admired, and the fruit of which I found
surpassingly delicious, I must allow myself to describe. The cherries
were not surprisingly large, but were of the colors and transparency of
honey. They were seedless, the tree having to be propagated from slips.
When the fruit was ripe the tree looked like a huge ball of pale amber
gems hiding in the shadows of dark pointed leaves.
Their grape arbors were delightful pictures in their season of maturity.
Some vines had clusters of fruit three feet long; but these I was told
were only to show what they _could_ do in grape culture. The usual and
marketable size of a bunch was from one to two pounds weight. The fruit
was always perfect that was offered for sale.
Science had provided the fruit growers of Mizora with permanent
protections from all kinds of blight or decay.
When I considered the wholesomeness of all kinds of food prepared for
the inhabitants of this favored land. I began to think they might owe a
goodly portion of their exceptional health to it, and a large share of
their national amiability to their physical comfort. I made some such
observation to the Preceptress, and she admitted its correctness.
"The first step that my people made toward the eradication of disease
was in the preparation of healthy food; not for the rich, who could
obtain it themselves, but for the whole nation."
I asked for further information and she added:
"Science discovered that mysterious and complicated diseases often had
their origin in adulterated food. People suffered and died, ignorant of
what produced their disease. The law, in the first place, rigidly
enforced the marketing of clean and perfect fruit, and a wholesome
quality of all other provisions. This was at first difficult to do, as
in those ancient days, (I refer to a very remote period of our history)
in order to make usurious profit, dealers adulterated all kinds of food;
often with poisonous substances. When every state took charge of its
markets and provided free schools for cooking, progress took a rapid
advance. Do you wonder at it? Reflect then. How could I force my mind
into complete absorption of some new combination of chemicals, while the
gastric juice in my stomach was battling with sour or adulterated food?
Nature would compel me to pay some attention to the discomfort of my
digestive organs, and it might happen at a time when I was on the verge
of a revelation in science, which might be lost. You may think it an
insignificant matter to speak of in connection with the grand
enlightenment that we possess; but Nature herself is a mass of little
things. Our bodies, strong and supple as they are, are nothing but a
union of tiny cells. It is by the investigation of little things that we
have reached the great ones."
I felt a keen desire to know more about their progress toward universal
health, feeling assured that the history of the extirpation of disease
must be curious and instructive. I had been previously made acquainted
with the fact that disease was really unknown to them, save in its
historical existence. To cull this isolated history from their vast
libraries of past events, would require a great deal of patient and
laborious research, and the necessary reading of a great deal of matter
that I could not be interested in, and that could not beside be of any
real value to me, so I requested the Preceptress to give me an
epitomized history of it in her own language, merely relating such facts
as might be useful to me, and that I could comprehend, for I may as well
bring forward the fact that, in comparison to theirs, my mind was as a
savages would be to our civilization.
Their brain was of a finer intellectual fiber. It possessed a wider,
grander, more majestic receptivity. They absorbed ideas that passed over
me like a cloud. Their imaginations were etherealized. They reached into
what appeared to be materialless space, and brought from it substances I
had never heard of before, and by processes I could not comprehend. They
divided matter into new elements and utilized them. They disintegrated
matter, added to it new properties and produced a different material. I
saw the effects and uses of their chemistry, but that was all.
There are minds belonging to my own age, as there have been to all ages,
that are intellectually in advance of it. They live in a mental and
prophetic world of their own, and leave behind them discoveries,
inventions and teachings that benefit and ennoble the generations to
come. Could such a mind have chanced upon Mizora, as I chanced upon it,
it might have consorted with its intellect, and brought from the
companionship ideas that I could not receive, and sciences that I can
find no words in my language to represent. The impression that my own
country might make upon a savage, may describe my relation to Mizora.
What could an uncivilized mind say of our railroads, or magnificent
cathedrals, our palaces, our splendor, our wealth, our works of art.
They would be as difficult of representation as were the lofty aims, the
unselfishness in living, the perfect love, honor and intellectual
grandeur, and the universal comfort and luxury found in Mizora, were to
me. To them the cultivation of the mind was an imperative duty, that
neither age nor condition retarded. To do good, to be approved by their
own conscience, was their constant pleasure.