On my return to college, after the close of vacation, I devoted myself
exclusively to history. It began with their first President; and from
the evidence of history itself, I knew that the Nation was enjoying a
high state of culture when its history began.
No record of a more primitive race was to be found in all the Library,
assiduously as I searched for it. I read with absorbing interest their
progress toward perfect enlightenment, their laborious searchings into
science that had resulted in such marvelous achievements. But earnestly
as I sought for it, and anxiously as I longed for it, I found and heard
no mention of a race of men. From the most intimate intercourse with the
people of Mizora, I could discover no attempt at concealment in
anything, yet the inquiry _would_ crowd itself upon me. "Where are the
men?" And as constantly would I be forced to the conclusion that Mizora
was either a land of mystery beyond the scope of the wildest and
weirdest fancy, or else they were utterly oblivious of such a race. And
the last conclusion was most improbable of all.
Man, in my country, was a necessity of government, law, and protection.
His importance, (as I viewed it from inherited ideas) was incalculable.
It _could_ not be possible that he had no existence in a country so
eminently adapted to his desires and ability.
The expression, "domestic misery," that the Preceptress made use of one
day in conversation with me, haunted my imagination with a persistent
suspicion of mystery. It had a familiar sound to me. It intimated
knowledge of a world _I_ knew so well; where ill-nature, malice, spite,
envy, deceit, falsehood and dishonesty, made life a continual anxiety.
Locks, bolts and bars shut out the thief who coveted your jewels; but no
bolts nor bars, however ingeniously constructed or strongly made, could
keep out the thief who coveted your character. One little word from a
pretended friend might consummate the sorrow of your whole life, and be
witnessed by the perpetrator without a pang--nay, even with exultation.
There were other miseries I thought of that were common in my country.
There were those we love. Some who are woven into our lives and
affections by the kinship of blood; who grow up weak and vacillating,
and are won away, sometimes through vice, to estrangement. Our hearts
ache not the less painfully that they have ceased to be worthy of a
throb; or that they have been weak enough to become estranged, to
benefit some selfish alien.
There were other sorrows in that world that I had come from, that
brought anguish alike to the innocent and the guilty. It was the sorrow
of premature death. Diseases of all kinds made lives wretched; or tore
them asunder with death. How many hearts have ached with cankering pain
to see those who are vitally dear, wasting away slowly, but surely, with
unrelievable suffering; and to know that life but prolongs their misery,
and death relieves it only with inconsolable grief for the living.
Who has looked into a pair of youthful eyes, so lovely that imagination
could not invent for them another charm, and saw the misty film of death
gather over them, while your heart ached with regret as bitter as it was
unavailing. The soft snows of winter have fallen--a veil of purity--over
the new made graves of innocence and youth, and its wild winds have been
the saddest requiem. The dews of summer have wept with your tears, and
its zephyrs have sighed over the mouldering loveliness of youth.
I had known no skill in my world that could snatch from death its
unlawful prey of youth. But here, in this land so eminently blessed, no
one regarded death as a dreaded invader of their household.
"_We cannot die until we get old_," said Wauna, naively.
And looking upon their bounding animal spirits, their strong supple
frames, and the rich, red blood of perfect health, mantling their cheeks
with its unsurpassable bloom, one would think that disease must have
strong grasp indeed that could destroy them.
But these were not all the sorrows that my own country knew. Crimes,
with which we had no personal connection, shocked us with their horrible
details. They crept, like noxious vapors, into the moral atmosphere of
the pure and good; tainting the weak, and annoying the strong.
There were other sorrows in my country that were more deplorable still.
It was the fate of those who sought to relieve the sufferings of the
many by an enforced government reform. Misguided, imprudent and
fanatical they might be, but their aim at least was noble. The wrongs
and sufferings of the helpless and oppressed had goaded them to action
for their relief.
But, alas! The pale and haggard faces of thousands of those patriot
souls faded and wasted in torturing slowness in dungeons of rayless
gloom. Or their emaciated and rheumatic frames toiled in speechless
agony amid the horrors of Siberia's mines.
In _this_ land they would have been recognized as aspiring natures,
spreading their wings for a nobler flight, seeking a higher and grander
life. The smile of beauty would have urged them on. Hands innumerable
would have given them a cordial and encouraging grasp. But in the land
they had sought to benefit and failed, they suffered in silence and
darkness, and died forgotten or cursed.
My heart and my brain ached with memory, and the thought again occurred:
"_Could_ the Preceptress ever have known such a race of people?"
I looked at her fair, calm brow, where not a wrinkle marred the serene
expression of intellect, although I had been told that more than a
hundred years had touched with increasing wisdom its broad surface. The
smile that dwelt in her eyes, like the mystic sprite in the fountain,
had not a suspicion of sadness in them. A nature so lofty as hers, where
every feeling had a generous and noble existence and aim, could not have
known without anguish the race of people _I_ knew so well. Their sorrows
would have tinged her life with a continual sadness.
The words of Wauna had awakened a new thought. I knew that their mental
life was far above mine, and that in all the relations of life, both
business and social, they exhibited a refinement never attained by my
people. I had supposed these qualities to be an endowment of nature, and
not a development sought and labored for by themselves. But my
conversation with Wauna had given me a different impression, and the
thought of a future for my own country took possession of me.
"Could it ever emerge from its horrors, and rise through gradual but
earnest endeavor to such perfection? Could a higher civilization crowd
its sufferings out of existence and, in time, memory?"
I had never thought of my country having a claim upon me other than what
I owed to my relatives and society. But in Mizora, where the very
atmosphere seemed to feed one's brain with grander and nobler ideas of
life and humanity, my nature had drank the inspiration of good deeds and
impulses, and had given the desire to work for something beside myself
and my own kindred. I resolved that if I should ever again behold my
native country, I would seek the good of all its people along with that
of my nearest and dearest of kin. But how to do it was a matter I could
not arrange. I felt reluctant to ask either Wauna or her mother. The
guileless frankness of Wauna's nature was an impassable barrier to the
confidence of crimes and wretchedness. One glance of horror from her
dark, sweet eyes, would have chilled me into painful silence and
sorrowful regret.
The mystery that had ever surrounded these lovely and noble blonde women
had driven me into an unnatural reserve in regard to my own people and
country. I had always perceived the utter absence of my allusion to the
masculine gender, and conceiving that it must be occasioned by some more
than ordinary circumstances, I refrained from intruding my curiosity.
That the singular absence of men was connected with nothing criminal or
ignoble on their part I felt certain; but that it was associated with
something weird and mysterious I had now become convinced. My efforts to
discover their whereabouts had been earnest and untiring. I had visited
a number of their large cities, and had enjoyed the hospitality of many
private homes. I had examined every nook and corner of private and
public buildings, (for in Mizora nothing ever has locks) and in no place
had I ever discovered a trace or suggestion of man.
Women and girls were everywhere. Their fair faces and golden heads
greeted me in every town and city. Sometimes a pair of unusually dark
blue eyes, like the color of a velvet-leaved pansy, looked out from an
exquisitely tinted face framed in flossy golden hair, startling me with
its unnatural loveliness, and then I would wonder anew:
"Why is such a paradise for man so entirely devoid of him?"
I even endeavored to discover from the conversation of young girls some
allusion to the male sex. But listen as attentively and discreetly as I
could, not one allusion did I hear made to the mysteriously absent
beings. I was astonished that young girls, with cheeks like the downy
bloom of a ripe peach, should chatter and laugh merrily over every
conversational topic but that of the lords of society. The older and the
wiser among women might acquire a depreciating idea of their worth, but
innocent and inexperienced girlhood was apt to surround that name with a
halo of romance and fancied nobility that the reality did not always
possess. What, then, was my amazement to find _them_ indifferent and
wholly neglectful of that (to me) very important class of beings.
Conjecture at last exhausted itself, and curiosity became indifferent.
Mizora, as a nation, or an individual representative, was incapable of
dishonor. Whatever their secret I should make no farther effort to
discover it. Their hospitality had been generous and unreserved. Their
influence upon my character--morally--had been an incalculable benefit.
I had enjoyed being among them. The rhythm of happiness that swept like
a strain of sweet music through all their daily life, touched a chord in
my own nature that responded.
And when I contrasted the prosperity of Mizora--a prosperity that
reached every citizen in its vast territory--with the varied phases of
life that are found in my own land, it urged me to inquire if there
could be hope for such happiness within its borders.
To the Preceptress, whose sympathies I knew were broad as the lap of
nature, I at last went with my desire and perplexities. A sketch of my
country's condition was the inevitable prelude. I gave it without once
alluding to the presence of Man. She listened quietly and attentively.
Her own land lay like a charming picture before her. I spoke of its
peaceful happiness, its perfected refinement, its universal wealth, and
paramount to all its other blessings, its complete ignorance of social
ills. With them, love did not confine itself to families, but encircled
the Nation in one embrace. How dismal, in contrast, was the land that
had given me birth.
"But one eminent distinction exists among us as a people," I added in
conclusion. "We are not all of one race."
I paused and looked at the Preceptress. She appeared lost in reverie.
Her expression was one of solicitude and approached nearer to actual
pain than anything I had ever noticed upon it before. She looked up and
caught my eye regarding her. Then she quietly asked:
"_Are there men in your country?_"
PART SECOND.
CHAPTER I.
I answered in the affirmative, and further added that I had a husband
and a son.
The effect of a confession so simple, and so natural, wounded and amazed
me.
The Preceptress started back with a look of loathing and abhorrence; but
it was almost instantly succeeded by one of compassion.
"You have much to learn," she said gently, "and I desire not to judge
you harshly. _You_ are the product of a people far back in the darkness
of civilization. _We_ are a people who have passed beyond the boundary
of what was once called Natural Law. But, more correctly, we have become
mistresses of Nature's peculiar processes. We influence or control them
at will. But before giving you any further explanation I will show you
the gallery containing the portraits of our very ancient ancestors."
She then conducted me into a remote part of the National College, and
sliding back a panel containing a magnificent painting, she disclosed a
long gallery, the existence of which I had never suspected, although I
knew their custom of using ornamented sliding panels instead of doors.
Into this I followed her with wonder and increasing surprise. Paintings
on canvas, old and dim with age; paintings on porcelain, and a peculiar
transparent material, of which I have previously spoken, hung so thick
upon the wall you could not have placed a hand between them. They were
all portraits of men. Some were represented in the ancient or mediaeval
costumes of my own ancestry, and some in garbs resembling our modern
styles.
Some had noble countenances, and some bore on their painted visages the
unmistakable stamp of passion and vice. It is not complimentary to
myself to confess it, but I began to feel an odd kind of companionship
in this assembly of good and evil looking men, such as I had not felt
since entering this land of pre-eminently noble and lovely women.
As I gazed upon them, arrayed in the armor of some stern warrior, or the
velvet doublet of some gay cavalier, the dark eyes of a debonair knight
looked down upon me with familiar fellowship. There was pride of birth,
and the passion of conquest in every line of his haughty, sensuous face.
I seemed to breathe the same moral atmosphere that had surrounded me in
the outer world.
_They_ had lived among noble and ignoble deeds I felt sure. _They_ had
been swayed by conflicting desires. _They_ had known temptation and
resistance, and reluctant compliance. _They_ had experienced the
treachery and ingratitude of humanity, and had dealt in it themselves.
_They_ had known joy as I had known it, and their sorrow had been as my
sorrows. _They_ had loved as I had loved, and sinned as I had sinned,
and suffered as I had suffered.
I wept for the first time since my entrance into Mizora, the bitter
tears of actual experience, and endeavored to convey to the Preceptress
some idea of the painful emotion that possessed me.
"I have noticed," she said, "in your own person and the descriptions you
have given of your native country, a close resemblance to the people and
history of our nation in ages far remote. These portraits are very old.
The majority of them were painted many thousands of years ago. It is
only by our perfect knowledge of color that we are enabled to preserve
them. Some have been copied by expert artists upon a material
manufactured by us for that purpose. It is a transparent adamant that
possesses no refractive power, consequently the picture has all the
advantage of a painting on canvas, with the addition of perpetuity. They
can never fade nor decay."
"I am astonished at the existence of this gallery," I exclaimed. "I have
observed a preference for sliding panels instead of doors, and that they
were often decorated with paintings of rare excellence, but I had never
suspected the existence of this gallery behind one of them."
"Any student," said the Preceptress, "who desires to become conversant
with our earliest history, can use this gallery. It is not a secret, for
nothing in Mizora is concealed; but we do not parade its existence, nor
urge upon students an investigation of its history. They are so far
removed from the moral imbecility that dwarfed the nature of these
people, that no lesson can be learned from their lives; and their time
can be so much more profitably spent in scientific research and study."
"You have not, then, reached the limits of scientific knowledge?" I
wonderingly inquired, for, to me, they had already overstepped its
imaginary pale.
"When we do we shall be able to create intellect at will. We govern to a
certain extent the development of physical life; but the formation of
the brain--its intellectual force, or capacity I should say--is beyond
our immediate skill. Genius is yet the product of long cultivation."
I had observed that dark hair and eyes were as indiscriminately mingled
in these portraits as I had been accustomed to find them in the living
people of my own and other countries. I drew the Preceptress' attention
to it.
"We believe that the highest excellence of moral and mental character is
alone attainable by a fair race. The elements of evil belong to the dark
race."
"And were the people of this country once of mixed complexions?"
"As you see in the portraits? Yes," was the reply.
"And what became of the dark complexions?"
"We eliminated them."
I was too astonished to speak and stood gazing upon the handsome face of
a young man in a plumed hat and lace-frilled doublet. The dark eyes had
a haughty look, like a man proud of his lineage and his sex.
"Let us leave this place," said the Preceptress presently. "It always
has a depressing effect upon me."
"In what way?" I asked.
"By the degradation of the human race that they force me to recall."
I followed her out to a seat on one of the small porticoes.
In candidly expressing herself about the dark complexions, my companion
had no intention or thought of wounding my feelings. So rigidly do they
adhere to the truth in Mizora that it is of all other things
pre-eminent, and is never supposed to give offense. The Preceptress but
gave expression to the belief inculcated by centuries of the teachings
and practices of her ancestors. I was not offended. It was her
conviction. Besides, I had the consolation of secretly disagreeing with
her. I am still of the opinion that their admirable system of
government, social and political, and their encouragement and provision
for universal culture of so high an order, had more to do with the
formation of superlative character than the elimination of the dark
complexion.
The Preceptress remained silent a long time, apparently absorbed in the
beauty of the landscape that stretched before us. The falling waters of
a fountain was all the sound we heard. The hour was auspicious. I was so
eager to develop a revelation of the mystery about these people that I
became nervous over my companion's protracted silence. I felt a delicacy
in pressing inquiries concerning information that I thought ought to be
voluntarily given. Inquisitiveness was regarded as a gross rudeness by
them, and I could frame no question that I did not fear would sound
impertinent. But at last patience gave way and, at the risk of
increasing her commiseration for my barbarous mental condition, I asked:
"Are you conversant with the history of the times occupied by the
originals of the portraits we have just seen?"
"I am," she replied.
"And would you object to giving me a condensed recital of it?"
"Not if it can do you any good?"
"What has become of their descendants--of those portraits?"
"They became extinct thousands of years ago."
She became silent again, lost in reverie. The agitation of my mind was
not longer endurable. I was too near the acme of curiosity to longer
delay. I threw reserve aside and not without fear and trembling faltered
out:
"Where are the men of this country? Where do they stay?"
_"There are none_," was the startling reply. "_The race became extinct
three thousand years ago._"
CHAPTER II.
I trembled at the suggestion of my own thoughts. Was this an enchanted
country? Where the lovely blonde women fairies--or some weird beings of
different specie, human only in form? Or was I dreaming?
"I do not believe I understand you," I said. "I never heard of a country
where there were no men. In my land they are so very, very important."
"Possibly," was the placid answer.
"And you are really a nation of women?"
"Yes," she said. "And have been for the last three thousand years."
"Will you tell me how this wonderful change came about?"
"Certainly. But in order to do it, I must go back to our very remote
ancestry. The civilization that I shall begin with must have resembled
the present condition of your own country as you describe it. Prisons
and punishments were prevalent throughout the land."
I inquired how long prisons and places of punishment had been abolished
in Mizora.
"For more than two thousand years," she replied. "I have no personal
knowledge of crime. When I speak of it, it is wholly from an historical
standpoint. A theft has not been committed in this country for many many
centuries. And those minor crimes, such as envy, jealousy, malice and
falsehood, disappeared a long time ago. You will not find a citizen in
Mizora who possesses the slightest trace of any of them.
"Did they exist in earlier times?"
"Yes. Our oldest histories are but records of a succession of dramas in
which the actors were continually striving for power and exercising all
of those ancient qualities of mind to obtain it. Plots, intrigues,
murders and wars, were the active employments of the very ancient rulers
of our land. As soon as death laid its inactivity upon one actor,
another took his place. It might have continued so; and we might still
be repeating the old tragedy but for one singular event. In the history
of your own people you have no doubt observed that the very thing
plotted, intrigued and labored for, has in accomplishment proved the
ruin of its projectors. You will remark this in the history I am about
to relate.
"Main ages ago this country was peopled by two races--male and female.
The male race were rulers in public and domestic life. Their supremacy
had come down from pre-historic time, when strength of muscle was the
only master. Woman was a beast of burden. She was regarded as inferior
to man, mentally as well as physically. This idea prevailed through
centuries of the earlier civilization, even after enlightenment had
brought to her a chivalrous regard from men. But this regard was
bestowed only upon the women of their own household, by the rich and
powerful. Those women who had not been fortunate enough to have been
born in such a sphere of life toiled early and late, in sorrow and
privation, for a mere pittance that was barely sufficient to keep the
flame of life from going out. Their labor was more arduous than men's,
and their wages lighter.
"The government consisted of an aristocracy, a fortunate few, who were
continually at strife with one another to gain supremacy of power, or an
acquisition of territory. Wars, famine and pestilence were of frequent
occurrence. Of the subjects, male and female, some had everything to
render life a pleasure, while others had nothing. Poverty, oppression
and wretchedness was the lot of the many. Power, wealth and luxury the
dower of the few.
"Children came into the world undesired even by those who were able to
rear them, and often after an attempt had been made to prevent their
coming alive. Consequently numbers of them were deformed, not only
physically, but mentally. Under these conditions life was a misery to
the larger part of the human race, and to end it by self-destruction was
taught by their religion to be a crime punishable with eternal torment
by quenchless fire.
"But a revolution was at hand. Stinted toil rose up, armed and wrathful,
against opulent oppression. The struggle was long and tragical, and was
waged with such rancor and desperate persistence by the
insurrectionists, that their women and children began to supply the
places vacated by fallen fathers, husbands and brothers. It ended in
victory for them. They demanded a form of government that should be the
property of all. It was granted, limiting its privileges to adult male
citizens.
"The first representative government lasted a century. In that time
civilization had taken an advance far excelling the progress made in
three centuries previous. So surely does the mind crave freedom for its
perfect development. The consciousness of liberty is an ennobling
element in human nature. No nation can become universally moral until it
is absolutely FREE.
"But this first Republic had been diseased from its birth. Slavery had
existed in certain districts of the nation. It was really the remains of
a former and more degraded state of society which the new government, in
the exultation of its own triumphant inauguration, neglected or lacked
the wisdom to remedy. A portion of the country refused to admit slavery
within its territory, but pledged itself not to interfere with that
which had. Enmities, however, arose between the two sections, which,
after years of repression and useless conciliation, culminated in
another civil war. Slavery had resolved to absorb more territory, and
the free territory had resolved that it should not. The war that
followed in consequence severed forever the fetters of the slave and was
the primary cause of the extinction of the male race.
"The inevitable effect of slavery is enervating and demoralizing. It is
a canker that eats into the vitals of any nation that harbors it, no
matter what form it assumes. The free territory had all the vigor,
wealth and capacity for long endurance that self-dependence gives. It
was in every respect prepared for a long and severe struggle. Its forces
were collected in the name of the united government.
"Considering the marked inequality of the combatants the war would
necessarily have been of short duration. But political corruption had
crept into the trust places of the government, and unscrupulous
politicians and office-seekers saw too many opportunities to harvest
wealth from a continuation of the war. It was to their interest to
prolong it, and they did. They placed in the most responsible positions
of the army, military men whose incapacity was well known to them, and
sustained them there while the country wept its maimed and dying sons.
"The slave territory brought to the front its most capable talent. It
would have conquered had not the resources against which it contended
been almost unlimited. Utterly worn out, every available means of supply
being exhausted, it collapsed from internal weakness.
"The general government, in order to satisfy the clamors of the
distressed and impatient people whose sons were being sacrificed, and
whose taxes were increasing, to prolong the war had kept removing and
reinstating military commanders, but always of reliable incapacity.
"A man of mediocre intellect and boundless self-conceit happened to be
the commander-in-chief of the government army when the insurrection
collapsed. The politicians, whose nefarious scheming had prolonged the
war, saw their opportunity for furthering their own interests by
securing his popularity. They assumed him to be the greatest military
genius that the world had ever produced; as evidenced by his success
where so many others had failed. It was known that he had never risked a
battle until he was assured that his own soldiers were better equipped
and outnumbered the enemy. But the politicians asserted that such a
precaution alone should mark him as an extraordinary military genius.
The deluded people accepted him as a hero.
"The politicians exhausted their ingenuity in inventing honors for him.
A new office of special military eminence, with a large salary attached,
was created for him. He was burdened with distinctions and emoluments,
always worked by the politicians, for their benefit. The nation,
following the lead of the political leaders, joined in their adulation.
It failed to perceive the dangerous path that leads to anarchy and
despotism--the worship of one man. It had unfortunately selected one who
was cautious and undemonstrative, and who had become convinced that he
really was the greatest prodigy that the world had ever produced.
"He was made President, and then the egotism and narrow selfishness of
the man began to exhibit itself. He assumed all the prerogatives of
royalty that his position would permit. He elevated his obscure and
numerous relatives to responsible offices. Large salaries were paid them
and intelligent clerks hired by the Government to perform their official
duties.
"Corruption spread into every department, but the nation was blind to
its danger. The few who did perceive the weakness and presumption of the
hero were silenced by popular opinion.
"A second term of office was given him, and then the real character of
the man began to display itself before the people. The whole nature of
the man was selfish and stubborn. The strongest mental trait possessed
by him was cunning.
"His long lease of power and the adulation of his political
beneficiaries, acting upon a superlative self-conceit, imbued him with
the belief that he had really rendered his country a service so
inestimable that it would be impossible for it to entirely liquidate it.
He exalted to unsuitable public offices his most intimate friends. They
grew suddenly exclusive and aristocratic, forming marriages with eminent
families.
"He traveled about the country with his entire family, at the expense of
the Government, to gradually prepare the people for the ostentation of
royalty. The cities and towns that he visited furnished fetes,
illuminations, parades and every variety of entertainment that could be
thought of or invented for his amusement or glorification. Lest the
parade might not be sufficiently gorgeous or demonstrative he secretly
sent agents to prepare the programme and size of his reception, always
at the expense of the city he intended to honor with his presence.
"He manifested a strong desire to subvert the will of the people to his
will. When informed that a measure he had proposed was unconstitutional,
he requested that the constitution be changed. His intimate friends he
placed in the most important and trustworthy positions under the
Government, and protected them with the power of his own office.
"Many things that were distasteful and unlawful in a free government
were flagrantly flaunted in the face of the people, and were followed by
other slow, but sure, approaches to the usurpation of the liberties of
the Nation. He urged the Government to double his salary as President,
and it complied.
"There had long existed a class of politicians who secretly desired to
convert the Republic into an Empire, that they might secure greater
power and opulence. They had seen in the deluded enthusiasm of the
people for one man, the opportunity for which they had long waited and
schemed. He was unscrupulous and ambitious, and power had become a
necessity to feed the cravings of his vanity.
"The Constitution of the country forbade the office of President to be
occupied by one man for more than two terms. The Empire party proposed
to amend it, permitting the people to elect a President for any number
of terms, or for life if they choose. They tried to persuade the people
that the country owed the greatest General of all time so distinctive an
honor. They even claimed that it was necessary to the preservation of
the Government; that his popularity could command an army to sustain him
if he called for it.
"But the people had begun to penetrate the designs of the hero, and
bitterly denounced his resolution to seek a third term of power. The
terrible corruptions that had been openly protected by him, had
advertised him as criminally unfit for so responsible an office. But,
alas! the people had delayed too long. They had taken a young elephant
into the palace. They had petted and fed him and admired his bulky
growth, and now they could not remove him without destroying the
building.
"The politicians who had managed the Government so long, proved that
they had more power than the people They succeeded, by practices that
were common with politicians in those days, in getting him nominated for
a third term. The people, now thoroughly alarmed, began to see their
past folly and delusion. They made energetic efforts to defeat his
election. But they were unavailing. The politicians had arranged the
ballot, and when the counts were published, the hero was declared
President for life. When too late the deluded people discovered that
they had helped dig the grave for the corpse of their civil liberty, and
those who were loyal and had been misled saw it buried with unavailing
regret. The undeserved popularity bestowed upon a narrow and selfish
nature had been its ruin. In his inaugural address he declared that
nothing but the will of the people governed him. He had not desired the
office; public life was distasteful to him, yet he was willing to
sacrifice himself for the good of his country.
"Had the people been less enlightened, they might have yielded without a
murmur; but they had enjoyed too long the privileges of a free
Government to see it usurped without a struggle. Tumult and disorder
prevailed over the country. Soldiers were called out to protect the new
Government, but numbers of them refused to obey. The consequence was
they fought among themselves. A dissolution of the Government was the
result. The General they had lauded so greatly failed to bring order out
of chaos; and the schemers who had foisted him into power, now turned
upon him with the fury of treacherous natures when foiled of their prey.
Innumerable factions sprung up all over the land, each with a leader
ambitious and hopeful of subduing the whole to his rule. They fought
until the extermination of the race became imminent, when a new and
unsuspected power arose and mastered.
"The female portion of the nation had never had a share in the
Government. Their privileges were only what the chivalry or kindness of
the men permitted. In law, their rights were greatly inferior. The evils
of anarchy fell with direct effect upon them. At first, they organized
for mutual protection from the lawlessness that prevailed. The
organizations grew, united and developed into military power. They used
their power wisely, discreetly, and effectively. With consummate skill
and energy they gathered the reins of Government in their own hands.
"Their first aim had been only to force the country into peace. The
anarchy that reigned had demoralized society, and they had suffered
most. They had long pleaded for an equality of citizenship with men, but
had pleaded in vain. They now remembered it, and resolved to keep the
Government that their wisdom and power had restored. They had been
hampered in educational progress. Colleges and all avenues to higher
intellectual development had been rigorously closed against them. The
professional pursuits of life were denied them. But a few, with sublime
courage and energy, had forced their way into them amid the revilings of
some of their own sex and opposition of the men. It was these brave
spirits who had earned their liberal cultivation with so much
difficulty, that had organized and directed the new power. They
generously offered to form a Government that should be the property of
all intelligent adult citizens, not criminal.
"But these wise women were a small minority. The majority were ruled by
the remembrance of past injustice. _They_ were now the power, and
declared their intention to hold the Government for a century.
"They formed a Republic, in which they remedied many of the defects that
had marred the Republic of men. They constituted the Nation an integer
which could never be disintegrated by States' Rights ideas or the
assumption of State sovereignty.
"They proposed a code of laws for the home government of the States,
which every State in the Union ratified as their State Constitution,
thus making a uniformity and strength that the Republic of men had never
known or suspected attainable.
"They made it a law of every State that criminals could be arrested in
any State they might flee to, without legal authority, other than that
obtained in the vicinity of the crime. They made a law that criminals,
tried and convicted of crime, could not be pardoned without the sanction
of seventy-five out of one hundred educated and disinterested people,
who should weigh the testimony and render their decision under oath. It
is scarcely necessary to add that few criminals ever were pardoned. It
removed from the office of Governor the responsibility of pardoning, or
rejecting pardons as a purely personal privilege. It abolished the
power of rich criminals to bribe their escape from justice; a practice
that had secretly existed in the former Republic.
"In forming their Government, the women, who were its founders, profited
largely by the mistakes or wisdom displayed in the Government of men.
Neither the General Government, nor the State Government, could be
independent of the other. A law of the Union could not become such until
ratified by every State Legislature. A State law could not become
constitutional until ratified by Congress.
"In forming the State Constitutions, laws were selected from the
different State Constitutions that had proven wise for State Government
during the former Republic. In the Republic of men, each State had made
and ratified its own laws, independent of the General Government. The
consequence was, no two States possessed similar laws.
"To secure strength and avoid confusion was the aim of the founders of
the new Government. The Constitution of the National Government provided
for the exclusion of the male sex from all affairs and privileges for a
period of one hundred years.
"_At the end of that time not a representative of the sex was in
existence._"
CHAPTER III.
I expressed my astonishment at her revelation. Their social life existed
under conditions that were incredible to me. Would it be an impertinence
to ask for an explanation that I might comprehend? Or was it really the
one secret they possessed and guarded from discovery, a mystery that
must forever surround them with a halo of doubt, the suggestion of
uncanny power? I spoke as deprecatingly as I could. The Preceptress
turned upon me a calm but penetrating gaze.
"Have we impressed you as a mysterious people?" she asked.
"Very, very much!" I exclaimed. "I have at times been oppressed by it."
"You never mentioned it," she said, kindly.
"I could not find an opportunity to," I said.
"It is the custom in Mizora, as you have no doubt observed, never to
make domestic affairs a topic of conversation outside of the family, the
only ones who would be interested in them; and this refinement has kept
you from the solution of our social system. I have no hesitancy in
gratifying your wish to comprehend it. The best way to do it is to let
history lead up to it, if you have the patience to listen."
I assured her that I was anxious to hear all she chose to tell. She then
resumed:
"The prosperity of the country rapidly increased under the rule of the
female Presidents. The majority of them were in favor of a high state of
morality, and they enforced it by law and practice. The arts and
sciences were liberally encouraged and made rapid advancement. Colleges
and schools flourished vigorously, and every branch of education was now
open to women.
"During the Republic of men, the government had founded and sustained a
military and naval academy, where a limited number of the youth of the
country were educated at government expense. The female government
re-organized the institutions, substituting the youth of their own sex.
They also founded an academy of science, which was supplied with every
facility for investigation and progress. None but those having a marked
predilection for scientific research could obtain admission, and then it
was accorded to demonstrated ability only. This drew to the college the
best female talent in the country. The number of applicants was not
limited.
"Science had hitherto been, save by a _very_ few, an untrodden field to
women, but the encouragement and rare facilities offered soon revealed
latent talent that developed rapidly. Scarcely half a century had
elapsed before the pupils of the college had effected by their
discoveries some remarkable changes in living, especially in the
prevention and cure of diseases.
"However prosperous they might become, they could not dwell in political
security with a portion of the citizens disfranchised. The men were
resolved to secure their former power. Intrigues and plots against the
government were constantly in force among them. In order to avert
another civil war, it was finally decided to amend the constitution, and
give them an equal share in the ballot. They had no sooner obtained that
than the old practices of the former Republic were resorted to to secure
their supremacy in government affairs. The women looked forward to their
former subjugation as only a matter of time, and bitterly regretted
their inability to prevent it. But at the crisis, a prominent scientist
proposed to let the race die out. Science had revealed the Secret of
Life."
She ceased speaking, as though I fully understood her.
"I am more bewildered than ever," I exclaimed. "I cannot comprehend
you."
"Come with me," she said.
I followed her into the Chemist's Laboratory. She bade me look into a
microscope that she designated, and tell her what I saw.
"An exquisitely minute cell in violent motion," I answered.
"Daughter," she said, solemnly, "you are now looking upon the germ of
_all_ Life, be it animal or vegetable, a flower or a human being, it has
that one common beginning. We have advanced far enough in Science to
control its development. Know that the MOTHER is the only important part
of all life. In the lowest organisms no other sex is apparent."
I sat down and looked at my companion in a frame of mind not easily
described. There was an intellectual grandeur in her look and mien that
was impressive. Truth sat, like a coronet, upon her brow. The revelation
I had so longed for, I now almost regretted. It separated me so far from
these beautiful, companionable beings.
"Science has instructed you how to supercede Nature," I said, finally.
"By no means. It has only taught us how to make her obey us. We cannot
_create_ Life. We cannot develop it. But we can control Nature's
processes of development as we will. Can you deprecate such a power?
Would not your own land be happier without idiots, without lunatics,
without deformity and disease?"
"You will give me little hope of any radical change in my own lifetime
when I inform you that deformity, if extraordinary, becomes a source of
revenue to its possessor."
"All reforms are of slow growth," she said. "The moral life is the
highest development of Nature. It is evolved by the same slow processes,
and like the lower life, its succeeding forms are always higher ones.
Its ultimate perfection will be mind, where all happiness shall dwell,
where pleasure shall find fruition, and desire its ecstasy.
"It is the duty of every generation to prepare the way for a higher
development of the next, as we see demonstrated by Nature in the
fossilized remains of long extinct animal life, a preparatory condition
for a higher form in the next evolution. If you do not enjoy the fruit
of your labor in your own lifetime, the generation that follows you will
be the happier for it. Be not so selfish as to think only of your own
narrow span of life."
"By what means have you reached so grand a development?" I asked.
"By the careful study of, and adherence to, Nature's laws. It was long
years--I should say centuries--before the influence of the coarser
nature of men was eliminated from the present race.
"We devote the most careful attention to the Mothers of our race. No
retarding mental or moral influences are ever permitted to reach her. On
the contrary, the most agreeable contacts with nature, all that can
cheer and ennoble in art or music surround her. She is an object of
interest and tenderness to all who meet her. Guarded from unwholesome
agitation, furnished with nourishing and proper diet--both mental and
physical--the child of a Mizora mother is always an improvement upon
herself. With us, childhood has no sorrows. We believe, and the present
condition of our race proves, that a being environed from its birth with
none but elevating influences, will grow up amiable and intelligent
though inheriting unfavorable tendencies.
"On this principle we have ennobled our race and discovered the means of
prolonging life and youthful loveliness far beyond the limits known by
our ancestors.
"Temptation and necessity will often degrade a nature naturally inclined
and desirous to be noble. We early recognized this fact, and that a
nature once debased by crime would transmit it to posterity. For this
reason we never permitted a convict to have posterity."
"But how have you become so beautiful?" I asked. "For, in all my
journeys, I have not met an uncomely face or form. On the contrary, all
the Mizora women have perfect bodies and lovely features."
"We follow the gentle guidance of our mother, Nature. Good air and
judicious exercise for generations and generations before us have
helped. Our ancestors knew the influence of art, sculpture, painting and
music, which they were trained to appreciate."
"But has not nature been a little generous to you?" I inquired.
"Not more so than she will be to any people who follow her laws. When
you first came here you had an idea that you could improve nature by
crowding your lungs and digestive organs into a smaller space than she,
the maker of them, intended them to occupy.
"If you construct an engine, and then cram it into a box so narrow and
tight that it cannot move, and then crowd on the motive power, what
would you expect?
"Beautiful as you think my people, and as they really are, yet, by
disregarding nature's laws, or trying to thwart her intentions, in a few
generations to come, perhaps even in the next, we could have coarse
features and complexions, stoop shoulders and deformity.
"It has required patience, observation and care on the part of our
ancestors to secure to us the priceless heritage of health and perfect
bodies. Your people can acquire them by the same means."
CHAPTER IV.
As to Physical causes, I am inclined to doubt altogether of their
operation in this particular; nor do I think that men owe anything
of their temper or genius to the air, food, or climate.--_Bacon._
I listened with the keenest interest to this curious and instructive
history; and when the Preceptress had ceased speaking. I expressed my
gratitude for her kindness. There were many things about which I desired
information, but particularly their method of eradicating disease and
crime. These two evils were the prominent afflictions of all the
civilized nations I knew. I believed that I could comprehend enough of
their method of extirpation to benefit my own country. Would she kindly
give it?
"I shall take Disease first," she said, "as it is a near relative of
Crime. You look surprised. You have known life-long and incurable
invalids who were not criminals. But go to the squalid portion of any of
your large cities, where Poverty and Disease go hand in hand, where the
child receives its life and its first nourishment from a haggard and
discontented mother. Starvation is her daily dread. The little
tendernesses that make home the haven of the heart, are never known to
her. Ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-cherished, all that _might_ be refined
and elevated in her nature, if properly cultivated, is choked into
starveling shapes by her enemy--Want.
"If you have any knowledge of nature, ask yourself if such a condition
of birth and infancy is likely to produce a noble, healthy human being?
Do your agriculturists expect a stunted, neglected tree to produce rare
and luscious fruit?"
I was surprised at the Preceptress' graphic description of wretchedness,
so familiar to all the civilized nations that I knew, and asked:
"Did such a state of society ever exist in this country?"
"Ages ago it was as marked a social condition of this land as it is of
your own to-day. The first great move toward eradicating disease was in
providing clean and wholesome food for the masses. It required the
utmost rigor of the law to destroy the pernicious practice of
adulteration. The next endeavor was to crowd poverty out of the land. In
order to do this the Labor question came first under discussion, and
resulted in the establishment in every state of a Board of Arbitration
that fixed the price of labor on a per cent, of the profits of the
business. Public and private charities were forbidden by law as having
an immoral influence upon society. Charitable institutions had long been
numerous and fashionable, and many persons engaged in them as much for
their own benefit as that of the poor. It was not always the honest and
benevolent ones who became treasurers, nor were the funds always
distributed among the needy and destitute, or those whom they were
collected for. The law put a stop to the possibility of such frauds, and
of professional impostors seeking alms. Those who needed assistance were
supplied with work--respectable, independent work--furnished by the city
or town in which they resided. A love of industry, its dignity and
independence, was carefully instilled into every young mind. There is no
country but what ought to provide for everyone of its citizens a
comfortable, if not luxurious, home by humane legislation on the labor
question.
"The penitentiaries were reconstructed by the female government. One
half the time formerly allotted to labor was employed in compulsory
education. Industrial schools were established in every State, where all
the mechanical employments were taught free. Objects of charity were
sent there and compelled to become self supporting. These industrial
schools finally became State Colleges, where are taught, free, all the
known branches of knowledge, intellectual and mechanical.
"Pauperism disappeared before the wide reaching influence of these
industrial schools, but universal affluence had not come. It could not
exist until education had become universal.
"With this object in view, the Government forbade the employment of any
citizen under the age of twenty-one, and compelled their attendance at
school up to that time. At the same time a law was passed that
authorized the furnishing of all school-room necessaries out of the
public funds. If a higher education were desired the State Colleges
furnished it free of all expenses contingent.
"All of these measures had a marked influence in improving the
condition of society, but not all that was required. The necessity for
strict sanitary laws became obvious. Cities and towns and even farms
were visited, and everything that could breed malaria, or produce impure
air, was compelled to be removed. Personal and household cleanliness at
last became an object of public interest, and inspectors were appointed
who visited families and reported the condition of their homes. All
kinds of out-door sports and athletic exercises were encouraged and
became fashionable.
"All of these things combined, made a great improvement in the health
and vigor of our race, but still hereditary diseases lingered.
"There were many so enfeebled by hereditary disease they had not enough
energy to seek recuperation, and died, leaving offspring as wretched,
who in turn followed their parents' example.
"Statistics were compiled, and physician's reports circulated, until a
law was passed prohibiting the perpetuity of diseased offspring. But,
although disease became less prevalent, it did not entirely disappear.
The law could only reach the most deplorable afflictions, and was
eventually repealed.
"As the science of therapeutics advanced, all diseases--whether
hereditary or acquired--were found to be associated with abnormal
conditions of the blood. A microscopic examination of a drop of blood
enabled the scientist to determine the character and intensity of any
disease, and at last to effect its elimination from the system.
"The blood is the primal element of the body. It feeds the flesh, the
nerves, the muscles, the brain. Disease cannot exist when it is in a
natural condition. Countless experiments have determined the exact
properties of healthy blood and how to produce it. By the use of this
knowledge we have eliminated hereditary diseases, and developed into a
healthy and moral people. For people universally healthy is sure of
being moral. Necessity begets crime. It is the _wants_ of the ignorant
and debased that suggests theft. It is a diseased fancy, or a mind
ignorant of the laws that govern the development of human nature, that
could attribute to offspring hated before birth: infancy and childhood
neglected; starved, ill-used in every way, a disposition and character,
amiable and humane and likely to become worthy members of society. The
reverse is almost inevitable. Human nature relapses into the lower and
baser instincts of its earlier existence, when neglected, ill-used and
_ignorant_. All of those lovely traits of character which excite the
enthusiast, such as gratitude, honor, charity are the results of
education only. They are not the natural instincts of the human mind,
but the cultivated ones.
"The most rigid laws were passed in regard to the practice of medicine.
No physician could become a practitioner until examined and authorized
to do so by the State Medical College. In order to prevent favoritism,
or the furnishing of diplomas to incompetent applicants, enormous
penalties were incurred by any who would sign such. The profession long
ago became extinct. Every mother is a family physician. That is, she
obeys the laws of nature in regard to herself and her children, and they
never need a doctor.
"Having become healthy and independent of charity, crime began to
decrease naturally. The conditions that had bred and fostered petty
crimes having ceased to exist, the natures that had inherited them rose
above their influence in a few generations, and left honorable
posterity.
"But crime in its grossest form is an ineradicable hereditary taint.
Generation after generation may rise and disappear in a family once
tainted with it, without displaying it, and then in a most unexpected
manner it will spring up in some descendant, violent and unconquerable.
"We tried to eliminate it as we had disease, but failed. It was an
inherited molecular structure of the brain. Science could not
reconstruct it. The only remedy was annihilation. Criminals had no
posterity."
"I am surprised," I interrupted, "that possessing the power to control
the development of the body, you should not do so with the mind."
"If we could we would produce genius that could discover the source of
all life. We can control Cause and Effect, but we cannot create Cause.
We do not even know its origin. What the perfume is to the flower, the
intellect is to the body; a secret that Nature keeps to herself. For a
thousand years our greatest minds have sought to discover its source,
and we are as far from it to-day as we were a thousand years ago."
"How then have you obtained your mental superiority?" I inquired.
"By securing to our offspring perfect, physical and mental health.
Science has taught us how to evolve intellect by following demonstrated
laws. I put a seed into the ground and it comes up a little green slip,
that eventually becomes a tree. When I planted the seed in congenial
soil, and watered and tended the slip, I assisted Nature. But I did not
create the seed nor supply the force that made it develop into a tree,
nor can I define that force."
"What has produced the exquisite refinement of your people?"
"Like everything else, it is the result of gradual development aiming
at higher improvement. By following strictly the laws that govern the
evolution of life, we control the formation of the body and brain.
Strong mental traits become intensified by cultivation from generation
to generation and finally culminate in one glorious outburst of power,
called Genius. But there is one peculiarity about mind. It resembles
that wonderful century plant which, after decades of developing, flowers
and dies. Genius is the long unfolding bloom of mind, and leaves no
posterity. We carefully prepare for the future development of Genius. We
know that our children will be neither deformed nor imbecile, but we
watch the unfolding of their intellects with the interest of a new
revelation. We guide them with the greatest care.
"I could take a child of your people with inherited weakness of body and
mind. I should rear it on proper food and exercise--both mental and
physical--and it would have, when matured, a marked superiority to its
parents. It is not what Nature has done for us, it is what we have done
for her, that makes us a race of superior people."
"The qualities of mind that are the general feature of your people," I
remarked, "are so very high, higher than our estimate of Genius. How was
it arrived at?"
"By the processes I have just explained. Genius is always a leader. A
genius with us has a subtlety of thought and perception beyond your
power of appreciation. All organized social bodies move intellectually
in a mass, with their leader just ahead of them."
"I have visited, as a guest, a number of your families, and found their
homes adorned with paintings and sculpture that would excite wondering
admiration in my own land as rare works of art, but here they are only
the expression of family taste and culture. Is that a quality of
intellect that has been evolved, or is it a natural endowment of your
race?"
"It is not an endowment, but has been arrived at by the same process of
careful cultivation. Do you see in those ancient portraits a variety of
striking colors? There is not a suggestion of harmony in any of them. On
the contrary, they all display violent contrasts of color. The originals
of them trod this land thousands of years ago. Many of the colors, we
know, were unknown to them. Color is a faculty of the mind that is
wholly the result of culture. In the early ages of society, it was known
only in the coarsest and most brilliant hues. A conception and
appreciation of delicate harmonies in color is evidence of a superior
and refined mentality. If you will notice it, the illiterate of your
own land have no taste for or idea of the harmony of color. It is the
same with sound. The higher we rise in culture, the more difficult we
are to please in music. Our taste becomes critical."
I had been revolving some things in my mind while the Preceptress was
speaking, and I now ventured to express them. I said:
"You tell me that generations will come and go before a marked change
can occur in a people. What good then would it do me or mine to study
and labor and investigate in or to teach my people how to improve? They
can not comprehend progress. They have not learned by contact, as I have
in Mizora, how to appreciate it. I should only waste life and happiness
in trying to persuade them to get out of the ruts they have traveled so
long; they think there are no other roads. I should be reviled, and
perhaps persecuted. My doctrines would be called visionary and
impracticable. I think I had better use my knowledge for my own kindred,
and let the rest of the world find out the best way it can."
The Preceptress looked at me with mild severity. I never before had seen
so near an approach to rebuke in her grand eyes.
"What a barbarous, barbarous idea!" she exclaimed. "Your country will
never rise above its ignorance and degradation, until out of its mental
agony shall be evolved a nature kindled with an ambition that burns for
Humanity instead of self. It will be the nucleus round which will gather
the timid but anxious, and _then_ will be lighted that fire which no
waters can quench. It burns for the liberty of thought. Let human nature
once feel the warmth of its beacon fires, and it will march onward,
defying all obstacles, braving all perils till it be won. Human nature
is ever reaching for the unattained. It is that little spark within us
that has an undying life. When we can no longer use it, it flies
elsewhere."
CHAPTER V.
I had long contemplated a trip to the extreme southern boundary of
Mizora. I had often inquired about it, and had always been answered that
it was defined by an impassable ocean. I had asked them to describe it
to me, for the Mizora people have a happy faculty of employing tersely
expressive language when necessary; but I was always met with the
surprising answer that no tongue in Mizora was eloquent enough to
portray the wonders that bounded Mizora on the south. So I requested the
Preceptress to permit Wauna to accompany me as a guide and companion; a
request she readily complied with.
"Will you be afraid or uneasy about trusting her on so long a journey
with no companion or protector but me?" I asked.
The Preceptress smiled at my question.
"Why should I be afraid, when in all the length and breadth of our land
there is no evil to befall her, or you either. Strangers are friends in
Mizora, in one sense of the word, when they meet. You will both travel
as though among time endeared associates. You will receive every
attention, courtesy and kindness that would be bestowed upon near and
intimate acquaintances. No, in this land, mothers do not fear to send
their daughters alone and unrecommended among strangers."
When speed was required, the people of Mizora traveled altogether by air
ships. But when the pleasure of landscape viewing, and the delight and
exhilaration of easy progress is desired, they use either railroad cars
or carriages.
Wauna and I selected an easy and commodious carriage. It was propelled
by compressed air, which Wauna said could be obtained whenever we needed
a new supply at any village or country seat.
Throughout the length and breadth of Mizora the roads were artificially
made. Cities, towns, and villages were provided with paved streets,
which the public authorities kept in a condition of perfect cleanliness.
The absence of all kinds of animals rendered this comparatively easy. In
alluding to this once in the presence of the Preceptress, she startled
me by the request that I should suggest to my people the advantage to be
derived from substituting machinery for animal labor.
"The association of animals is degrading," she asserted. "And you, who
still live by tilling the soil, will find a marked change economically
in dispensing with your beasts of burden. Fully four-fifths that you
raise on your farms is required to feed your domestic animals. If your
agriculture was devoted entirely to human food, it would make it more
plentiful for the poor."
I did not like to tell her that I knew many wealthy people who housed
and fed their domestic animals better than they did their tenants. She
would have been disgusted with such a state of barbarism.
Country roads in Mizora were usually covered with a cement that was
prepared from pulverized granite. They were very durable and very hard.
Owing to their solidity, they were not as agreeable for driving as
another kind of cement they manufactured. I have previously spoken of
the peculiar style of wheel that was used on all kinds of light
conveyances in Mizora, and rendered their progress over any road the
very luxury of motion.
In our journey, Wauna took me to a number of factories, where the
wonderful progress they had made in science continually surprised and
delighted me. The spider and the silkworm had yielded their secret to
these indefatigable searchers into nature's mysteries. They could spin a
thread of gossamer, or of silk from their chemicals, of any width and
length, and with a rapidity that was magical. Like everything else of
that nature in Mizora, these discoveries had been purchased by the
Government, and then made known to all.
They also manufactured ivory that I could not tell from the real
article. I have previously spoken of their success in producing various
kinds of marble and stone. A beautiful table that I saw made out of
artificial ivory, had a painting upon the top of it. A deep border,
composed of delicate, convoluted shells, extended round the top of the
table and formed the shores of a mimic ocean, with coral reefs and tiny
islands, and tangled sea-weeds and shining fishes sporting about in the
pellucid water. The surface was of highly polished smoothness, and I was
informed that the picture was _not_ a painting but was formed of
colored particles of ivory that had been worked in before the drying or
solidifying process had been applied. In the same way they formed main
beautiful combinations of marbles. The magnificent marble columns that
supported the portico of my friend's house were all of artificial make.
The delicate green leaves and creeping vines of ivy, rose, and
eglantine, with their spray-like blossoms, were colored in the
manufacturing process and chiseled out of the solid marble by the
skillful hand of the artist.
It would be difficult for me to even enumerate all the beautiful arts
and productions of arts that I saw in Mizora. Our journey was full of
incidents of this kind.
Every city and town that we visited was like the introduction of a new
picture. There was no sameness between any of them. Each had aimed at
picturesqueness or stately magnificence, and neither had failed to
obtain it. Looking back as I now do upon Mizora, it presents itself to
me as a vast and almost limitless landscape, variegated with grand
cities, lovely towns and villages, majestic hills and mountains crowned
with glittering snows, or deep, delightful valleys veiled in scented
vines.
Kindness, cordiality and courtesy met us on every side. It was at first
quite novel for me to mingle among previously unheard-of people with
such sociability, but I did as Wauna did, and I found it not only
convenient but quite agreeable.
"I am the daughter of the Preceptress of the National College," said
Wauna; and that was the way she introduced herself.
I noticed with what honor and high esteem the name of the Preceptress
was regarded. As soon as it was known that the daughter of the
Preceptress had arrived, the citizens of whatever city we had stopped in
hastened to extend to her every courtesy and favor possible for them to
bestow. She was the daughter of the woman who held the highest and most
enviable position in the Nation. A position that only great intellect
could secure in that country.
As we neared the goal of our journey, I noticed an increasing warmth of
the atmosphere, and my ears were soon greeted with a deep, reverberating
roar like continuous thunder. I have seen and heard Niagara, but a
thousand Niagaras could not equal that deafening sound. The heat became
oppressive. The light also from a cause of which I shall soon speak.
We ascended a promontory that jutted out from the main land a quarter of
a mile, perhaps more. Wauna conducted me to the edge of the cliff and
told me to look down. An ocean of whirlpools was before us. The
maddened dashing and thundering of the mighty waters, and the awe they
inspired no words can paint. Across such an abyss of terrors it was
certain no vessel could sail. We took our glasses and scanned the
opposite shore, which appeared to be a vast cataract as though the ocean
was pouring over a precipice of rock. Wauna informed me that where the
shore was visible it was a perpendicular wall of smooth rock.
Over head an arc of fire spanned the zenith from which depended curtains
of rainbows waving and fluttering, folding and floating out again with a
rapid and incessant motion. I asked Wauna why they had not crossed in
air-ships, and she said they had tried it often but had always failed.
"In former times," she said, "when air-ships first came into use it was
frequently attempted, but no voyager ever returned. We have long since
abandoned the attempt, for now we know it to be impossible."
I looked again at that display of uncontrollable power. As I gazed it
seemed to me I would be drawn down by the resistless fascination of
terror. I grasped Wauna and she gently turned my face to the smiling
landscape behind us. Hills and valleys, and sparkling cities veiled in
foliage, with their numberless parks and fountains and statues sleeping
in the soft light, gleaming lakes and wandering rivers that glittered
and danced in the glorious atmosphere like prisoned sunbeams, greeted us
like the alluring smile of love, and yet, for the first time since
entering this lovely land, I felt myself a prisoner. Behind me was an
impassable barrier. Before me, far beyond this gleaming vision of
enchantment, lay another road whose privations and dangers I dreaded to
attempt.