IV

You must not think, Dolly, from anything I have been telling you that the

Altrurians are ever harsh. Sometimes they cannot realize how things

really are with us, and how what seems grotesque and hideous to them

seems charming and beautiful, or at least _chic_, to us. But they are

wonderfully quick to see when they have hurt you the least, and in the

little sacrifices I have made of my wardrobe to the cause of general

knowledge there has not been the least urgence from them. When I now look

at the things I used to wear, where they have been finally placed in the

ethnological department of the Museum, along with the Esquiman kyaks

and the Thlinkeet totems, they seem like things I wore in some

prehistoric age--

“When wild in woods the noble savage ran.”

Now, am I being unkind? Well, you mustn't mind me, Dolly. You must just

say, “She _has_ got it bad,” and go on and learn as much about Altruria

as you can from me. Some of the things were hard to get used to, and at

first seemed quite impossible. For one thing, there was the matter of

service, which is dishonorable with us, and honorable with the

Altrurians: I was a long time getting to understand that, though I knew

it perfectly well from hearing my husband talk about it in New York. I

believe he once came pretty near offending you by asking why you did not

do your own work, or something like that; he has confessed as much, and I

could not wonder at you in your conditions. Why, when we first went to

the guest-house, and the pretty young girls who brought in lunch sat down

at table to eat it with us, I felt the indignation making me hot all

over. You know how democratic I am, and I did not mind those great,

splendid boat-girls hugging and kissing me, but I instinctively drew the

line at cooks and waitresses. In New York, you know, I always tried to be

kind to my servants, but as for letting one of them sit down in my

presence, much less sit down at table with me, I never dreamed of such a

thing in my most democratic moments. Luckily I drew the line subjectively

here, and later I found that these young ladies were daughters of some of

the most distinguished men and women on the continent, though you must

not understand distinction as giving any sort of social primacy; that

sort of thing is not allowed in Altruria. They had drawn lots with the

girls in the Regionic school here, and were proud of having won the honor

of waiting on us. Of course, I needn't say they were what we would have

felt to be ladies anywhere, and their manners were exquisite, even to

leaving us alone together as soon as we had finished luncheon. The meal

itself was something I shall always remember for its delicious cooking of

the different kinds of mushrooms which took the place of meat, and the

wonderful salads, and the temperate and tropical fruits which we had for

dessert.

They had to talk mostly with my husband, of course, and when they did

talk to me it was through him. They were very intelligent about our

world, much more than we are about Altruria, though, of course, it was by

deduction from premises rather than specific information, and they wanted

to ask a thousand questions; but they saw the joke of it, and laughed

with us when Aristides put them off with a promise that if they would

have a public meeting appointed we would appear and answer all the

questions anybody could think of; we were not going to waste our answers

on them the first day. He wanted them to let us go out and help wash the

dishes, but they would not hear of it. I confess I was rather glad of

that, for it seemed a lower depth to which I could not descend, even

after eating with them. But they invited us out to look at the kitchen,

after they had got it in order a little, and when we joined them there,

whom should I see but my own dear old mother, with an apron up to her

chin, wiping the glass and watching carefully through her dear old

spectacles that she got everything bright! You know she was of a simpler

day than ours, and when she was young she used to do her own work, and

she and my father always washed the dishes together after they had

company. I merely said, “_Well_, mother!” and she laughed and colored,

and said she guessed she should like it in Altruria, for it took her back

to the America she used to know.

I must mention things as they come into my head, and not in any

regular order; there are too many of them. One thing is that I did

not notice till afterwards that we had had no meat that first day at

luncheon--the mushrooms were so delicious, and you know I never was much

of a meat-eater. It was not till we began to make our present tour of the

Regionic capitals, where Aristides has had to repeat his account of

American civilization until I am sick as well as ashamed of America, that

I first felt a kind of famine which I kept myself from recognizing as

long as I could. Then I had to own to myself, long before I owned it to

him, that I was hungry for _meat_--for roast, for broiled, for fried, for

hashed. I did not actually tell him, but he found it out, and I could not

deny it, though I felt such an ogre in it. He was terribly grieved, and

blamed himself for not having thought of it, and wished he had got some

canned meats from the trader before she left the port. He was really in

despair, for nobody since the old capitalistic times had thought of

killing sheep or cattle for food; they have them for wool and milk and

butter; and of course when I looked at them in the fields it did seem

rather formidable. You are so used to seeing them in the butchers' shops,

ready for the range, that you never think of what they have to _go

through_ before that. But at last I managed to gasp out, one day, “If I

could only have a chicken!” and he seemed to think that it could be

managed. I don't know how he made interest with the authorities, or how

the authorities prevailed on a farmer to part with one of his precious

pullets; but the thing was done somehow, and two of the farmer's children

brought it to us at one of the guest-houses where we were staying, and

then fled howling. That was bad enough, but what followed was worse. I

went another day on mushrooms before I had the heart to say chicken again

and suggest that Aristides should get it killed and dressed. The poor

fellow did try, I believe, but we had to fall back upon ourselves for the

murderous deed, and--Did you ever see a chicken have its head cut off,

and how hideously it behaves? It made us both wish we were dead; and the

sacrifice of that one pullet was quite enough for me. We buried the poor

thing under the flowers of the guest-house garden, and I went back to

my mushrooms after a visit of contrition to the farmer and many attempts

to bring his children to forgiveness. After all, the Altrurian mushrooms

are wonderfully nourishing, and they are in such variety that, what with

other succulent vegetables and the endless range of fruits and nuts, one

does not wish for meat--meat that one has killed one's self!

V

I wish you could be making tour of the Regionic capitals with us, Dolly!

There are swift little one-rail electric expresses running daily from one

capital to another, but these are used only when speed is required, and

we are confessedly in no hurry: Aristides wanted me to see as much of the

country as possible, and I am as eager as he. The old steam-roads of the

capitalistic epoch have been disused for generations, and their beds are

now the country roads, which are everywhere kept in beautiful repair.

There are no horse vehicles (the electric motors are employed in the

towns), though some people travel on horseback, but the favorite means of

conveyance is by electric van, which any citizen may have on proof of his

need of it; and it is comfortable beyond compare--mounted on easy

springs, and curtained and cushioned like those gypsy vans we see in the

country at home. Aristides drives himself, and sometimes we both get out

and walk, for there is plenty of time.

I don't know whether I can make you understand how everything has tended

to simplification here. They have disused the complicated facilities and

conveniences of the capitalistic epoch, which we are so proud of, and

have got back as close as possible to nature. People stay at home a great

deal more than with us, though if any one likes to make a journey or to

visit the capitals he is quite free to do it, and those who have some

useful or beautiful object in view make the sacrifice, as they feel it,

to leave their villages every day and go to the nearest capital to carry

on their studies or experiments. What we consider modern conveniences

they would consider a superfluity of naughtiness for the most part. As

_work_ is the ideal, they do not believe in what we call labor-saving

devices.

When we approach a village on our journey, one of the villagers,

sometimes a young man, and sometimes a girl, comes out to meet us, and

when we pass through they send some one with us on the way a little. The

people have a perfect inspiration for hospitality: they not only know

when to do and how much to do, but how little and when not at all. I

can't remember that we have ever once been bored by those nice young

things that welcomed us or speeded us on our way, and when we have

stopped in a village they have shown a genius for leaving us alone, after

the first welcome, that is beautiful. They are so regardful of our

privacy, in fact, that if it had not been for Aristides, who explained

their ideal to me, I should have felt neglected sometimes, and should

have been shy of letting them know that we would like their company. But

he understood it, and I must say that I have never enjoyed people and

their ways so much. Their hospitality is a sort of compromise between

that of the English houses where you are left free at certain houses to

follow your own devices absolutely, and that Spanish splendor which

assures you that the host's house is yours without meaning it. In fact,

the guest-house, wherever we go, _is_ ours, for it belongs to the

community, and it is absolutely a home to us for the time being. It is

usually the best house in the village, the prettiest and cosiest, where

all the houses are so pretty and cosey. There is always another building

for public meetings, called the temple, which is the principal edifice,

marble and classic and tasteful, which we see almost as much of as the

guest-house, for the news of the Emissary's return has preceded him, and

everybody is alive with curiosity, and he has to stand and deliver in the

village temples everywhere. Of course I am the great attraction, and

after being scared by it at first I have rather got to like it; the

people are so kind, and unaffected, and really delicate.

You mustn't get the notion that the Altrurians are a solemn people at

all; they are rather gay, and they like other people's jokes as well as

their own; I am sure Mr. Makely, with his sense of humor, would be at

home with them at once. The one thing that more than any other has helped

them to conceive of the American situation is its being the gigantic joke

which we often feel it to be; I don't know but it appears to them more

grotesque than it does to us even. At first, when Aristides would explain

some peculiarity of ours, they would receive him with a gale of laughing,

but this might change into cries of horror and pity later. One of the

things that amused and then revolted them most was our patriotism. They

thought it the drollest thing in the world that men should be willing to

give their own lives and take the lives of other men for the sake of a

country which assured them no safety from want, and did not even assure

them work, and in which they had no more logical interest than the

country they were going to fight. They could understand how a rich man

might volunteer for one of our wars, but when they were told that most of

our volunteers were poor men, who left their mothers and sisters, or

their wives and children, without any means of support, except their

meagre pay, they were quite bewildered and stopped laughing, as if the

thing had passed a joke. They asked, “How if one of these citizen

soldiers was killed?” and they seemed to suppose that in this case the

country would provide for his family and give them work, or if the

children were too young would support them at the public expense. It

made me creep a little when my husband answered that the family of a

crippled or invalided soldier would have a pension of eight or ten or

fifteen dollars a month; and when they came back with the question why

the citizens of such a country should love it enough to die for it, I

could not have said why for the life of me. But Aristides, who is so

magnificently generous, tried to give them a notion of the sublimity

which is at the bottom of our illogicality and which adjusts so many

apparently hopeless points of our anomaly. They asked how this sublimity

differed from that of the savage who brings in his game and makes a feast

for the whole tribe, and leaves his wife and children without provision

against future want; but Aristides told them that there were essential

differences between the Americans and savages, which arose from the fact

that the savage condition was permanent and the American conditions were

unconsciously provisional.

They are quite well informed about our life in some respects, but they

wished to hear at first hand whether certain things were really so or

not. For instance, they wanted to know whether people were allowed to

marry and bring children into the world if they had no hopes of

supporting them or educating them, or whether diseased people were

allowed to become parents. In Altruria, you know, the families are

generally small, only two or three children at the most, so that the

parents can devote themselves to them the more fully; and as there is no

fear of want here, the state interferes only when the parents are

manifestly unfit to bring the little ones up. They imagined that there

was something of that kind with us, but when they heard that the state

interfered in the family only when the children were unruly, and then it

punished the children by sending them to a reform school and disgracing

them for life, instead of holding the parents accountable, they seemed

to think that it was one of the most anomalous features of our great

anomaly. Here, when the father and mother are always quarrelling, the

children are taken from them, and the pair are separated, at first for a

time, but after several chances for reform they are parted permanently.

But I must not give you the notion that all our conferences are so

serious. Many have merely the character of social entertainments, which

are not made here for invited guests, but for any who choose to come;

all are welcome. At these there are often plays given by amateurs, and

improvised from plots which supply the outline, while the performers

supply the dialogue and action, as in the old Italian comedies. The

Altrurians are so quick and fine, in fact, that they often remind me of

the Italians more than any other people. One night there was for my

benefit an American play, as the Altrurians imagined it from what they

had read about us, and they had costumed it from the pictures of us they

had seen in the newspapers Aristides had sent home while he was with us.

The effect was a good deal like that American play which the Japanese

company of Sada Yacco gave while it was in New York. It was all about a

millionaire's daughter, who was loved by a poor young man and escaped

with him to Altruria in an open boat from New York. The millionaire could

be distinctly recognized by the dollar-marks which covered him all over,

as they do in the caricatures of rich men in our yellow journals. It was

funny to the last degree. In the last act he was seen giving his millions

away to poor people, whose multitude was represented by the continually

coming and going of four or five performers in and out of the door, in

outrageously ragged clothes. The Altrurians have not yet imagined the

nice degrees of poverty which we have achieved, and they could not have

understood that a man with a hundred thousand dollars would have seemed

poor to that multi-millionaire. In fact, they do not grasp the idea of

money at all. I heard afterwards that in the usual version the

millionaire commits suicide in despair, but the piece had been given a

happy ending out of kindness to me. I must say that in spite of the

monstrous misconception the acting was extremely good, especially that of

some comic characters.

But dancing is the great national amusement in Altruria, where it has not

altogether lost its religious nature. A sort of march in the temples is

as much a part of the worship as singing, and so dancing has been

preserved from the disgrace which it used to be in with serious people

among us. In the lovely afternoons you see young people dancing in the

meadows, and hear them shouting in time to the music, while the older men

and women watch them from their seats in the shade. Every sort of

pleasure here is improvised, and as you pass through a village the first

thing you know the young girls and young men start up in a sort of

_girandole_, and linking hands in an endless chain stretch the figure

along through the street and out over the highway to the next village,

and the next and the next. The work has all been done in the forenoon,

and every one who chooses is at liberty to join in the fun.

The villages are a good deal alike to a stranger, and we knew what to

expect there after a while, but the country is perpetually varied, and

the unexpected is always happening in it. The old railroad-beds, on

which we travelled, are planted with fruit and nut trees and flowering

shrubs, and our progress is through a fragrant bower that is practically

endless, except where it takes the shape of a colonnade near the entrance

of a village, with vines trained about white pillars, and clusters of

grapes (which are ripening just now) hanging down. The change in the

climate created by cutting off the southeastern peninsula and letting in

the equatorial current, which was begun under the first Altrurian

president, with an unexpended war-appropriation, and finished for what

one of the old capitalistic wars used to cost, is something perfectly

astonishing. Aristides says he told you something about it in his speech

at the White Mountains, but you would never believe it without the

evidence of your senses. Whole regions to the southward, which were

nearest the pole and were sheeted with ice and snow, with the temperature

and vegetation of Labrador, now have the climate of Italy; and the

mountains, which used to bear nothing but glaciers, are covered with

olive orchards and plantations of the delicious coffee which they drink

here. Aristides says you could have the same results at home--no! _in the

United States_--by cutting off the western shore of Alaska and letting in

the Japanese current; and it could be done at the cost of any average

war.