"Do not overload your stomach." This admonition caused me to feel like a
child once more, and I was uncertain whether I ought to laugh or become
indignant over the remark. Still I fully realized the necessity of this
warning; not only for myself alone, but for the entire human race from
which I sprung. How many beings are there in the world today who would
not profit by following this advice? How many are there with sense
enough to heed it? I cannot recall to memory any person I have ever met
who had absolute control of his appetite.
"We take pleasure in living, but do not live for pleasure," continued
Arletta, as she touched an invisible spring concealed within a dainty
flower and graciously invited me to eat--or rather to breathe. And as I
inhaled the delicious fumes it seemed that the very breath of life
itself was injected into every pore of my body.
"That is enough of the soup," commented Arletta mirthfully, "now try the
roast; now the entree; and here, perhaps, a little dessert will not hurt
you; there, that is plenty; a little is strengthening but too much is
poisonous.
"You see, this process of living is very simple indeed; our chemists
merely extracted the vital parts of vegetables, herbs, cereals, fruits,
nuts, flowers, etc., and reduced them to aeriform. These artificial
flowers are arranged to conceal small tubes from which the nutriment
flows. By operating these automatic springs the substance is allowed to
escape in such quantities as is required for meals. Very simple, is it
not? Much cleaner and better than munching a piece of fat pork, don't
you think? And there are no cooks needed to prepare it, no waiters to
serve it, nor any dishes to wash afterward. Our food was arranged ready
for consumption at the great national laboratories and piped directly to
the people, to use as they pleased."
"It is all very wonderful," exclaimed I, looking up to Arletta as if she
were the goddess of life itself, "but there is one thing in particular I
am anxious to know and that is: what causes daylight here when darkness
prevails on the outside of this building?"
"Very simple," explained she, "about a thousand years before the great
catastrophe our scientists discovered a method whereby they could store
up the rays of the sun for light, heat and power, and after much
experimenting they found that they could mix these rays with other
ingredients into solid substances. The light you observed in the hallway
before entering here is merely compressed into the material of which the
walls are composed and as long as that remains light will shine from it.
The light in this room comes from the miniature sun you see in the
picture; that too will give forth radiance as long as the material holds
together. Our scientists were remarkable men; they not only made use of
the sun's rays in many different ways for the benefit of mankind, but
actually controlled the power of the sun itself insofar as it related to
the earth. They also restrained the atmosphere which surrounds the earth
and made the weather conditions to suit their own welfare. But these
things are so infinitely beyond the Apeman's comprehension, who feels
that he has almost reached the limit of human resources with his crude
little steam engines, that it would only be a waste of time and power to
try and explain them to you, besides being a considerable strain upon
your half-grown brain."
"This is certainly a wonderful painting," said I, looking about the room
with much admiration. "I have never seen anything to compare with it
before."
"There is nothing about it that is extraordinary," remarked Arletta, "it
is merely a little ornamentation of my own private apartment which I did
myself according to my own fancy. Any of our ordinary house decorators
could have done as well or better. All of our children were taught to
paint and they devoted considerable of their spare time to the art, but
the works of the real artists were placed upon exhibition in the
national galleries where everybody could see and enjoy their
magnificence."
"I observe an absence of jewelry about your person," mentioned I, "was
it not the custom of your people to wear jewels?"
"Do you think that to wear rings around your toes and suspended from
your nose is a sensible thing to do?" inquired Arletta.
"No, no; decidedly not," answered I, "such are the customs of the
barbarians only, but our civilized people wear rings around their
fingers and in their ears."
"Indeed, and wherein lies the difference?" asked she, good naturedly. It
then struck me rather forcibly that there was no difference and that it
was just as ridiculous to wear rings from the ears and around the
fingers as it was to have them suspended from the nose and about the
toes. "But were there no diamonds in your country?" questioned I.
"Yes," replied Arletta, "there was a large pile of them in the national
museum which we looked upon as old junk--sort of relics of the savage
Apemen. When our children were shown these things and informed that a
king of an Apeman nation would gladly sacrifice the lives of a hundred
thousand of his subjects in an attempt to gain possession of them, or
that his subjects would murder their friends, brothers, wives or
children in an effort to secure some for themselves, it was impossible
for their youthful minds to fully understand why the Apeman should
become so ferocious and idiotic over such trifles. They naturally looked
upon your species as you would view a tribe of monkeys fighting amongst
themselves for the possession of a string of glass beads. The Apeman
like the monkey is incapable of seeing his own absurdities."
"And what about gold?" I inquired. "We had a building constructed of
it," answered she. "One of the first things the Sagemen did after they
abolished the system of individual accumulation was to take all the gold
there was in the country, and mould it into a huge edifice to be used as
a national museum, and represent a sort of monument to a dead system."
"It must have been a magnificent structure," said I, in amazement. "On
the contrary," replied Arletta, "it was the most hideous building in our
land. As a curiosity it was worth seeing, but as an object of grandeur
it was a total failure. There is more real beauty in one of nature's
tiniest flowers than there would be in a mountain built of gold and
studded with diamonds, but the little Apeman who considers gold the
standard of value cannot understand this."
"When you mentioned the absurdity of wearing jewelry," said I, "it
brought to my attention the fact that you wear no shoes upon your feet,
and that your toes are much longer and far more shapely and supple than
is the case nowadays."
"Yes," answered she, "that is because we made use of our toes as well as
our fingers for useful purposes. It appears to me that the Apeman has
permitted his feet to grow into mere hoofs with which to stump along
upon, and from what I observed during my excursion around the world,
your people are even allowing their hoofs to become worthless," and here
she smiled as she recalled to mind some of the gouty, rheumatic and
over-fed mortals she had seen during that trip.
As Arletta smiled, her beautiful lips parted and for the first time I
noticed, much to my surprise, that she had no teeth. A woman of our own
kind without teeth generally presents a rather dilapidated appearance,
but here was a woman that I thought actually looked more lovely without
them.
"Well," remarked Arletta, noting my astonishment, "I do not have teeth
to bite and chew with like the lower animals. The Sageman shed his teeth
shortly after he discontinued the filthy animal habit of devouring flesh
and other solid substances for subsistence, and substituted the more
scientific, cleanly and healthful method of inhalation."