of its wild forest-home, and placed in a golden cage where it drinks
from a jeweled cup and eats daintier food than it could obtain in its
own rude haunts. It pines for that precarious life; its very dangers and
privations fill its breast with desire. I began to long with unutterable
impatience to see once more the wild, rough scenes of my own nativity.
Memory began to recall them with softening touches. My heart yearned for
my own; debased as compared with Mizora though they be, there was the
congeniality of blood between us. I longed to see my own little one
whose dimpled hands I had unclasped from my neck in that agonized
parting. Whenever I saw a Mizora mother fondling her babe, my heart
leapt with quick desire to once more hold my own in such loving embrace.
The mothers of Mizora have a devotional love for their children. Their
smiles and prattle and baby wishes are listened to with loving
tenderness, and treated as matters of importance.
I was sitting beside a Mizora mother one evening, listening to some
singing that I truly thought no earthly melody could surpass. I asked
the lady if ever she had heard anything sweeter, and she answered,
earnestly:
"Yes, the voices of my own children."
On our homeward journey, Wauna took me to a lake from the center of
which we could see, with our glasses, a green island rising high above
the water like an emerald in a silver setting.
"That," said Wauna, directing my attention to it, "is the last vestige
of a prison left in Mizora. Would you like to visit it?"
I expressed an eager willingness to behold so curious a sight, and
getting into a small pleasure boat, we started toward it. Boats are
propelled in Mizora either by electricity or compressed air, and glide
through the water with soundless swiftness.
As we neared the island I could perceive the mingling of natural and
artificial attractions. We moored our boat at the foot of a flight of
steps, hewn from the solid rock. On reaching the top, the scene spread
out like a beautiful painting. Grottos, fountains, and cascades, winding
walks and vine-covered bowers charmed us as we wandered about. In the
center stood a medium-sized residence of white marble. We entered
through a door opening on a wide piazza. Art and wealth and taste had
adorned the interior with a generous hand. A library studded with books
closely shut behind glass doors had a wide window that commanded an
enchanting view of the lake, with its rippling waters sparkling and
dimpling in the light. On one side of the mantelpiece hung a full length
portrait of a lady, painted with startling naturalness.
"That," said Wauna, solemnly, "was the last prisoner in Mizora."
I looked with interested curiosity at a relic so curious in this land.
It was a blonde woman with lighter colored eyes than is at all common in
Mizora. Her long, blonde hair hung straight and unconfined over a dress
of thick, white material. Her attitude and expression were dejected and
sorrowful. I had visited prisons in my own land where red-handed murder
sat smiling with indifference. I had read in newspapers, labored
eloquence that described the stoicism of some hardened criminal as a
trait of character to be admired. I had read descriptions where mistaken
eloquence exerted itself to waken sympathy for a criminal who had never
felt sympathy for his helpless and innocent victims, and I had felt
nothing but creeping horror for it all. But gazing at this picture of
undeniable repentance, tears of sympathy started to my eyes. Had she
been guilty of taking a fellow-creature's life?
"Is she still living?" I asked by way of a preface.
"Oh, no, she has been dead for more than a century," answered Wauna.
"Was she confined here very long?"
"For life," was the reply.
"I should not believe," I said, "that a nature capable of so deep a
repentance could be capable of so dark a crime as murder."
"Murder!" exclaimed Wauna in horror. "There has not been a murder
committed in this land for three thousand years."
It was my turn to be astonished.
"Then tell me what dreadful crime she committed."
"She struck her child," said Wauna, sadly; "her little innocent,
helpless child that Nature gave her to love and cherish, and make noble
and useful and happy."
"Did she inflict a permanent injury?" I asked, with increased
astonishment at this new phase of refinement in the Mizora character.
"No one can tell the amount of injury a blow does to a child. It may
immediately show an obvious physical one; it may later develop a mental
one. It may never seem to have injured it at all, and yet it may have
shocked a sensitive nature and injured it permanently. Crime is evolved
from perverted natures, and natures become perverted from ill-usage. It
merges into a peculiar structure of the brain that becomes hereditary."
"What became of the prisoner's child?"
"It was adopted by a young lady who had just graduated at the State
College of the State in which the mother resided. It was only five years
old, and its mother's name was never mentioned to it or to anyone else.
Long before that, the press had abolished the practice of giving any
prominence to crime. That pernicious eloquence that in uncivilized ages
had helped to nourish crime by a maudlin sympathy for the criminal, had
ceased to exist. The young lady called the child daughter, and it called
her mother."
"Did the real mother never want to see her child?"
"That is said to be a true picture of her," said Wauna; "and who can
look at it and not see sorrow and remorse."
"How could you be so stern?" I asked, in wondering astonishment.
"Pity has nothing to do with crime," said Wauna, firmly. "You must look
to humanity, and not to the sympathy one person excites when you are
aiding enlightenment. That woman wandered about these beautiful grounds,
or sat in this elegant home a lonely and unsympathized-with prisoner.
She was furnished with books, magazines and papers, and every physical
comfort. Sympathy for her lot was never offered her. Childhood is
regarded by my people as the only period of life that is capable of
knowing perfect happiness, and among us it is a crime greater than the
heinousness of murder in your country, to deprive a human being of its
childhood--in which cluster the only unalloyed sweets of life.
"A human being who remembers only pain, rebukes treatment in childhood,
has lost the very flavor of existence, and the person who destroyed it
is a criminal indeed."
CHAPTER VI.
There was one peculiarity about Mizora that I noticed soon after my
arrival, but for various reasons have refrained from speaking of before
now. It was the absence of houses devoted to religious worship.
In architecture Mizora displayed the highest perfection. Their colleges,
art galleries, public libraries, opera houses, and all their public
buildings were grand and beautiful. Never in any country, had I beheld
such splendor in design and execution. Their superior skill in this
respect, led me to believe that their temples of worship must be on a
scale of magnificence beyond all my conceiving. I was eager to behold
them. I looked often upon my first journeyings about their cities to
discover them, but whenever I noticed an unusually imposing building,
and asked what it was, it was always something else. I was frequently on
the point of asking them to conduct me to some church that resembled my
own in worship, (for I was brought up in strict compliance with the
creeds, dogmas, and regulations of the Russo Greek Church) but I
refrained, hoping that in time, I should be introduced to their
religious ceremonies.
When time passed on, and no invitation was extended me, and I saw no
house nor preparation for religious worship, nor even heard mention of
any, I asked Wauna for an explanation. She appeared not to comprehend
me, and I asked the question:
"Where do you perform your religious rites and ceremonies?"
She looked at me with surprise.
"You ask me such strange questions that sometimes I am tempted to
believe you a relic of ancient mythology that has drifted down the
centuries and landed on our civilized shores, or else have been gifted
with a marvelous prolongation of life, and have emerged upon us from
some cavern where you have lived, or slept for ages in unchanged
possession of your ancient superstition."
"Have you, then," I asked in astonishment, "no religious temples
devoted to worship?"
"Oh, yes, we have temples where we worship daily. Do you see that
building?" nodding toward the majestic granite walls of the National
College. "That is one of our most renowned temples, where the highest
and the noblest in the land meet and mingle familiarly with the humblest
in daily worship."
"I understand all that you wish to imply by that," I replied. "But have
you no building devoted to divine worship; no temple that belongs
specially to your Deity; to the Being that created you, and to whom you
owe eternal gratitude and homage?"
"We have;" she answered grandly, with a majestic wave of her hand, and
in that mellow, musical voice that was sweeter than the chanting of
birds, she exclaimed:
"This vast cathedral, boundless as our wonder;
Whose shining lamps yon brilliant mists[A] supply;
Its choir the winds, and waves; its organ thunder;
Its dome the sky."
[Footnote A: Aurora Borealis]
"Do you worship Nature?" I asked.
"If we did, we should worship ourselves, for we are a part of Nature."
"But do you not recognize an invisible and incomprehensible Being that
created you, and who will give your spirit an abode of eternal bliss, or
consign it to eternal torments according as you have glorified and
served him?"
"I am an atom of Nature;" said Wauna, gravely. "If you want me to answer
your superstitious notions of religion, I will, in one sentence,
explain, that the only religious idea in Mizora is: Nature is God, and
God is Nature. She is the Great Mother who gathers the centuries in her
arms, and rocks their children into eternal sleep upon her bosom."
"But how," I asked in bewildered astonishment, "how can you think of
living without creeds, and confessionals? How can you prosper without
prayer? How can you be upright, and honest, and true to yourselves and
your friends without praying for divine grace and strength to sustain
you? How can you be noble, and keep from envying your neighbors,
without a prayer for divine grace to assist you to resist such
temptation?"
"Oh, daughter of the dark ages," said Wauna, sadly, "turn to the
benevolent and ever-willing Science. She is the goddess who has led us
out of ignorance and superstition; out of degradation and disease, and
every other wretchedness that superstitious, degraded humanity has
known. She has lifted us above the low and the little, the narrow and
mean in human thought and action, and has placed us in a broad, free,
independent, noble, useful and grandly happy life."
"You have been favored by divine grace," I reiterated, "although you
refuse to acknowledge it."
She smiled compassionately as she answered:
"She is the divinity who never turned a deaf ear to earnest and
persistent effort in a sensible direction. But prayers to her must be
_work_, resolute and conscientious _work_. She teaches that success in
this world can only come to those who work for it. In your superstitious
belief you pray for benefits you have never earned, possibly do not
deserve, but expect to get simply because you pray for them. Science
never betrays such partiality. The favors she bestows are conferred only
upon the industrious."
"And you deny absolutely the efficacy of prayer?" I asked.
"If I could obtain anything by prayer alone, I would pray that my
inventive faculty should be enlarged so that I might conceive and
construct an air-ship that could cleave its way through that chaos of
winds that is formed when two storms meet from opposite directions. It
would rend to atoms one of our present make. But prayer will never
produce an improved air-ship. We must dig into science for it. Our
ancestors did not pray for us to become a race of symmetrically-shaped
and universally healthy people, and expect that to effect a result. They
went to work on scientific principles to root out disease and crime and
want and wretchedness, and every degrading and retarding influence."
"Prayer never saved one of my ancestors from premature death," she
continued, with a resolution that seemed determined to tear from my mind
every fabric of faith in the consolations of divine interposition that
had been a special part of my education, and had become rooted into my
nature. "Disease, when it fastened upon the vitals of the young and
beautiful and dearly-loved was stronger and more powerful than all the
agonized prayers that could be poured from breaking hearts. But science,
when solicited by careful study and experiment and investigation,
offered the remedy. And _now_, we defy disease and have no fear of death
until our natural time comes, and _then_ it will be the welcome rest
that the worn-out body meets with gratitude."
"But when you die," I exclaimed, "do you not believe you have an after
life?"
"When I die," replied Wauna, "my body will return to the elements from
whence it came. Thought will return to the force which gave it. The
power of the brain is the one mystery that surrounds life. We know that
the brain is a mechanical structure and acted upon by force; but how to
analyze that force is still beyond our reach. You see that huge engine?
We made it. It is a fine piece of mechanism. We know what it was made to
do. We turn on the motive power, and it moves at the rate of a mile a
minute if we desire it. Why should it move? Why might it not stand
still? You say because of a law of nature that under the circumstances
compels it to move. Our brain is like that engine--a wonderful piece of
mechanism, and when the blood drives it, it displays the effects of
force which we call Thought. We can see the engine move and we know what
law of nature it obeys in moving. But the brain is a more mysterious
structure, for the force which compels it to action we cannot analyze.
The superstitious ancients called this mystery the soul."
"And do you discard that belief?" I asked, trembling and excited to hear
such sacrilegious talk from youth so beautiful and pure.
"What our future is to be after dissolution no one knows," replied
Wauna, with the greatest calmness and unconcern. "A thousand theories
and systems of religion have risen and fallen in the history of the
human family, and become the superstitions of the past. The elements
that compose this body may construct the delicate beauty of a flower, or
the green robe that covers the bosom of Mother Earth, but we cannot
know."
"But that beautiful belief in a soul," I cried, in real anguish, "How
can you discard it? How sever the hope that after death, we are again
united to part no more? Those who have left us in the spring time of
life, the bloom on their young cheeks suddenly paled by the cold touch
of death, stand waiting to welcome us to an endless reunion."
"Alas, for your anguish, my friend," said Wauna, with pityng tenderness.
"Centuries ago _my_ people passed through that season of mental pain.
That beautiful visionary idea of a soul must fade, as youth and beauty
fade, never to return; for Nature nowhere teaches the existence of such
a thing. It was a belief born of that agony of longing for happiness
without alloy, which the children of earth in the long-ago ages hoped
for, but never knew. Their lot was so barren of beauty and happiness,
and the desire for it is, now and always has been, a strong trait of
human character. The conditions of society in those earlier ages
rendered it impossible to enjoy this life perfectly, and hope and
longing pictured an imaginary one for an imaginary part of the body
called the Soul. Progress and civilization have brought to us the ideal
heaven of the ancients, and we receive from Nature no evidence of any
other."
"But I do believe there is another," I declared. "And we ought to be
prepared for it."
Wauna smiled. "What better preparation could you desire, then, than good
works in this?" she asked.
"You should pray, and do penance for your sins," was my reply.
"Then," said Wauna, "we are doing the wisest penance every day. We are
studying, investigating, experimenting in order that those who come
after us may be happier than we. Every day Science is yielding us some
new knowledge that will make living in the future still easier than
now."
"I cannot conceive," I said, "how you are to be improved upon."
"When we manufacture fruit and vegetables from the elements, can you not
perceive how much is to be gained? Old age and death will come later,
and the labor of cultivation will be done away. Such an advantage will
not be enjoyed during my lifetime. But we will labor to effect it for
future generations."
"Your whole aim in life, then, is to work for the future of your race,
instead of the eternal welfare of your own soul?" I questioned, in
surprise.
"If Nature," said Wauna, "has provided us a future life, if that
mysterious something that we call Thought is to be clothed in an
etherealized body, and live in a world where decay is unknown, I have no
fear of my reception there. Live _this_ life usefully and nobly, and no
matter if a prayer has never crossed your lips your happiness will be
assured. A just and kind action will help you farther on the road to
heaven than all the prayers that you can utter, and all the pains and
sufferings that you can inflict upon the flesh, for it will be that much
added to the happiness of this world. The grandest epitaph that could be
written is engraved upon a tombstone in yonder cemetery. The subject was
one of the pioneers of progress in a long-ago century, when progress
fought its way with difficulty through ignorance and superstition. She
suffered through life for the boldness of her opinions, and two
centuries after, when they had become popular, a monument was erected to
her memory, and has been preserved through thousands of years as a motto
for humanity. The epitaph is simply this: 'The world is better for her
having lived in it.'"
CHAPTER VII.
Not long after my conversation with Wauna, mentioned in the previous
chapter, an event happened in Mizora of so singular and unexpected a
character for that country that it requires a particular description. I
refer to the death of a young girl, the daughter of the Professor of
Natural History in the National College, whose impressive inaugural
ceremonies I had witnessed with so much gratification. The girl was of a
venturesome disposition, and, with a number of others, had gone out
rowing. The boats they used in Mizora for that purpose were mere cockle
shells. A sudden squall arose from which all could have escaped, but the
reckless daring of this young girl cost her her life. Her boat was
capsized, and despite the exertions made by her companions, she was
drowned.
Her body was recovered before the news was conveyed to the mother. As
the young companions surrounded it in the abandon of grief that tender
and artless youth alone feels, had I not known that not a tie of
consanguinity existed between them, I might have thought them a band of
sisters mourning their broken number. It was a scene I never expect and
sincerely hope never to witness again. It made the deeper impression
upon me because I knew the expressions of grief were all genuine.
I asked Wauna if any of the dead girl's companions feared that her
mother might censure them for not making sufficient effort to save her
when her boat capsized. She looked at me with astonishment.
"Such a thought," she said, "will never occur to her nor to any one else
in Mizora. I have not asked the particulars, but I know that everything
was done that could have been done to save her. There must have been
something extraordinarily unusual about the affair for all Mizora girls
are expert swimmers, and there is not one but would put forth any
exertion to save a companion."
I afterward learned that such had really been the case.
It developed upon the Preceptress to break the news to the afflicted
mother. It was done in the seclusion of her own home. There was no
manifestation of morbid curiosity among acquaintances, neighbors and
friends. The Preceptress and one or two others of her nearest and most
intimate friends called at the house during the first shock of her
bereavement.
After permission had been given to view the remains, Wauna and I called
at the house, but only entered the drawing-room. On a low cot, in an
attitude of peaceful repose, lay the breathless sleeper. Her mother and
sisters had performed for her the last sad offices of loving duty, and
lovely indeed had they made the last view we should have of their dear
one.
There was to be no ceremony at the house, and Wauna and I were in the
cemetery when the procession entered. As we passed through the city, I
noticed that every business house was closed. The whole city was
sympathizing with sorrow. I never before saw so vast a concourse of
people. The procession was very long and headed by the mother, dressed
and veiled in black. Behind her were the sisters carrying the body. It
rested upon a litter composed entirely of white rosebuds. The sisters
wore white, their faces concealed by white veils. Each wore a white
rosebud pinned upon her bosom. They were followed by a long procession
of young girls, schoolmates and friends of the dead. They were all
dressed in white, but were not veiled. Each one carried a white rosebud.
The sisters placed the litter upon rests at the side of the grave, and
clasping hands with their mother, formed a semicircle about it. They
were all so closely veiled that their features could not be seen, and no
emotion was visible. The procession of young girls formed a circle
inclosing the grave and the mourners, and began chanting a slow and
sorrowful dirge. No words can paint the pathos and beauty of such a
scene. My eye took in every detail that displayed that taste for the
beautiful that compels the Mizora mind to mingle it with every incident
of life. The melody sounded like a chorus of birds chanting, in perfect
unison, a weird requiem over some dead companion.
DIRGE
She came like the Spring in its gladness
We received her with joy--we rejoiced in her promise
Sweet was her song as the bird's,
Her smile was as dew to the thirsty rose.
But the end came ere morning awakened,
While Dawn yet blushed in its bridal veil,
The leafy music of the woods was hushed in snowy shrouds.
Spring withered with the perfume in her hands;
A winter sleet has fallen upon the buds of June;
The ice-winds blow where yesterday zephyrs disported:
Life is not consummated
The rose has not blossomed, the fruit has perished in the flower,
The bird lies frozen under its mother's breast
Youth sleeps in round loveliness when age should lie withered and
weary, and full of honor.
Then the grave would be welcome, and our tears would fall not.
The grave is not for the roses of youth;
We mourn the early departed.
Youth sleeps without dreams--
Without an awakening.
At the close of the chant, the mother first and then each sister took
from her bosom the white rosebud and dropped it into the grave. Then
followed her schoolmates and companions who each dropped in the bud she
carried. A carpet of white rosebuds was thus formed, on which the body,
still reclining upon its pillow of flowers, was gently lowered.
The body was dressed in white, and over all fell a veil of fine white
tulle. A more beautiful sight I can never see than that young, lovely
girl in her last sleep with the emblems of youth, purity and swift decay
forming her pillow, and winding-sheet. Over this was placed a film of
glass that rested upon the bottom and sides of the thin lining that
covered the bottom and lower sides of the grave. The remainder of the
procession of young girls then came forward and dropped their rosebuds
upon it, completely hiding from view the young and beautiful dead.
The eldest sister then took a handful of dust and casting it into the
grave, said in a voice broken, yet audible: "Mingle ashes with ashes,
and dust with its original dust. To the earth whence it was taken,
consign we the body of our sister." Each sister then threw in a handful
of dust, and then with their mother entered their carriage, which
immediately drove them home.
A beautiful silver spade was sticking in the soft earth that had been
taken from the grave. The most intimate of the dead girls friends took a
spadeful of earth and threw it into the open grave. Her example was
followed by each one of the remaining companions until the grave was
filled. Then clasping hands, they chanted a farewell to their departed
companion and playmate. After which they strewed the grave with flowers
until it looked like a bed of beauty, and departed.
I was profoundly impressed by the scene. Its solemnity, its beauty, and
the universal expression of sorrow it had called forth. A whole city
mourned the premature death of gifted and lovely youth. Alas! In my own
unhappy country such an event would have elicited but a passing phrase
of regret from all except the immediate family of the victim; for
_there_ sorrow is a guest at every heart, and leaves little room for
sympathy with strangers.
The next day the mother was at her post in the National College; the
daughters were at their studies, all seemingly calm and thoughtful, but
showing no outward signs of grief excepting to the close observer. The
mother was performing her accustomed duties with seeming cheerfulness,
but now and then her mind would drop for a moment in sorrowful
abstraction to be recalled with resolute effort and be fastened once
more upon the necessary duty of life.
The sisters I often saw in those abstracted moods, and frequently saw
them wiping away silent but unobtrusive tears. I asked Wauna for the
meaning of such stoical reserve, and the explanation was as curious as
were all the other things that I met with in Mizora.
"If you notice the custom of different grades of civilization in your
own country," said Wauna, "you will observe that the lower the
civilization the louder and more ostentatious is the mourning. True
refinement is unobtrusive in everything, and while we do not desire to
repress a natural and inevitable feeling of sorrow, we do desire to
conceal and conquer it, for the reason that death is a law of nature
that we cannot evade. And, although the death of a young person has not
occurred in Mizora in the memory of any living before this, yet it is
not without precedent. We are very prudent, but we cannot guard entirely
against accident. It has cast a gloom over the whole city, yet we
refrain from speaking of it, and strive to forget it because it cannot
be helped."
"And can you see so young, so fair a creature perish without wanting to
meet her again?"
"Whatever sorrow we feel," replied Wauna, solemnly, "we deeply realize
how useless it is to repine. We place implicit faith in the revelations
of Nature, and in no circumstances does she bid us expect a life beyond
that of the body. That is a life of individual consciousness."
"How much more consoling is the belief of my people," I replied,
triumphantly. "Their belief in a future reunion would sustain them
through the sorrow of parting in this. It has been claimed that some
have lived pure lives solely in the hope of meeting some one whom they
loved, and who had died in youth and innocence."
Wauna smiled.
"You do not all have then the same fate in anticipation for your future
life?" she asked.
"Oh, no!" I answered. "The good and the wicked are divided."
"Tell me some incident in your own land that you have witnessed, and
which illustrates the religious belief of your country."
"The belief that we have in a future life has often furnished a theme
for the poets of my own and other countries. And sometimes a quaint and
pretty sentiment is introduced into poetry to express it."
"I should like to hear some such poetry. Can you recite any?"
"I remember an incident that gave birth to a poem that was much admired
at the time, although I can recall but the two last stanzas of it. A
rowing party, of which I was a member, once went out upon a lake to view
the sunset. After we had returned to shore, and night had fallen upon
the water in impenetrable darkness, it was discovered that one of the
young men who had rowed out in a boat by himself was not with us. A
storm was approaching, and we all knew that his safety lay in getting
ashore before it broke. We lighted a fire, but the blaze could not be
seen far in such inky darkness. We hallooed, but received no answer, and
finally ceased our efforts. Then one of the young ladies who possessed a
very high and clear soprano voice, began singing at the very top of her
power. It reached the wanderer in the darkness, and he rowed straight
toward it. From that time on he became infatuated with the singer,
declaring that her voice had come to him in his despair like an angel's
straight from heaven.
"She died in less than a year, and her last words to him were: 'Meet me
in heaven.' He had always been recklessly inclined, but after that he
became a model of rectitude and goodness. He wrote a poem that was
dedicated to her memory. In it he described himself as a lone wanderer
on a strange sea in the darkness of a gathering storm and no beacon to
guide him, when suddenly he hears a voice singing which guides him safe
to shore. He speaks of the beauty of the singer and how dear she became
to him, but he still hears the song calling him across the ocean of
death."
"Repeat what you remember of it," urged Wauna.
"That face and form, have long since gone
Beyond where the day was lifted:
But the beckoning song still lingers on,
An angels earthward drifted.
And when death's waters, around me roar
And cares, like the birds, are winging:
If I steer my bark to Heaven's shore
'Twill be by an angel's singing."
"Poor child of superstition," said Wauna, sadly. "Your belief has
something pretty in it, but for your own welfare, and that of your
people, you must get rid of it as we have got rid of the offspring of
Lust. Our children come to us as welcome guests through portals of the
holiest and purest affection. That love which you speak of, I know
nothing about. I would not know. It is a degradation which mars your
young life and embitters the memories of age. We have advanced beyond
it. There is a cruelty in life," she added, compassionately, "which we
must accept with stoicism as the inevitable. Justice to your posterity
demands of you the highest and noblest effort of which your intellect is
capable."
CHAPTER VIII.
The conversation that I had with Wauna gave me so much uneasiness that I
sought her mother. I cannot express the shock I felt at hearing such
youthful and innocent lips speak of the absurdity of religious forms,
ceremonies, and creeds. She regarded my belief in them as a species of
barbarism. But she had not convinced me. _I was resolved not to be
convinced._ I believed she was in error.
Surely, I thought, a country so far advanced in civilization, and
practicing such unexampled rectitude, must, according to my religious
teaching, have been primarily actuated by religious principles which
they had since abandoned. My only surprise was that they had not
relapsed into immorality, after destroying church and creed, and I began
to feel anxious to convince them of the danger I felt they were
incurring in neglecting prayer and supplication at the throne to
continue them in their progress toward perfection of mental and moral
culture.
I explained my feelings to the Preceptress with great earnestness and
anxiety for their future, intimating that I believed their immunity from
disaster had been owing to Divine sufferance. "For no nation," I added,
quoting from my memory of religious precepts, "can prosper without
acknowledging the Christian religion."
She listened to me with great attention, and when I had finished, asked:
"How do you account for our long continuance in prosperity and progress,
for it is more than a thousand years since we rooted out the last
vestige of what you term religion, from the mind. We have had a long
immunity from punishment. To what do you attribute it?"
I hesitated to explain what had been in my mind, but finally faltered
out something about the absence of the male sex. I then had to explain
that the prisons and penitentiaries of my own land, and of all other
civilized lands that I knew of, were almost exclusively occupied by the
male sex. Out of eight hundred penitentiary prisoners, not more than
twenty or thirty would be women; and the majority of them could trace
_their_ crimes to man's infidelity.
"And what do you do to reform them?" inquired the Preceptress.
"We offer them the teachings of Christianity. All countries, however,
differ widely in this respect. The government of my country is not as
generous to prisoners as that of some others. In the United States every
penitentiary is supplied with a minister who expounds the Gospel to the
prisoners every Sunday; that is once every seven days."
"And what do they do the rest of the time?"
"They work."
"Are they ignorant?"
"Oh, yes, indeed;" I replied, earnestly. "You could not find one scholar
in ten thousand of them. Their education is either very limited, or
altogether deficient."
"Do the buildings they are confined in cost a great deal?"
"Vast sums of money are represented by them; and it often costs a
community a great deal of money to send a criminal to the penitentiary.
In some States the power to pardon rests entirely with the governor, and
it frequently occurs that a desperate criminal, who has cost a county a
great deal of money to get rid of him, will be pardoned by the governor,
to please a relative, or, as it is sometimes believed, for a bribe."
"And do the people never think of educating their criminals instead of
working them?
"That would be an expense to the government," I replied.
"If they would divide the time, and compel them to study half a day as
rigorously as they make them work, it would soon make a vast change in
their morals. Nothing so ennobles the mind as a broad and thorough
education."
"They are all compelled to listen to religious instruction once a week,"
I answered. "That surely ought to make some improvement in them. I
remember hearing an American lady relate her attendance at chapel
service in a State penitentiary one Sunday. The minister's education was
quite limited, as she could perceive from the ungrammatical language he
used, but he preached sound orthodox doctrine. The text selected had a
special application to his audience: 'Depart from me ye accursed, into
everlasting torment prepared for the Devil and his angels.' There were
eight hundred prisoners, and the minister assured them, in plain
language, that such would surely be their sentence unless they
repented."
"And that is what you call the consolations of religion, is it?" asked
the Preceptress with an expression that rather disconcerted me; as
though my zeal and earnestness entirely lacked the light of knowledge
with which she viewed it.
"That is religious instruction;" I answered. "The minister exhorted the
prisoners to pray and be purged of their sins. And it was good advice."
"But they might aver," persisted the Preceptress, "that they had prayed
to be restrained from crime, and their prayers had not been answered."
"They didn't pray with enough faith, then;" I assured her in the
confidence of my own belief. "That is wherein I think my own church is
so superior to the other religions of the world," I added, proudly. "We
can get the priest to absolve us from sin, and then we know we are rid
of it, when he tells us so."
"But what assurance have you that the priest can do so?" asked the
Preceptress.
"Because it is his duty to do so."
"Education will root out more sin than all your creeds can," gravely
answered the Preceptress. "Educate your convicts and train them into
controlling and subduing their criminal tendencies by _their own will_,
and it will have more effect on their morals than all the prayers ever
uttered. Educate them up to that point where they can perceive for
themselves the happiness of moral lives, and then you may trust them to
temptation without fear. The ideas you have expressed about dogmas,
creeds and ceremonies are not new to us, though, as a nation, we do not
make a study of them. They are very, very ancient. They go back to the
first records of the traditionary history of man. And the farther you go
back the deeper you plunge into ignorance and superstition.
"The more ignorant the human mind, the more abject was its slavery to
religion. As history progresses toward a more diffuse education of the
masses, the forms, ceremonies and beliefs in religion are continually
changing to suit the advancement of intelligence; and when intelligence
becomes universal, they will be renounced altogether. What is true of
the history of one people will be true of the history of another.
Religions are not necessary to human progress. They are really clogs. My
ancestors had more trouble to extirpate these superstitious ideas from
the mind than they had in getting rid of disease and crime. There were
several reasons for this difficulty. Disease and crime were self-evident
evils, that the narrowest intelligence could perceive; but beliefs in
creeds and superstitions were perversions of judgment, resulting from a
lack of thorough mental training. As soon, however, as education of a
high order became universal, it began to disappear. No mind of
philosophical culture can adhere to such superstitions.
"Many ages the people made idols, and, decking them with rich ornaments,
placed them in magnificent temples specially built for them and the
rites by which they worshipped them. There have existed many variations
of this kind of idolatry that are marked by the progressive stages of
civilization. Some nations of remote antiquity were highly cultured in
art and literature, yet worshipped gods of their own manufacture, or
imaginary gods, for everything. Light and darkness, the seasons, earth,
air, water, all had a separate deity to preside over and control their
special services. They offered sacrifices to these deities as they
desired their co-operation or favor in some enterprise to be undertaken.
"In remote antiquity, we read of a great General about to set out upon
the sea to attack the army of another nation. In order to propitiate the
god of the ocean, he had a fine chariot built to which were harnessed
two beautiful white horses. In the presence of a vast concourse of
people collected to witness the ceremony, he drove them into the sea.
When they sank out of sight it was supposed that the god had accepted
the present, and would show his gratitude for it by favoring winds and
peaceful weather.
"A thousand years afterward history speaks of the occurrence derisively,
as an absurd superstition, and at the same time they believed in and
lauded a more absurd and cruel religion. They worshipped an imaginary
being who had created and possessed absolute control of everything. Some
of the human family it had pleased him to make eminently good, while
others he made eminently bad. For those whom he had created with evil
desires, he prepared a lake of molten fire into which they were to be
cast after death to suffer endless torture for doing what they had been
expressly created to do. Those who had been created good were to be
rewarded for following out their natural inclinations, by occupying a
place near the Deity, where they were to spend eternity in singing
praises to him.
"He could, however, be persuaded by prayer from following his original
intentions. Very earnest prayer had caused him to change his mind, and
send rain when he had previously concluded to visit the country with
drouth.
"Two nations at war with each other, and believing in the same Deity,
would pray for a pestilence to visit their enemy. Death was universally
regarded as a visitation of Providence for some offense committed
against him instead of against the laws of nature.
"Some believed that prayer and donations to the church or priest, could
induce the Deity to take their relatives from the lake of torment and
place them in his own presence. The Deity was prayed to on every
occasion, and for every trivial object. The poor and indolent prayed for
him to send them food and clothes. The sick prayed for health, the
foolish for wisdom, and the revengeful besought the Deity to consign all
their enemies to the burning lake.
"The intelligent and humane began to doubt the necessity of such
dreadful and needless torment for every conceivable misdemeanor, and it
was modified, and eventually dropped altogether. Education finally
rooted out every phase of superstition from the minds of the people, and
now we look back and smile at the massive and magnificent structures
erected to the worship of a Deity who could be coaxed to change his mind
by prayer."
I did not tell the Preceptress that she had been giving me a history of
my own ancestry; but I remarked the resemblance with the joyous hope
that in the future of my own unhappy country lay the possibility of a
civilization so glorious, the ideal heaven of which every sorrowing
heart had dreamed. But always with the desire to believe it had a
spiritual eternity.
CHAPTER IX.
I have described the peculiar ceremony attending the burial of youth in
Mizora. Old age, in some respects, had a similar ceremony, but the
funeral of an aged person differed greatly from what I had witnessed at
the grave of youth. Wauna and I attended the funeral of a very aged
lady. Death in Mizora was the gradual failing of mental and physical
vigor. It came slowly, and unaccompanied with pain. It was received
without regret, and witnessed without tears.
The daughters performed the last labor that the mother required. They
arrayed her body for burial and bore it to the grave. If in that season
of the year, autumn leaves hid the bier, and formed the covering and
pillow of her narrow bed. If not in the fall, full-blown roses and
matured flowers were substituted.
The ceremony was conducted by the eldest daughter, assisted by the
others. No tears were shed; no mourning worn; no sorrowful chanting. A
solemn dirge was sung indicative of decay. A dignified solemnity
befitting the farewell to a useful life was manifest in all the
proceedings; but no demonstrations of sorrow were visible. The mourners
were unveiled, and performed the last services for their mother with
calmness. I was so astonished at the absence of mourning that I asked an
explanation of Wauna.
"Why should we mourn," was the surprising answer, "for what is
inevitable? Death must come, and, in this instance, it came in its
natural way. There is nothing to be regretted or mourned over, as there
was in the drowning of my young friend. Her life was suddenly arrested
while yet in the promise of its fruitfulness. There was cause for grief,
and the expressions and emblems of mourning were proper and appropriate.
But here, mourning would be out of place, for life has fulfilled its
promises. Its work is done, and nature has given the worn-out body rest.
That is all."
That sympathy and regret which the city had expressed for the young
dead was manifested only in decorum and respectful attendance at the
funeral. No one appeared to feel that it was an occasion for mourning.
How strange it all seemed to me, and yet there was a philosophy about it
that I could not help but admire. Only I wished that they believed as I
did, that all of those tender associations would be resumed beyond the
grave. If only they could be convinced. I again broached the subject to
Wauna. I could not relinquish the hope of converting her to my belief.
She was so beautiful, so pure, and I loved her so dearly. I could not
give up my hope of an eternal reunion. I appealed to her sympathy.
"What hope," I asked, "can you offer those whose lives have been only
successive phases of unhappiness? Why should beings be created only to
live a life of suffering, and then die, as many, very many, of my people
do? If they had no hope of a spiritual life, where pain and sorrow are
to be unknown, the burdens of this life could not be borne."
"You have the same consolation," replied Wauna, "as the Preceptress had
in losing her daughter. That daring spirit that cost her her life, was
the pride of her mother. She possessed a promising intellect, yet her
mother accepts her death as one of the sorrowful phases of life, and
bravely tries to subdue its pain. Long ages behind us, as my mother has
told you, the history of all human life was but a succession of woes.
Our own happy state has been evolved by slow degrees out of that
sorrowful past. Human progress is marked by blood and tears, and the
heart's bitterest anguish. We, as a people, have progressed almost
beyond the reach of sorrow, but you are in the midst of it. You must
work for the future, though you cannot be of it."
"I cannot," I declared, "reconcile myself to your belief. I am separated
from my child. To think I am never to see it in this world, nor through
endless ages, would drive me insane with despair. What consolation can
your belief offer _me_?"
"In this life, you may yearn for your child, but after this life you
sleep," answered Wauna, sententiously. "And how sweet that sleep! No
dreams; no waking to work and trial; no striving after perfection; no
planning for the morrow. It is oblivion than which there can be no
happier heaven."
"Would not meeting with those you have loved be happier?" I asked, in
amazement.
"There would be happiness; and there would be work, too."
"But my religion does not believe in work in heaven," I answered.
"Then it has not taken the immutable laws of Nature into consideration,"
said Wauna. "If Nature has prepared a conscious existence for us after
this body decays, she has prepared work for us, you may rest assured. It
might be a grander, nobler work; but it would be work, nevertheless.
Then, how restful, in contrast, is our religion. It is eternal,
undisturbable rest for both body and brain. Besides, as you say
yourself, you cannot be sure of meeting those whom you desire to meet in
that other country. They may be the ones condemned to eternal suffering
for their sins. Think you I could enjoy myself in any surroundings, when
I knew that those who were dear to me in this life, were enduring
torment that could have no end. Give me oblivion rather than such a
heaven.
"Our punishment comes in this world; but it is not so much through sin
as ignorance. The savages lived lives of misery, occasioned by their
lack of intelligence. Humanity must always suffer for the mistakes it
makes. Misery belongs to the ignorant; happiness to the wise. That is
our doctrine of reward and punishment."
"And you believe that my people will one day reject all religions?"
"When they are advanced enough," she answered. "You say you have
scholars among you already, who preach their inconsistencies. What do
you call them?"
"Philosophers," was my reply.
"They are your prophets," said Wauna. "When they break the shackles that
bind you to creeds and dogmas, they will have done much to advance you.
To rely on one's own _will_ power to do right is the only safe road to
morality, and your only heaven."
I left Wauna and sought a secluded spot by the river. I was shocked
beyond measure at her confession. It had the earnestness, and, to me,
the cruelty of conviction. To live without a spiritual future in
anticipation was akin to depravity, to crime and its penalty of prison
life forever. Yet here was a people, noble, exalted beyond my
conceiving, living in the present, and obeying only a duty to posterity.
I recalled a painting I had once seen that always possessed for me a
horrible fascination. In a cave, with his foot upon the corpse of a
youth, sat the crowned and sceptered majesty of Death. The waters of
oblivion encompassed the throne and corpse, which lay with its head and
feet bathed in its waters--for out of the Unknown had life come, and to
the Unknown had it departed. Before me, in vision, swept the mighty
stream of human life from which I had been swept to these strange
shores. All its sufferings, its delusions; its baffled struggles; its
wrongs, came upon me with a sense of spiritual agony in them that
religion--my religion, which was their only consolation--must vanish in
the crucible of Science. And that Science was the magician that was to
purify and exalt the world. To live in the Present; to die in it and
become as the dust; a mere speck, a flash of activity in the far,
limitless expanse of Nature, of Force, of Matter in which a spiritual
ideal had no part. It was horrible to think of. The prejudices of
inherited religious faith, the contracted forces of thought in which I
had been born and reared could not be uprooted or expanded without pain.
CHAPTER X.
I had begun to feel an intense longing to return to my own country, but
it was accompanied by a desire, equally as strong, to carry back to that
woe-burdened land some of the noble lessons and doctrines I had learned
in this. I saw no means of doing it that seemed so available as a
companion,--a being, born and bred in an atmosphere of honor and grandly
humane ideas and actions.
My heart and my judgment turned to Wauna. She was endeared to me by long
and gentle association. She was self-reliant and courageous, and
possessed a strong will. Who, of all my Mizora acquaintances, was so
well adapted to the service I required.
When I broached the subject to her, Wauna expressed herself as really
pleased with the idea; but when we went to the Preceptress, she
acknowledged a strong reluctance to the proposition. She said:
"Wauna can form no conception of the conditions of society in your
country. They are far, very far, behind our own. They will, I fear,
chafe her own nature more than she can improve theirs. Still, if I
thought she could lead your people into a broader intelligence, and
start them on the way upward to enlightenment and real happiness, I
would let her go. The moment, however, that she desires to return she
must be aided to do so."
I pledged myself to abide by any request the Preceptress might make of
me. Wauna's own inclinations greatly influenced her mother, and finally
we obtained her consent. Our preparations were carefully made. The
advanced knowledge of chemistry in Mizora placed many advantages in our
way. Our boat was an ingenious contrivance with a thin glass top that
could be removed and folded away until needed to protect us from the
rigors of the Arctic climate.
I had given an accurate description of the rapids that would oppose us,
and our boat was furnished with a motive power sufficient to drive us
through them at a higher rate of speed than what they moved at. It was
built so as to be easily converted into a sled, and runners were made
that could be readily adjusted. We were provided with food and clothing
prepared expressly for the severe change to and rigors of the Arctic
climate through which we must pass.
I was constantly dreading the terrors of that long ice-bound journey,
but the Preceptress appeared to be little concerned about it. When I
spoke of its severities, she said for us to observe her directions, and
we should not suffer. She asked me if I had ever felt uncomfortable in
any of the air-ship voyages I had taken, and said that the cold of the
upper regions through which I had passed in their country was quite as
intense as any I could meet within a lower atmosphere of my own.
The newspapers had a great deal to say about the departure of the
Preceptress' daughter on so uncertain a mission, and to that strange
land of barbarians which I represented. When the day arrived for our
departure, immense throngs of people from all parts of the country lined
the shore, or looked down upon us from their anchored air-ships.
The last words of farewell had been spoken to my many friends and
benefactors. Wauna had bidden a multitude of associates good-bye, and
clasped her mother's hand, which she held until the boat parted from the
shore. Years have passed since that memorable parting, but the look of
yearning love in that Mizora mother's eyes haunts me still. Long and
vainly has she watched for a boat's prow to cleave that amber mist and
bear to her arms that vision of beauty and tender love I took away from
her. My heart saddens at the thought of her grief and long, long waiting
that only death will end.
We pointed the boat's prow toward the wide mysterious circle of amber
mists, and then turned our eyes for a last look at Mizora. Wauna stood
silent and calm, earnestly gazing into the eyes of her mother, until the
shore and the multitude of fair faces faded like a vision of heaven from
our views.
"O beautiful Mizora!" cried the voice of my heart. "Shall I ever again
see a land so fair, where natures so noble and aims so lofty have their
abiding place? Memory will return to you though my feet may never again
tread your delightful shores. Farewell, sweet ideal land of my Soul, of
Humanity, farewell!"
My thoughts turned to that other world from which I had journeyed so
long. Would the time ever come when it, too, would be a land of
universal intelligence and happiness? When the difference of nations
would be settled by argument instead of battle? When disease, deformity
and premature death would be unknown? When locks, and bolts and bars
would be useless?
I hoped so much from the personal influence of Wauna. So noble, so
utterly unconscious of wrong, she must surely revolutionize human nature
whenever it came in contact with her own.
I pictured to myself my own dear land--dear, despite its many phases of
wretchedness--smiling in universal comfort and health. I imagined its
political prisons yawning with emptiness, while their haggard and
decrepit and sorrowful occupants hobbled out into the sunshine of
liberty, and the new life we were bringing to them. Fancy flew abroad on
the wings of hope, dropping the seeds of progress wherever it passed.
The poor should be given work, and justly paid for it, instead of being
supported by charity. The charity that had fostered indolence in its
mistaken efforts to do good, should be employed to train poverty to
skillful labor and economy in living. And what a world of good that one
measure would produce! The poor should possess exactly the same
educational advantages that were supplied to the rich. In this _one_
measure, if I could only make it popular, I would see the golden promise
of the future of my country. "Educate your poor and they will work out
their own salvation. Educated Labor can dictate its rights to Capital."
How easy of accomplishment it all seemed to me, who had seen the
practical benefits arising to a commonwealth that had adopted these
mottoes. I doubted not that the wiser and better of my own people would
aid and encourage me. Free education would lead to other results.
Riches should be accumulated only by vast and generous industries that
reached a helping hand to thousands of industrious poor, instead of
grinding them out of a few hundred of poorly-paid and over-worked
artisans. Education in the hands of the poor would be a powerful agent
with which they would alleviate their own condition, and defend
themselves against oppression and knavery.
The prisons should be supplied with schools as well as work-rooms, where
the intellect should be trained and cultivated, and where moral idiocy,
by the stern and rigorous law of Justice to Innocence, should be forced
to deny itself posterity.
No philanthropical mind ever spread the wings of its fancy for a broader
flight.
CHAPTER XI.
Our journey was a perilous one with all our precautions. The passage
through the swiftest part of the current almost swamped our boat. The
current that opposed us was so strong, that when we increased our speed
our boat appeared to be cleaving its way through a wall of waters. Wauna
was perfectly calm, and managed the motor with the steadiest nerves. Her
courage inspired me, though many a time I despaired of ever getting out
of the rapids. When we did, and looked up at the star-gemmed canopy that
stretches above my own world, and abroad over the dark and desolate
waste of waters around us, it gave me an impression of solemn and weird
magnificence. It was such a contrast to the vivid nights of Mizora, to
which my eyes had so long been accustomed, that it came upon me like a
new scene.
The stars were a source of wonder and ceaseless delight to Wauna. "It
looks," she said, "as though a prodigal hand had strewn the top of the
atmosphere with diamonds."
The journey over fields of ice and snow was monotonous, but, owing to
the skill and knowledge of Mizora displayed in our accoutrements, it was
deprived of its severities. The wind whistled past us without any other
greeting than its melancholy sound. We looked out from our snug quarters
on the dismal hills of snow and ice without a sensation of distress. The
Aurora Borealis hung out its streamers of beauty, but they were pale
compared to what Wauna had seen in her own country. The Esquimaux she
presumed were animals.
We traveled far enough south to secure passage upon a trading-vessel
bound for civilized shores. The sun came up with his glance of fire and
his banners of light, laying his glorious touch on cloud and water, and
kissing the cheek with his warmth. He beamed upon us from the zenith,
and sank behind the western clouds with a lingering glance of beauty.
The moon came up like the ghost of the sun, casting a weird yet tender
beauty on every object. To Wauna it was a revelation of magnificence in
nature beyond her contriving.
"How grand," she exclaimed, "are the revelations of nature in your
world! To look upon them, it seems to me, would broaden and deepen the
mind with the very vastness of their splendor. Nature has been more
bountiful to you than to Mizora. The day with its heart of fire, and the
night with its pale beauty are grander than ours. They speak of vast and
incomprehensible power."
When I took Wauna to the observatory, and she looked upon the countless
multitudes of worlds and suns revolving in space so far away that a sun
and its satellites looked like a ball of mist, she said that words could
not describe her sensations.
"To us," she said, "the leaves of Nature's book are the winds and waves,
the bud and bloom and decay of seasons. But here every leaf is a world.
A mighty hand has sprinkled the suns like fruitful seeds across the
limitless fields of space. Can human nature contemplate a scene so grand
that reaches so far beyond the grasp of mind, and not feel its own
insignificance, and the littleness of selfish actions? And yet you can
behold these myriads of worlds and systems of worlds wheeling in the dim
infinity of space--a spectacle awful in its vastness--and turn to the
practice of narrow superstitions?"
At last the shores of my native land greeted my longing eyes, and the
familiar scenes of my childhood drew near. But when, after nearly twenty
years absence, I stood on the once familiar spot, the graves of my
heart's dear ones were all that was mine. My little one had died soon
after my exile. My father had soon followed. Suspected, and finally
persecuted by the government, my husband had fled the country, and,
nearly as I could discover, had sought that universal asylum for the
oppressed of all nations--the United States. And thither I turned my
steps.
In my own country and in France, the friends who had known me in
girlhood were surprised at my youthful appearance. I did not explain the
cause of it to them, nor did I mention the people or country from whence
I had come. Wauna was my friend and a foreigner--that was all.
The impression she made was all that I had anticipated. Her unusual
beauty and her evident purity attracted attention wherever she went. The
wonderful melody of her singing was much commented upon, but in Mizora
she had been considered but an indifferent singer. But I had made a
mistake in my anticipation of her personal influence. The gentleness
and delicacy of her character received the tenderest respect. None who
looked upon that face or met the glance of the dark soft eyes ever
doubted that the nature that animated them was pure and beautiful. Yet
it was the respect felt for a character so exceptionably superior that
imitation and emulation would be impossible.
"She is too far above the common run of human nature," said one
observer. "I should not be surprised if her spirit were already pluming
its wings for a heavenly flight. Such natures never stay long among us."
The remark struck my heart with a chill of depression. I looked at Wauna
and wondered why I had noticed sooner the shrinking outlines of the once
round cheek. Too gentle to show disgust, too noble to ill-treat, the
spirit of Wauna was chafing under the trying associations. Men and women
alike regarded her as an impossible character, and I began to realize
with a sickening regret that I had made a mistake. In my own country, in
France and England, her beauty was her sole attraction to men. The lofty
ideal of humanity that she represented was smiled at or gently ignored.
"The world would be a paradise," said one philosopher, "if such
characters were common. But one is like a seed in the ocean; it cannot
do much good."
When we arrived in the United States, its activity and evident progress
impressed Wauna with a feeling more nearly akin to companionship. Her
own character received a juster appreciation.
"The time is near," she said, "when the New World will be the teacher of
the Old in the great lesson of Humanity. You will live to see it
demonstrate to the world the justice and policy of giving to every child
born under its flag the highest mental, moral and physical training
known to the present age. You can hardly realize what twenty-five years
of free education will bring to it. They are already on the right path,
but they are still many centuries behind my own country in civilization,
in their government and modes of dispensing justice. Yet their free
schools, as yet imperfect, are, nevertheless, fruitful seeds of
progress."
Yet here the nature of Wauna grew restless and homesick, and she at last
gave expression to her longing for home.
"I am not suited to your world," she said, with a look of deep sorrow in
her lovely eyes. "None of my people are. We are too finely organized. I
cannot look with any degree of calmness upon the practices of your
civilization. It is a common thing to see mothers ill-treat their own
helpless little ones. The pitiful cries of the children keep ringing in
my ears. Cannot mothers realize that they are whipping a mean spirit
into their offspring instead of out. I have heard the most enlightened
deny their own statements when selfishness demanded it. I cannot mention
the half of the things I witness daily that grates upon my feelings. I
cannot reform them. It is not for such as I to be a reformer. Those who
need reform are the ones to work for it."
Sorrowfully I bade adieu to my hopes and my search for Alexis, and
prepared to accompany Wauna's return. We embarked on a whaling vessel,
and having reached its farthest limit, we started on our perilous
journey north; perilous for the lack of our boat, of which we could hear
nothing. It had been left in charge of a party of Esquimaux, and had
either been destroyed, or was hidden. Our progress, therefore, depended
entirely upon the Esquimaux. The tribe I had journeyed so far north with
had departed, and those whom I solicited to accompany us professed to be
ignorant of the sea I mentioned. Like all low natures, the Esquimaux are
intensely selfish. Nothing could induce them to assist us but the most
apparent benefit to themselves; and this I could not assure them. The
homesickness, and coarse diet and savage surroundings told rapidly on
the sensitive nature of Wauna. In a miserable Esquimaux hut, on a pile
of furs, I saw the flame of a beautiful and grandly noble life die out.
My efforts were hopeless; my anguish keen. O Humanity, what have I
sacrificed for you!
"Oh, Wauna," I pleaded, as I saw the signs of dissolution approaching,
"shall I not pray for you?"
"Prayers cannot avail me," she replied, as her thin hands reached and
closed over one of mine. "I had hoped once more to see the majestic
hills and smiling valleys of my own sweet land, but I shall not. If I
could only go to sleep in the arms of my mother. But the Great Mother of
us all will soon receive me in her bosom. And oh! my friend, promise me
that her dust shall cover me from the sight of men. When my mother
rocked me to slumber on her bosom, and soothed me with her gentle
lullaby, she little dreamed that I should suffer and die first. If you
ever reach Mizora, tell her only that I sleep the sleep of oblivion. She
will know. Let the memory of my suffering die with me."
"Oh, Wauna," I exclaimed, in anguish, "you surely have a soul. How can
anything so young, so pure, so beautiful, be doomed to annihilation?"
"We are not annihilated," was the calm reply. "And as to beauty, are
the roses not beautiful? Yet they die and you say it is the end of the
year's roses. The birds are harmless, and their songs make the woods
melodious with the joy of life, yet they die, and you say they have no
after life. We are like the roses, but our lives are for a century and
more. And when our lives are ended, the Great Mother gathers us in. We
are the harvest of the centuries."
When the dull, gray light of the Arctic morning broke, it fell gently
upon the presence of Death.
With the assistance of the Esquimaux, a grave was dug, and a rude wooden
cross erected on which I wrote the one word "Wauna," which, in the
language of Mizora, means "Happiness."
The world to which I have returned is many ages behind the civilization
of Mizora.
Though we cannot hope to attain their perfection in our generation, yet
many, very many, evils could be obliterated were we to follow their
laws. Crime is as hereditary as disease.
No savant now denies the transmittable taint of insanity and
consumption. There are some people in the world now, who, knowing the
possibility of afflicting offspring with hereditary disease, have lived
in ascetic celibacy. But where do we find a criminal who denies himself
offspring, lest he endow posterity with the horrible capacity for murder
that lies in his blood?
The good, the just, the noble, close heart and eyes to the sweet
allurements of domestic life, lest posterity suffer physically or
mentally by them. But the criminal has no restraints but what the law
enforces. Ignorance, poverty and disease, huddled in dens of
wretchedness, where they multiply with reckless improvidence, sometimes
fostered by mistaken charity.
The future of the world, if it be grand and noble, will be the result of
UNIVERSAL EDUCATION, FREE AS THE GOD-GIVEN WATER WE DRINK.
In the United States I await the issue of universal liberty. In this
refuge for oppression, my husband found a grave. Childless, homeless and
friendless, in poverty and obscurity, I have written the story of my
wanderings. The world's fame can never warm a heart already dead to
happiness; but out of the agony of one human life, may come a lesson for
many. Life is a tragedy even under the most favorable conditions.
THE END