eighty-four million, seven hundred and fifty-eight thousand, four
hundred and twenty-eight men and women by face and name. Since the new
system of accretive memorising has come in, and the whole world has got
mixed up, and keeps mixing, everybody knows everybody.’
‘And does everybody now know everything?’ inquired Flaxius, as nearly
astonished as he had ever been during the whole course of his long and
well-spent life.
‘Well, among all the whiter people of age, I think it may be fairly
asserted that every grown-up person knows all that man has ever known.
Of course, only the most advanced scientists and deducers are really
well acquainted with the knowledge of the future. But who, in the
name of the Prima Materia, are you, who put such incomprehensibly odd
questions?’
‘I have been,’ replied Flaxius, ‘out of the world for a century, and am
utterly ignorant of all that has taken place during that time.’
The stranger did not seem to doubt the assertion, nor to be much
astonished, as he merely remarked:
‘I have heard there were a few of the very far advanced who could do
that, and you look like one of them. And I suppose, of course, they
keep it a secret. So if you wish it, I will say nothing to anybody. Now
to know what has been doing since you left, is a long story. Do you
know where to lodge to-night?’
‘No,’ replied Flaxius, ‘unless it be _à la belle étoile_.’
‘We can sleep in any of these bungalows,’ replied the stranger. ‘I have
_coupons_ entitling us to rooms and food, and medical attendance, and
social attentions, anywhere in the world.’
‘I have plenty of gold money,’ observed Flaxius.
‘_Money!_’ exclaimed the stranger, as if astonished. ‘Well, certainly,
money can be exchanged for coupons, and coins are rising rapidly in
value for collections and museums. But coupons, issued in all cities,
pass current all the world over at par. But let us get to our quarters
and I will tell you the rest!’
He invited Flaxius to enter the machine, in which there was room for
two, and a trunk, with some comfortable wrappings. Then as he turned a
handle they shot off, upward and onward like the wind. As they flew,
they overtook two other _aerevolantes_ like their own, when Flaxius’s
friend, exclaiming, ‘Good fellows, good luck!’ ignited several
small coloured squibs or minute rockets--it had by this time grown
dark--which were responded to by a single red spark from each.
‘I invited them to meet an interesting stranger whom I have just
discovered,’ remarked the stranger with a laugh. ‘My name is Oakford,’
he added, ‘and it is Pidgined into Oakforto. _Yours?_--Flaxius. That
will become Flasio or Flaso. Ah! here we are!’
He stopped at a large and somewhat singular, though pretty house,
before which sat in a garden at tables several well-dressed ladies and
gentlemen, of a somewhat Eurasian appearance. An elderly woman examined
the coupons which Oakford presented.
‘Take double,’ he remarked. ‘I want extra food. This is a distinguished
man of science.’
Hearing this, the landlady and all the rest present rose and bowed low
to Flaxius. But with all their politeness it was evident that they were
utterly amazed, which Oakford explained by saying:
‘They have all travelled so much that they never saw a stranger before
in all their lives.’
‘Now, for a paradox I call that a good one,’ reflected Flaxius. ‘That
at least remains in the world.’
‘May I mention the fact that you have been absent from the world for a
century?’ inquired Oakford of the Sage. ‘These are all gentlemen and
ladies--that is, well-educated and of strict principles.’
‘Certainly,’ replied Flaxius.
‘This, my dear friends,’ then resumed Oakford, ‘is a scientist and
philosopher of the very highest rank, since he has been absent from
the world for more than a century. As you are all aware, only one among
many millions ever achieves such extraordinary power, and from it you
can draw your own conclusions.’
The party, which had been augmented by the arrival of two additional
gentlemen with ladies, all gazed at Flaxius with an expression of such
sympathetic intelligence as he had rarely met among mortals in the
earlier time, and then, approaching him very reverently, bowed and
worshipped, each addressing him a short prayer, after which the sage,
perceiving that a benediction was hoped for, gave it with impressive
feeling, to their very great satisfaction.
‘You must understand,’ explained Oakford, ‘that the religion which now
prevails is, that the Creative Force manifests itself in the ascending
series of ideals, and most perfectly in Man; therefore we worship him
in one another, but chiefly in the advanced scientist, since it is to
the power in him that we are chiefly indebted for inventions, and all
that does us any good.’
‘Ah!’ exclaimed Flaxius, ‘you have somewhat changed religion as it was
a century ago. Then, men chiefly worshipped, firstly, themselves, and,
secondly, Politicians, who, instead of doing any good to anybody, made
all the devil’s own mischief they could in every way, and were all the
more admired for it.’
‘You speak of the Devil,’ remarked Oakford. ‘It must have been curious
to live in the world when people believed in such a being, and thought
they saw his influence manifest in all things.’
‘H’m!’ quoth the sage. ‘If you have succeeded in getting the devil
entirely out of everything, and removed all traces of his existence,
I will say this for you, that you have more than realised my greatest
expectations and fondest hopes.’
‘Nay, we have only got rid of the initial D; but that is the first
step. By scientifically supplying natural wants and discouraging the
development of needless ones, we have very much extinguished the worst
forms of selfishness.’
‘Ah, that initial D!’ said Flaxius. ‘The Dee----!
‘“There was a jolly miller
Lived by the river Dee,
Who sang, As I care for nobody,
Then nobody cares for me!”’
‘I grant that _evil_ still remains in many a form,’ resumed Oakford;
‘but science and philanthropy have combined to a degree which would
once have been deemed incredible (being supplied with all the power
which mankind could contribute, to investigate and extinguish it).
The vast interest which all mankind took a century ago in the idle
squabbling of windy politicians, that is in mere factional, silly
quarrels about nothing, or human cock-fighting in oratory, has been
supplanted, owing to the ascendency of the man of science, by a general
and serious interest in what really concerns our earthly welfare.
Perhaps we have _not_ accomplished so much as you may have anticipated,
but to this we have really come: increased liberalism has so far
diminished prejudices, that the world has pretty well agreed as to what
it really wants, first of all.’
‘A tremendous progress,’ interpolated Flaxius. ‘It is nine-tenths of
the battle won. To know what we want is almost equivalent to having all
we need.’
‘Well, let us toilette and then refresh!’ said Oakford. ‘Here is your
room. If you want anything, press the button, and speak.’
‘And then the servant will come to receive orders?’
‘No; for you must first form in your own mind an image, by volitional
pseudophia--that is depicting by will--and this image is, with your
voice, conveyed to the chambermaid. Thus you want two silk towels, you
close your eyes, form their image, and order. The maid touches the
button, closes her eyes, beholds two silk towels, and brings them. Some
men of science--in fact, I can do it myself, to a certain extent--make
the towels for themselves at once out of the atmosphere, by a peculiar
mental, physiological process, but the less expert prefer the maid.’
‘H’m!’ quoth Flaxius, as a very lady-like, pretty damsel appeared.
‘I should think, indeed, that with many travellers the volitional
physiological effort would be chiefly exerted in that direction.’
‘The position of servant in a house specially frequented by men of
science,’ pursued Oakford, ‘is regarded as a great honour, and only
conferred on highly-educated and deserving persons. This young lady,’
he continued, ‘is the only daughter of the celebrated Kien-Long-na,
who first converted rose-leaves into butterflies, he being, indeed,
a leader among the mighty minds who broke away the barrier between
organic or inorganic creative chemistry, and proved that living
creatures could be made in the laboratory. It is even said that he has
actually succeeded in making a human child, but as regards that, his
daughter, here, can give you better information.
This was said with the utmost gravity, and the lady chambermaid
responded quite as seriously, but with interest.
‘Yes; it is true, he has established the fact beyond all question that
it _can_ be done, by sub-etherising protoplasm, even in the fourth
grade, but I must admit that the specimens of work which he has thus
far produced are not remarkably creditable to his skill, nor very
attractive.’
‘Now, if I had heard that a century ago,’ mused Flaxius, ‘I should
have taken the liberty to deny it, but I suppose that science has
even extinguished Frenchmen by this time. By Nemesis! I would like to
know what this chambermaid thinks when she turns over--if she ever
does--specimens of what constituted nine-tenths of the reading of young
ladies at the end of the last century; or what she thinks, if she
indeed stoops to think, of those who revelled in it, or supplied it!
Holy Science! thou hast indeed taken a great deal of fun out of life,
but thou hast outbalanced the loss with abundant, honest decency!’
‘I must explain to you, also,’ said Oakford, ‘though you doubtless
surmise it, that such positions are in request, because it is only in
a comparatively few great families, or establishments, that servants
are kept at all, since scientific appliances now enable people to do
everything for themselves. Waiting has become a refined and elegant
accomplishment, which can only be properly filled by ladies of superior
education. In fact, it is very mortifying to a girl to have it said
of her that she is always seen as a guest, and never as a waiter. It
enables a young lady to see society and the world, and become more
intimately acquainted with people of intellect.’
The supper, or evening refreshment, did not surprise Flaxius as a
novelty, because it was precisely the same as that which he had
enjoyed during his visit to the God of Ancient Days, and on other
transcendental occasions. It consisted simply of a cake to each guest
with a bottle of what--for want of a better term--I may call wine.
Both, however, were the very perfection of food and drink.
Turning to the assembled company, Oakford said:
‘I propose, my friends, to give to our distinguished guest some account
of what changes have taken place in the world as regards food, since he
last honoured this planet by residing in it, and will be pleased if you
would kindly aid me in so doing. To begin with, I think I may broadly
state that chemistry, as the word was understood, completed its first
stage, or that of Analysis, about a hundred years ago, and then began
to attempt Synthesis, or the combination of the elements.’
‘It was at the same time,’ remarked the waiting-maid, ‘that the
elements were reduced to one.’
‘Quite right. One of the first results of Synthesis was to make not
only metals but all kinds of substances, including every variety of
food. For a long time men persisted--as many of the less educated still
do--in liking only imitations of what they had preferred in earlier
ages, such as meat and fish, or certain vegetables and fruits. I myself
have several times eaten mutton-chops, and once a roasted chicken, and,
I think, I once ate a pea.’
‘History repeats itself,’ mused Flaxius.
‘But in a very short time good palatable food was produced so cheaply,
and in such immense quantities, that finally every human being was
supplied for nothing with a daily ration; it being now the fundamental
law that all who are born are entitled to food, lodging, clothes, and
facilities for mental improvement and recreation.’
‘Did not this have the effect of creating a vast mass of idlers?’
inquired Flaxius.
‘My dear Master,’ remarked one of those present, ‘you will probably
have conjectured that during the past century history has been made
more rapidly, and the world has passed through more important changes
than it had during all its earlier period of warfare and theology, with
incoherent, spasmodic, or despairing struggles. We have had terrible
trials, and as yet are only beginning to realise what we have still to
do. In fact I often think that we have thus far done almost next to
nothing, with all our science, and that the one great glory of this our
century is that we have reduced a chaos to something like order, and
have produced a mere beginning from which those who are to succeed us
may proceed with something like union and mutual intelligence.’
There was a general murmur of approbation at these words, when Oakford
again spoke:
‘There was much idleness and more discontent than ever, more
complaining over dainty food, than there ever had been during famines
wherein thousands died of starvation; the reason being that those who
were the most intelligent and industrious could still earn more than
others and feed better. But man is really after all a working animal,
and as the grosser and more intolerable kinds of labour were relieved
by mechanical invention, and agriculture and raising animals gave way
to artificial food, and education and culture advanced, great changes
and improvements came about. And though, as I truly said, we are far
from being out of all these social troubles, we think we see our way
out, and have in the main succeeded in conquering those horrible pests
of poverty, dirt, disease and social discontent, which once raged so
terribly when you were formerly in the world. Even at the end of the
Nineteenth century, when there was such a sad period of pessimism and
doubt and despair, and such warring elements of labour and capital and
religion and politics, men had done great and good work, it would seem
as if by mere instinct to do good. Ay, it brought forth Evolution.
‘And Evolution, which had been conceived and born, as one may say, by
the _Natur-philosophie_ of Germany, was warmed to new life or re-born
in England by the genius of Darwin, Wallace and their supporters. From
the beginning, it in turn developed science, and science, technical
art. One of the first great inventions which followed the era of
synthesis in chemistry was this production of artificial food in vast
quantities at a very cheap rate. When attention was drawn to this,
chemists soon found out how to vary its texture or substance.’
‘That is to say,’ remarked one present, ‘that it was made like meat
or bread or vegetables to suit association of tastes. After a time
this association greatly diminished; but it was discarded with great
difficulty. People are so conservative as regards food and taste,
and so convinced that what _they_ are not accustomed to is unnatural
and vile, that it rose to the magnitude of a great national, or
rather world, question. But after a while the artificial food became
so palpably superior to the natural, both as to taste and uniform
wholesomeness, that the former had to give way. Now the poorest man
has by legal right a daily ration of food, such as a king would have
relished in the old time.
‘Then came another invention, which was simple enough, yet which had
great results. It was the production of cloth fabrics of all kinds, in
incredible quantity, very rapidly and at a very trifling cost.’
‘That sounds to me,’ replied Flaxius, ‘like what Tennyson called “a
fairy tale of science.” There was a story in the olden time in Florence
that a brownie or household goblin once served in a family, where he
did all the work--swept the rooms, cooked the dinner and played with
the children--for nothing.’
‘That I suppose,’ remarked the waiting-maid, illustrates the earlier or
theistic stage of society, and a Divine Providence.’
‘Ahem!’ coughed Flaxius. ‘Well, the goblin was greatly loved by the
eldest boy, Marco, who, observing that his elfin friend had only a red
cap and a tattered and very scanty shirt for apparel, had made and gave
to him a full suit of red velvet. Whereupon the goblin declared that as
he was now a fine gentleman, and had dreed his weird or served his time
out, he would work no more.’
‘I see,’ quoth the chambermaid. ‘That was the Church after it had
attained to violet robes and gold croziers with jewelled mitres, and
ceased to be useful.’
‘_Um!_ Well, the goblin ere departing gave Marco a stick, assuring
him that whenever he would say to it, “Stick, turn, _risvolge_!” or
“Unroll!” it would unroll cloth, velvet, lace, or any stuff, to any
extent. And by means of it, Marco fulfilled a government contract, and
supplied all the clothing for the Papal army in less than a quarter of
an hour, besides dressing up all his friends in purple and fine linen,
_ad infinitum_.’
There was a laugh at this, and Oakford said:
‘That story would not astonish any child of this generation, for we can
really roll out cloth with as great rapidity. What is to me utterly
incomprehensible, is that people who knew enough to make even such
simple toys as steam-engines and telephones, did not begin long before
by making cheap cloth. In fact I am astonished that the man who had the
wit to make that tale had not the sense to learn from it how it could
be done. Why, the very roller suggests the whole. For even then men
knew how to make paper by the mile, and also felt, and the step from
these to fibrous and cloth-like stuffs was extremely simple. However it
really required the great discovery of making _fibrine_, which followed
immediately after that of the nature, identity and relative conditions
of inorganic and organic substance. After that, people spun all kinds
of fibre out of anything. Now clothing, like food, is supplied from the
government manufactory gratis to everybody; the result having been to
destroy the vanity of dress or ostentation of mere clothing, for now
that gold and diamonds are cheap, and everything can be made, we have
very different ambitions.
‘Perhaps the greatest factor in producing our present state of society
has been _Aerostation_ by flying-machines. The first were so rudely
constructed that it is said that every other man who used one lost
his life by it. This proved to be such an extraordinary attraction to
Americans that they all went in like lunatics for flying. They flew
races, and fought duels in the air, and roamed all over the earth in
machines, in which no man now living would dare to go a rod. We have
specimens of them in our museums, and I have seen bold aeronauts stand
before them almost mute with horror. Even so Columbus ventured over the
Atlantic in a crazy little craft. Ah, Master Flaxius, you must have
seen awful deeds in your time, and marvellously bold men who had no
fear of death or suffering.
‘Yet pray observe, friend,’ he continued, ‘that we do not travel so
much to behold scenery or man as men did of old. For now, he who sits
in his study can see all things on earth and hear all distant sounds by
telegraph; in which art we are making every day new discoveries, even
to dispensing with wires, and seeing all the world while we sit still.’
‘I can hardly believe,’ remarked a lady present, ‘that there ever were
people who dared to travel night and day in steamboats, much more
in locomotive-trains. My blood almost curdles when I think of such
reckless, fiendish courage! But, I dare say,’ she added after a pause,
‘it was only the madly-brave, like the Berserkers of an early age, who
really did such things out of bravado. Master,’ she suddenly exclaimed,
‘did you ever _see_ a locomotive?’
‘Truly,’ exclaimed Flaxius, ‘I travelled in my time during nearly a
century many thousands of miles in such trains, with ladies as gentle
as yourself, to say nothing of innumerable maids and children, but
none of us ever imagined that we were doing anything remarkably brave.
But I believe,’ he added, ‘that any of my companions would have been
terrified at the idea of flying through the air like sky-rockets as you
do.’
‘Ah!’ exclaimed the waiting-maid, ‘but _that_ is a very different
thing.’
‘Ah, h’m!’ mused Flaxius. ‘Women with all their science still retain
certain traces of their primeval savage logic--or nature.’
‘After the first stages,’ resumed Oakford, ‘when the flying-machine
was very much improved, and made very cheap, it was at first terribly
abused. Thieves pounced down like hawks on property, and with the
vehicle to carry two or three, an era of abduction and elopements
with women began. Then there was organised a grand World Detective
Flying Association, which pursued thieves into the very depths of
Greenland, or Thibet, or anywhere else; the result being that in the
end the dangerous classes were almost extirpated. For when they became
dangerous to everybody, instead of to a few, there was a general war on
them.’
‘And the abductions and elopements?’ inquired the Sage.
‘Well, Society found itself obliged to compromise a little on _that_
question, which I must freely admit is in rather a dubious condition
even at the present day. While the rights of persons and things to
immunity from attack are more strictly observed than ever, it has
in due proportion been discovered that conventional and sentimental
rights or wrongs disappear with great rapidity among cosmopolites, and
that the emancipated woman claims the same privileges as man. Still,
on the whole, from all that I have learned in books, we get on far
more peaceably and pleasantly than you did in the days of duels and
divorce-courts, and all that. When people have nothing to do but fly
away like birds in order to part, divorce becomes too easy, and so
they end by pairing like birds. Those who have a turn for a kind of
domestic life and families--and they are in a great majority--follow
it; and those who have not, do pretty much as they like, and are left
alone unnoticed. Society gladly takes care of all the foundlings--very
good care indeed--and it is a fact that while there was at first a very
great increase in the number of such children they are now diminishing
very rapidly.’
‘About ten per cent. per annum,’ remarked a lady.
‘And last year nine and four-sevenths diminution,’ added the
waiting-girl.