HISTORY
OF
A WORLD OF IMMORTALS
WITHOUT A GOD:
TRANSLATED FROM
_AN UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPT IN THE LIBRARY OF A CONTINENTAL UNIVERSITY_.
BY
ANTARES SKORPIOS.
_DUBLIN_:
WILLIAM M^CGEE, 18, NASSAU STREET.
LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL & CO.
1891.
_Printed at_ THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, _Dublin_.
[Illustration]
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
_Concerning the Birth and Education of Dr. Gervaas Van Varken, and
his Loathing and Abhorrence of the whole Human Race—How he met
an Ancient Parsee merchant in Bombay, and got an introduction to
the Great Magician of Thibet—How he went to Thibet; what he
learned there, and how he departed from it_, 1
CHAPTER II.
HERE BEGINS THE HISTORY OF HESPEROS.
_Of the shining city of Lucetta—How Dr. Van Varken met an apparent
Yahoo—Of the great astonishment of the citizens at sight of the
Doctor, and how they gave him in charge to a committee of
three—How the committee learned the Dutch tongue, and showed the
Doctor sundry strange and wonderful maps_, 19
CHAPTER III.
_Concerning Physical Hesperography—Of the great Cloud-Screen, and
its effect on Terrestrial Astronomy—Of the Chronic Equatorial
Tornado, and of its extraordinary importance in the history of
Hesperos—Of the Giant Mountains; and of the Flora and Fauna_, 35
CHAPTER IV.
_Of the Origin of Rational Life in Hesperos—Of the Cyclical
Organic Life—Of the Law of Evanescence by Mortal Lesion—The
story of the Hesperian Cain—Of the Law of Evanescence by adverse
Metronomic Balance—How a Court of Justice sentenced a culprit to
Eternal Punishment; and how the culprit escaped_, 45
CHAPTER V.
_Of the causes of the high civilization of Hesperos—Of the
relations of the sexes—Of private personal property—Of property
in Land; and of the methods of Eviction—Of the Jacks and Masters
of all Trades_, 66
CHAPTER VI.
_Of the Universal Language—Of the Universal Empire and first
measures of the World-Parliament—Of the great progress of the
Hesperians in all Physical Science; and of their fruitless
craving after the Unknown God_, 74
CHAPTER VII.
_Of the first attempt to pass the Equatorial Tornado; and its
tragical issue—Of the attempt to pass the Cloud-Screen_, 85
CHAPTER VIII.
_Of the great courage of three Engineers—How they passed the
Screen and saw the Host of Heaven—How they further discovered a
Disk of Unknown Fire—Of the reception of the news throughout the
world—Of the construction of a mountain Observatory; and of the
rapid growth of Astronomical knowledge_, 98
CHAPTER IX.
_Of the development of World-Weariness in Hesperos; and of the
second attempt to cross the Equatorial Tornado—How the Forlorn
Hope succeeded, and discovered a City of the Dead—How the
terrible mystery of Evanescence was explained; and how the crew
set out on their return_, 113
CHAPTER X.
_The oldest inhabitant of the South relates its history—How the
awful intelligence was received in the North_, 128
CHAPTER XI.
HERE BEGINS THE MODERN HISTORY OF HESPEROS.
_How the two Hemispheres were amalgamated—concerning the
Sympathetic Telegraph; and how the great astonishment of the
Hesperians at the first sight of the Doctor was fully
explained_, 135
CHAPTER XII.
_Of the great social changes which resulted from the discovery of
the Indestructibility of Life_, 150
CHAPTER XIII.
_How the Doctor delivered a course of lectures on the History of
the Earth and its Inhabitants—Of the effects of his ghastly
description—Of the attempt of two Hesperians to reach the Earth;
and of its unsatisfactory result_, 159
CHAPTER XIV.
_Of the further wanderings of Dr. Van Varken—Of his visits to
Australis and the great Observatory—Of a strange physical Theory
concerning the Tornado—Supposed cause of the Doctor’s return to
the Earth_, 171
‘That we are to live hereafter, is just as reconcilable with the
scheme of atheism, and as well to be accounted for by it, as that we
are now alive is; and therefore nothing can be more absurd than to
argue from that scheme, that there can be no future state.’—BISHOP
BUTLER.
CHAPTER I.
Concerning the Birth and Education of Dr. Gervaas Van Varken, and his
Loathing and Abhorrence of the whole Human Race—How he met an
Ancient Parsee merchant in Bombay, and got an introduction to the
Great Magician of Thibet—How he went to Thibet; what he learned
there, and how he departed from it.
[Mr. Gervaas Van Varken was a tradesman who flourished on the Boomptjes
of Rotterdam in the early years of the last century. His business was
that of a ship-chandler—for so we may approximately translate the
inscription, ‘Koopman en Touwwerk en andere Scheepsbehoeften,’ which
appeared at the side of his door.
Van Varken drove a tolerably brisk trade, and, being of extremely
miserly habits, succeeded in accumulating a respectable amount of
capital. He was a man of very morose and sulky disposition, and, when he
had reached the period of middle age, married a Vrouw who was not only
gifted with a moral character closely resembling his own, but had,
moreover, embraced Calvinistic views of the most austere type.
This disagreeable couple were blessed with a small family consisting of
one son, called Gervaas, after the name of his father, and this Gervaas,
junior, was the author of the diary before us.
The personal experiences of this unlucky youth were such that his
imbibing the very gloomiest views of things in general, and, in
particular, of human nature, was a simple matter of necessity. In his
earliest childhood he arrived at the conclusion that there was
absolutely nothing he could do which did not issue in a sound thrashing,
administered either by his father or his mother—supplemented, in the
latter case, by energetic assurances that his present suffering was a
mere joke in comparison with the elaborate and abiding torments in store
for him, as a vessel of wrath, in the next world. In addition to these
personal severities the child spent the greater part of his time locked
up in an empty room, imperfectly clothed, more than half-starved, and
with nothing whatever to do but reflect on the inscrutable problem of
human life.
When he was ten years old he was sent to a school kept by a savage old
friend of the ship-chandler, who carried out the parental system of
discipline with even greater vigour; and thus it resulted that when in
course of time Gervaas, junior, was moved to the University of Leyden to
study for the medical profession—a profession for which he was destined
by his father, without the slightest consideration for the young man’s
personal wishes—he had contracted such a habit of intense misanthropy
that it remained with him as his leading characteristic for life.
Gervaas, though by nature of a somewhat crusty disposition, was by no
means a cruel man—at least he had none of that delight in inflicting
pain, as such, which characterizes some of our species. In fact he was
very fond of most sorts of animals, and confined his malevolence
strictly to the human race, of which his experience had been so
unfavourable. When his medical education was completed he was sent, as
surgeon, for several voyages in an English vessel commanded by another
malignant friend of his father; and assuredly the rough and coarse life
on board had no tendency to counteract his pessimistic estimate of
mankind. The British mariners, with their habitual contempt of
foreigners, considered Doctor Van, as they called him, an eligible
subject for all sorts of violent practical jokes; which, to do him
justice, he retaliated, whenever he got the chance, by the infliction of
lingering torments in various surgical operations.
The doctor, who had a considerable gift for languages, soon picked up
English, and a copy of the, just then published, ‘Voyages of Captain
Gulliver’ falling into his hands, he read them with intense interest;
being specially delighted with the account of the crazy philosophers in
the third voyage, and, above all, with the horrible description of the
Yahoos in the fourth. From this time, indeed, he seems to have
invariably used this term in speaking of his fellow-men.
When he had reached the age of about thirty years his mother died; and
as his father did not long survive her, the young man inherited an
amount of property which afforded him a tolerable income, and rendered
him independent of his profession. He resolved to abandon it and visit
the East; for, having made several voyages to Bombay, he had come to the
conclusion that the Yahoos of that part of the world were less
intolerable than the European specimens of the breed.
So he took his passage in an English East Indiaman, and, after an
uneventful voyage, landed at Bombay in the early part of the year 1729.
As soon as the anchor was cast in the roads he lost not a moment in
quitting the ship, having with difficulty escaped the indignity of being
obliged to shake hands with the Yahoo captain. On landing he took up his
quarters at the house of a trader to whom he had a letter of
introduction; and, shortly afterwards, by the merest accident, he
encountered in the street an old Parsee merchant, who, though of course
a Yahoo, seems not to have been absolutely intolerable in the eyes of
the over-sensitive misanthrope, whose notes, at this point, become
continuous for the first time.]
‘As I was walking in the shade of a row of trees which lined the street,
I was accosted by a very ancient merchant of the Parsee persuasion, who
asked me if I had not come from England in the ship which arrived that
morning. I replied that I had been a passenger in her, and we fell into
conversation. The old gentleman was not nearly so offensive to the
senses as are the European Yahoos, and he was perfectly well acquainted
with the English tongue. I found that, in the exercise of his calling,
he had travelled a great deal in divers parts of Asia; and, from his way
of talk, I gathered that the Yahoos of those countries were fully as
abominable in his eyes as the European specimens of the breed were in
mine own. This common sentiment of loathing for our neighbours proved to
ourselves an occasion of union, and before long there was between us as
warm a friendship as two Yahoos are capable of entertaining for each
other.
‘One day, as he was relating some of his adventures, he told me that, in
the days of his youth, when travelling on mercantile business in the
Himalayah Mountains, he chanced to meet a Thibetian gentleman named Koot
Homi. Having on one occasion done a signal service to this Mr. Homi, it
came to pass that the Thibetian, who was of a grateful turn of mind, had
always showed himself a faithful friend to the Parsee. The old merchant
further informed me that Homi was a man endowed with many and strange
gifts; that the famous wonders worked by the Indian magicians or
jugglers were the merest play of babies, when compared with the feats
accomplished by Homi; and that if you only whispered his name into the
ear of one of these magicians when engaged at his work, the magician
would give a frightful howl, and run as if Beelzebub himself was in
pursuit of him.
‘Among other wonders wrought by this Homi was one which struck me as the
most notable of all. This was the power of moving himself, and various
articles in contact with his person, in some inscrutable way from one
district of the earth’s surface to another, no matter how remote, and
apparently in an instant of time. I asked my friend whether he had ever
visited Mr. Homi in Thibet. He told me that he had been there, but only
once; that a long and terrible journey had to be undertaken; frightful
mountain-passes had to be surmounted; that the country in which the
magician’s abode was fixed was inhabited by a strange society or
brotherhood, the members of which were endowed with many of the powers
possessed by Homi himself, who was their chief; and that access, unless
by a special permission, which was very rarely granted, was an absolute
impossibility.
‘And hereupon the old man added an expression of his never-ceasing
regret that he had not availed himself of his opportunity when in Thibet
of endeavouring to persuade Mr. Homi to exercise his wonderful power
upon him, either by transporting him wholly from the Yahoo regions, or,
possibly, by transmuting him into a less hateful form. “I have never
ceased to mourn over my stupidity in this respect,” he said, “and, were
I only able for it, I should gladly repeat my visit to Thibet. But I am
far too old to venture on the fatigues of such a journey. As for you,
however, the case is quite different; you are an active and energetic
man; and should you think it worth your while to try what might be done
in your behalf in the way I have suggested, I will gladly give you a
letter which will enable you to pass without hindrance from the
Brotherhood to the head-quarters of Mr. Homi.” I thanked him very much
for his offer, and asked him to let me think the matter over till next
day, when I should give him my answer.
‘The more I reflected on my friend’s kind offer the better was I pleased
with the prospect of the journey. Inasmuch as life had become well-nigh
intolerable, I cared but little for fatigue and danger. My time also was
wholly at my own disposal. So next morning I told the Parsee that I
gladly accepted his proposal; and he, without any delay, not only wrote
the promised letter of introduction, but also drew up for my use an
itinerary of the most convenient road from Bombay to Eastern Thibet,
containing notices of the towns, distances, and various peculiarities of
the countries through which it was necessary to pass.’
[At this point the memoranda assume a very fragmentary form. This I have
observed to be always the case when the doctor was actually engaged in
travelling. When stationed for a time in some fixed locality he wrote
out his observations pretty fully; but whenever he was moving about,
mere hints are available for the guidance of the editor. His journey was
evidently very long and arduous, and it certainly occupied several
months. In its course many obstacles were plainly put in his way by the
natives of the different territories which he had to traverse; and the
annoyance thence arising greatly ruffled his temper, and seems to have
increased to an almost incredible extent his abhorrence of the human
race.
At last his indomitable energy and perseverance were successful. He
reached the mysterious Thibetian region; and, having exhibited the old
Parsee’s letter, he was permitted by the Brotherhood to pass to the
residence of their chief. Koot Homi received the doctor in a very
friendly manner, and even declined to inspect his letter of
introduction, assuring him that the chief of the occult Brotherhood had
no need to do so. Van Varken seems to have resided with the chief for
about five months, and was evidently admitted to great intimacy with the
whole of the Brotherhood.
One reason for this was clearly the very great interest taken by Homi in
the ‘Voyages of Gulliver,’ a copy of which was presented to him by the
doctor. In particular, the accounts of the philosophers in Lagado, and
of the rational animals in the outward shape of horses, encountered on
his fourth expedition, were listened to by the sage with eager
attention. The chief does not seem to have even in the slightest degree
doubted the veracity of Gulliver; but he certainly expressed the most
intense contempt for the Lagado professors, laying much stress on the
profundity of their stupidity in not having amended the deplorable
condition of the Struldbrugs in Luggnagg, of whose existence the
professors were, doubtless, aware. ‘Even when immortal life was given
them to work upon, they were incompetent to ward off the effects of
senile decay! Why, the merest tiro in our schools would be ashamed to
allow the poor old Struldbrug to get into such a state,’ said he, with
scornful indignation.
But, though he showed much sympathy with Dr. Van Varken’s longing to be
transmuted out of the species he so much abhorred, Mr. Homi did not hold
out any hopes of success in so laudable an endeavour. ‘No,’ said he,
‘many years of arduous preparation, to say nothing of rare natural
gifts, are indispensable qualifications for such transformation; few
even of the adepts are capable of it. But the power of instantaneous
passage from one terrestrial point to another is far more easily arrived
at.’
And it appears that, after a few months’ probation, the secret of this
process was actually communicated to the doctor; but under such rigid
obligations to silence that no traces of its nature are to be found
committed to writing. All that can be ascertained about it is this—that
an instantaneous disintegration, and equally rapid reintegration of the
ultimate molecules of the bodies to be moved is effected; that the
transit is accomplished through the medium of the undulations of the
ethereal vehicle which pervades all space; and that the rate of
transmission is identical with that of the transmission of light,
namely, about 186,000 miles in a second. Once more the notes become
continuous.]
I was greatly pleased at gaining this new and wonderful faculty of
moving myself; but, after making a few successful essays, it seemed to
me that, after all, I should not be much the better for its possession.
Yahoos being everywhere spread over the face of the earth, wherever I
moved I should still assuredly And them; and perhaps this was the reason
why, as I was walking by myself one evening and chanced to see the
planet Venus, or Hesperos, shining in the sky, the thought came into my
mind that, inasmuch as the ether fills all the space between the
planets, it might be just possible that the power of movement by
disintegration of molecules, which, as yet, had only been essayed
between places on the earth’s surface, might extend as far as the
planets themselves.
The moon, being far the nearest of the heavenly bodies, would naturally
seem to afford the most promising opportunity for trying the experiment;
but, having learned in Thibet that she is quite destitute of air, I
resolved to try some other region; for I thought it would be quite
useless to arrive there, and straightway perish for want of breath. If I
could only get as far as Hesperos my chances of life would be much
better, inasmuch as I was assured, by the same philosophers, that there
is good reason for believing that planet to be very abundantly supplied
with air. Moreover, it fortunately happened that she was just then
approaching the position called by astronomers her inferior conjunction,
so her distance from the earth was not much over twenty-five millions of
miles.
The main risk I should run in attempting to make this passage would
evidently be the possibility, perhaps I should say the probability, of
extinction of the vital force during the period of disintegration, which
I estimated at a little more than two minutes. It was known to the
Thibetian Brotherhood that the disintegrated particles moved with
exactly the same speed as light; and as light requires about eight
minutes to traverse the distance between the sun and the earth, two
would nearly suffice to move it as far as Hesperos in her lower
conjunction. Whether after such an interval of suspension the vital
force would maintain sufficient energy to accomplish the reintegration
on which continuance of bodily life depends, an actual experiment alone
could show. But I cared but little for the risk. Life had long become
hateful to me; a chance was now given to escape the society of the
Yahoos, and all their abominations. I resolved to try my luck—at the
worst I should only perish.
I made no communication of my intention to the chief, lest perchance he
should raise some objection to my intended enterprise; and, on the very
next night, at ten o’clock, I went out, taking with me, in various
pockets of the eastern dress which, for convenience in Asiatic travel, I
had adopted in Bombay, sundry small articles for the toilet, also my
silver watch, and an ingenious instrument for measuring quantities of
heat, which had been sent me as a gift just before I left home, by my
good friend, Mr. Gabriel Fahrenheit, of Amsterdam, who had lately
invented it. I sat down on a rock by the side of the mountain; Hesperos
was distinctly visible, though only a thin crescent of her illuminated
face was turned towards the earth. Carefully noting the time, which was
exactly thirty-seven minutes past ten, and having also marked the
temperature, which was fifty-seven degrees of my thermometer, as the
instrument is called, I accomplished the disintegration, indicating
Hesperos as the goal.