THE COMMENCEMENT OF WONDERS, WHICH ARE THE MORE EXTRAORDINARY ON
ACCOUNT OF THEIR TRUTH.
I dare say my head had been on the pillow fully an hour before sleep
closed my eyes. During this time I had abundant occasion to understand
the activity of what are called the “busy thoughts.” Mine were
feverish, glowing, and restless. They wandered over a wild field; one
that included Anna, with her beauty, her mild truth, her womanly
softness, and her womanly cruelty; Captain Poke and his peculiar
opinions; the amiable family of quadrupeds and their wounded
sensibilities; the excellences of the social-stake system; and, in
short, most of that which I had seen and heard during the last
four-and-twenty hours. When sleep did tardily arrive, it overtook me at
the very moment that I had inwardly vowed to forget my heartless
mistress, and to devote the remainder of my life to the promulgation of
the doctrine of the
expansive-super-human-generalized-affection-principle, to the utter
exclusion of all narrow and selfish views, and in which I resolved to
associate myself with Mr. Poke, as with one who had seen a great deal
of this earth and its inhabitants, without narrowing down his
sympathies in favor of any one place or person in particular,
Stunin’tun and himself very properly excepted.
It was broad daylight when I awoke on the following morning. My spirits
were calmed by rest, and my nerves had been soothed by the balmy
freshness of the atmosphere. It appeared that my valet had entered and
admitted the morning air, and then had withdrawn as usual to await the
signal of the bell before he presumed to reappear. I lay many minutes
in delicious repose, enjoying the periodical return of life and reason,
bringing with it the pleasures of thought and its ten thousand
agreeable associations. The delightful reverie into which I was
insensibly dropping was, however, ere long arrested by low, murmuring,
and, as I thought, plaintive voices at no great distance from my own
bed. Seating myself erect, I listened intently and with a good deal of
surprise; for it was not easy to imagine whence sounds so unusual for
that place and hour could proceed. The discourse was earnest and even
animated; but it was carried on in so low a tone that it would have
been utterly inaudible but for the deep quiet of the hotel.
Occasionally a word reached my ear, and I was completely at fault in
endeavoring to ascertain even the language. That it was in neither of
the five great European tongues I was certain, for all these I either
spoke or read; and there were particular sounds and inflections that
induced me to think that it savored of the most ancient of the two
classics. It is true that the prosody of these dialects, at the same
time that it is a shibboleth of learning, is a disputed point, the very
sounds of the vowels even being a matter of national convention; the
Latin word dux, for instance, being ducks in England, docks in Italy,
and dukes in France: yet there is a ‘je ne sais quoi,’ a delicacy in
the auricular taste of a true scholar, that will rarely lead him astray
when his ears are greeted with words that have been used by Demosthenes
or Cicero. [Footnote: Or Chichero, or Kickero, whichever may happen to
suit the prejudices of the reader.] In the present instance I
distinctly heard the word my-bom-y-nos-fos-kom-i-ton, which I made sure
was a verb in the dual number and second person, of a Greek root, but
of a signification that I could not on the instant master, but which
beyond a question every scholar will recognize as having a strong
analogy to a well-known line in Homer. If I was puzzled with the
syllables that accidentally reached me, I was no less perplexed with
the intonations of the voices of the different speakers. While it was
easy to understand they were of the two sexes, they had no direct
affinity to the mumbling sibilations of the English, the vehement
monotony of the French, the gagging sonorousness of the Spaniards, the
noisy melody of the Italians, the ear-splitting octaves of the Germans,
or the undulating, head-over-heels enunciation of the countrymen of my
particular acquaintance Captain Noah Poke. Of all the living languages
of which I had any knowledge, the resemblance was nearer to the Danish
and Swedish than to any other; but I much doubted at the time I first
heard the syllables, and still question, if there is exactly such a
word as my-bom-y-nos-fos-kom-i-ton to be found in even either of those
tongues. I could no longer support the suspense. The classical and
learned doubts that beset me grew intensely painful; and arising with
the greatest caution, in order not to alarm the speakers, I prepared to
put an end to them all by the simple and natural process of actual
observation.
The voices came from the antechamber, the door of which was slightly
open. Throwing on a dressing-gown, and thrusting my feet into slippers,
I moved on tiptoe to the aperture, and placed my eye in such a
situation as enabled me to command a view of the persons of those who
were still earnestly talking in the adjoining room. All surprise
vanished the moment I found that the four monkeys were grouped in a
corner of the apartment, where they were carrying on a very animated
dialogue, the two oldest of the party (a male and a female) being the
principal speakers. It was not to be expected that even a graduate of
Oxford, although belonging to a sect so proverbial for classical lore
that many of them knew nothing else, could at the first hearing decide
upon the analogies and character of a tongue that is so little
cultivated even in that ancient sea of learning. Although I had now
certainly a direct clew to the root of the dialect of the speakers, I
found it quite impossible to get any useful acquaintance with the
general drift of what was passing among them. As they were my guests,
however, and might possibly be in want of some of the conveniences that
were necessary to their habits, or might even be suffering under still
graver embarrassments, I conceived it to be a duty to waive the
ordinary usages of society, and at once offer whatever it was in my
power to bestow, at the risk of interrupting concerns that they might
possibly wish to consider private. Using the precaution, therefore, to
make a little noise, as the best means of announcing my approach, the
door was gently opened, and I presented myself to view. At first I was
a little at a loss in what manner to address the strangers; but
believing that a people who spoke a language so difficult of utterance
and so rich as that I had just heard, like those who use dialects
derived from the Slavonian root, were most probably the masters of all
others; and remembering, moreover, that French was a medium of thought
among all polite people, I determined to have recourse to that tongue.
“Messieurs et mesdames,” I said, inclining my body in salutation,
“mille pardons four cette intrusion feu convenable”—but as I am writing
in English it may be well to translate the speeches as I proceed;
although I abandon with regret the advantage of going through them
literally, and in the appropriate dialect in which they were originally
spoken.
“Gentlemen and ladies,” I said, inclining my body in salutation, “I ask
a thousand pardons for this inopportune intrusion on your retirement;
but overhearing a few of what I much fear are but too well-grounded
complaints, touching the false position in which you are placed as the
occupant of this apartment, and in that light your host, I have
ventured to approach, with no other desire than the wish that you would
make me the repository of all your griefs, in order, if possible, that
they may be repaired as soon as circumstances shall in any manner
allow.”
The strangers were very naturally a little startled at my unexpected
appearance, and at the substance of what I had just said. I observed
that the two ladies were apparently in some slight degree even
distressed, the younger turning her head on one side in maiden modesty,
while the elder, a duenna sort of looking person, dropped her eyes to
the floor, but succeeded in better maintaining her self-possession and
gravity. The eldest of the two gentlemen approached me with dignified
composure, after a moment of hesitation, and returning my salute by
waving his tail with singular grace and decorum, he answered as
follows. I may as well state in this place that he spoke the French
about as well as an Englishman who has lived long enough on the
continent to fancy he can travel in the provinces without being
detected for a foreigner. Au reste, his accent was slightly Russian,
and his enunciation whistling and harmonious. The females, especially
in some of the lower keys of their voices, made sounds not unlike the
sighing tones of the Eolian harp. It was really a pleasure to hear
them; but I have often had occasion to remark that, in every country
but one, which I do not care to name, the language when uttered by the
softer sex takes new charms, and is rendered more delightful to the
ear.
“Sir,” said the stranger, when he had done waving his tail, “I should
do great injustice to my feelings, and to the monikin character in
general, were I to neglect expressing some small portion of the
gratitude I feel on the present occasion. Destitute, houseless,
insulted wanderers and captives, fortune has at length shed a ray of
happiness on our miserable condition, and hope begins to shine through
the cloud of our distress, like a passing gleam of the sun. From my
very tail, sir, in my own name and in that of this excellent and most
prudent matron, and in those of these two noble and youthful lovers, I
thank you. Yes! honorable and humane being of the genus homo, species
Anglicus, we all return our most tail-felt acknowledgments of your
goodness!”
Here the whole party gracefully bent the ornaments in question over
their heads, touching their receding foreheads with the several tips,
and bowed. I would have given ten thousand pounds at that moment to
have had a good investment in tails, in order to emulate their form of
courtesy; but naked, shorn, and destitute as I was, with a feeling of
humility I was obliged to put my head a little on one shoulder and give
the ordinary English bob, in return for their more elaborate
politeness.
“If I were merely to say, sir,” I continued, when the opening
salutations were thus properly exchanged, “that I am charmed at this
accidental interview, the word would prove very insufficient to express
my delight. Consider this hotel as your own; its domestics as your
domestics; its stores of condiments as your stores of condiments, and
its nominal tenant as your most humble servant and friend. I have been
greatly shocked at the indignities to which you have hitherto been
exposed, and now promise you liberty, kindness, and all those
attentions to which it is very apparent you are fully entitled by your
birth, breeding, and the delicacy of your sentiments. I congratulate
myself a thousand times for having been so fortunate as to make your
acquaintance. My greatest desire has always been to stimulate the
sympathies; but until to-day various accidents have confined the
cultivation of this heaven-born property in a great measure to my own
species; I now look forward, however, to a delicious career of new-born
interests in the whole of the animal creation, I need scarcely say in
that of quadrupeds of your family in particular.”
“Whether we belong to the class of quadrupeds or not, is a question
that has a good deal embarrassed our own savans” returned the stranger.
“There is an ambiguity in our physical action that renders the point a
little questionable; and therefore, I think, the higher castes of our
natural philosophers rather prefer classing the entire monikin species,
with all its varieties, as caudae-jactans, or tail-wavers; adopting the
term from the nobler part of the animal formation. Is not this the
better opinion at home, my Lord Chatterino?” he asked, turning to the
youth, who stood respectfully at his side.
“Such, I believe, my dear Doctor, was the last classification
sanctioned by the academy,” the young noble replied, with a readiness
that proved him to be both well-informed and intelligent, and at the
same time with a reserve of manner that did equal credit to his modesty
and breeding. “The question of whether we are or are not bipeds has
greatly agitated the schools for more than three centuries.”
“The use of this gentleman’s name,” I hastily rejoined, “my dear sir,
reminds me that we are but half acquainted with each other. Permit me
to waive ceremony, and to announce myself at once as Sir John
Goldencalf, Baronet, of Householder Hall, in the kingdom of Great
Britain, a poor admirer of excellence wherever it is to be found, or
under whatever form, and a devotee of the system of the
‘social-stake.’”
“I am happy to be admitted to the honor of this formal introduction,
Sir John. In return I beg you will suffer me to say that this young
nobleman is, in our own dialect, No. 6, purple; or, to translate the
appellation, my Lord Chat-terino. This young lady is No. 4, violet, or,
my Lady Chatterissa. This excellent and prudent matron is No.
4,626,243, russet, or, Mistress Vigilance Lynx, to translate her
appellation also into the English tongue; and that I am No. 22,817,
brown-study color, or, Dr. Reasono, to give you a literal signification
of my name—a poor disciple of the philosophers of our race, an LL.D.,
and a F.U.D.G.E., the travelling tutor of this heir of one of the most
illustrious and the most ancient houses of the island of Leaphigh, in
the monikin section of mortality.”
“Every syllable, learned Dr. Reasono, that falls from your revered lips
only whets curiosity and adds fuel to the flame of desire, tempting me
to inquire further into your private history, your future intentions,
the polity of your species, and all those interesting topics that will
readily suggest themselves to one of your quick apprehension and
extensive acquirements. I dread being thought indiscreet, and yet,
putting yourself in my position, I trust you will overlook a wish so
natural and so ardent.”
“Apology is unnecessary, Sir John, and nothing would afford me greater
satisfaction than to answer any and every inquiry you may be disposed
to make.”
“Then, sir, to cut short all useless circumlocution, suffer me to ask
at once an explanation of the system of enumeration by which you
indicate individuals? You are called No. 22,817, brown-study color—”
“Or Dr. Reasono. As you are an Englishman, you will perhaps understand
me better if I refer to a recent practice of the new London police. You
may have observed that the men wear letters in red or white, and
numbers on the capes of their coats. By the letters the passenger can
refer to the company of the officer, while the number indicates the
individual. Now, the idea of this improvement came, I make no doubt,
from our system, under which society is divided into castes, for the
sake of harmony and subordination, and these castes are designated by
colors and shades of colors that are significant of their stations and
pursuits—the individual, as in the new police, being known by the
number. Our own language being exceedingly sententious, is capable of
expressing the most elaborate of these combinations in a very few
sounds. I should add that there is no difference in the manner of
distinguishing the sexes, with the exception that each is numbered
apart, and each has a counterpart color to that of the same caste in
the other sex. Thus purple and violet are both noble, the former being
masculine and the latter feminine, and russet being the counterpart of
brown-study color.”
“And—excuse my natural ardor to know more—and do you bear these numbers
and colors marked on your attire in your own region?”
“As for attire, Sir John, the monikins are too highly improved,
mentally and physically, to need any. It is known that in all cases
extremes meet. The savage is nearer to nature than the merely civilized
being, and the creature that has passed the mystifications of a middle
state of improvement finds himself again approaching nearer to the
habits, the wishes, and the opinions of our common mother. As the real
gentleman is more simple in manners than the distant imitator of his
deportment; as fashions and habits are always more exaggerated in
provincial towns than in polished capitals; or as the profound
philosopher has less pretensions than the tyro, so does our common
genus, as it draws nearer to the consummation of its destiny and its
highest attainments, learn to reject the most valued usages of the
middle condition, and to return with ardor towards nature as to a first
love. It is on this principle, sir, that the monikin family never wear
clothes.”
“I could not but perceive that the ladies have manifested some
embarrassment ever since I entered—is it possible that their delicacy
has taken the alarm at the state of my toilet?”
“At the toilet itself, Sir John, rather than at its state, if I must
speak plainly. The female mind, trained as it is with us from infancy
upwards in the habits and usages of nature, is shocked by any departure
from her rules. You will know how to make allowances for the
squeamishness of the sex, for I believe it is much alike in this
particular, let it come from what quarter of the earth it may.”
“I can only excuse the seeming want of politeness by my ignorance, Dr.
Reasono. Before I ask another question the oversight shall be repaired.
I must retire into my own chamber for an instant, gentlemen and ladies,
and I beg you will find such sources of amusement as first offer until
I can return. There are nuts, I believe, in this closet; sugar is
usually kept on that table, and perhaps the ladies might find some
relaxation by exercising themselves on the chairs. In a single moment I
shall be with you again.”
Hereupon I withdrew into my bed-chamber, and began to lay aside the
dressing-gown as well as my shirt. Remembering, however, that I was but
too liable to colds in the head, I returned to ask Dr. Reasono to step
in where I was for an instant. On mentioning the difficulty, this
excellent person assumed the office of preparing his female friends to
overlook the slight innovation of my still wearing the nightcap and
slippers.
“The ladies would think nothing of it,” the philosopher good-humoredly
remarked, by way of lessening my regrets at having wounded their
sensibilities, “were you even to appear in a military cloak and Hessian
boots, provided it was not thought that you were of their acquaintance
and in their immediate society. I think you must have often remarked
among the sex of your own species, who are frequently quite indifferent
to nudities (their prejudices running counter to ours) that appear in
the streets, but which would cause them instantly to run out of the
room when exhibited in the person of an acquaintance; these
conventional asides being tolerated everywhere by a judicious
concession of punctilios that might otherwise become insupportable.”
“The distinction is too reasonable to require another word of
explanation, dear sir. Now let us rejoin the ladies, since I am at
length in some degree fit to be seen.”
I was rewarded for this bit of delicate attention by an approving smile
from the lovely Chatterissa, and good Mistress Lynx no longer kept her
eyes riveted on the floor, but bent them on me with looks of admiration
and gratitude.
“Now that this little contre-temps is no longer an obstacle,” I
resumed, “permit me to continue those inquiries which you have hitherto
answered with so much amenity and so satisfactorily. As you have no
clothes, in what manner is the parallel between your usage and that of
the new London police practically completed?”
“Although we have no clothes, nature, whose laws are never violated
with impunity, but who is as beneficent as she is absolute, has
furnished us with a downy covering to supply their places wherever
clothes are needed for comfort. We have coats that defy fashions,
require no tailors, and never lose their naps. But it would be
inconvenient to be totally clad in this manner; and, therefore, the
palms of the hands are, as you see, ungloved; the portions of the frame
on which we seat ourselves are left uncovered, most probably lest some
inconvenience should arise from taking accidental and unfavorable
positions. This is the part of the monikin frame the best adapted for
receiving paint, and the numbers of which I have spoken are
periodically renewed there, at public offices appointed for that
purpose. Our characters are so minute as to escape the human eye; but
by using that opera-glass, I make no doubt that you may still see some
of my own enregistration, although, alas! unusual friction, great
misery, and, I may say, unmerited wrongs, have nearly un-monikined me
in this, as well as in various other particulars.”
As Dr. Reasono had the complaisance to turn round, and to use his tail
like the index of a black-board, by aid of the glass I very distinctly
traced the figures to which he alluded. Instead of being in paint,
however, as he had given me reason to anticipate, they seemed to be
branded, or burnt in, indelibly, as we commonly mark horses, thieves,
and negroes. On mentioning the fact to the philosopher, it was
explained with his usual facility and politeness.
“You are quite right, sir,” he said; “the omission of paint was to
prevent tautology, an offence against the simplicity of the monikin
dialect, as well as against monikin taste, that would have been
sufficient, under our opinions, even to overturn the government.”
“Tautology!”
“Tautology, Sir John; on examining the background of the picture, you
will perceive that it is already of a dusky, sombre hue; now, this
being of a meditative and grave character, has been denominated by our
academy the ‘brown-study color’; and it would clearly have been
supererogatory to lay the same tint upon it. No, sir; we avoid
repetitions even in our prayers, deeming them to be so many proofs of
an illogical and of an anti-consecutive mind.”
“The system is admirable, and I see new beauties at each moment. You
enjoy the advantage, for instance, under this mode of enumeration, of
knowing your acquaintances from behind, quite as well as if you met
them face to face!”
“The suggestion is ingenious, showing an active and an observant mind;
but it does not quite reach the motive of the
politico-numerical-identity system of which we are speaking. The
objects of this arrangement are altogether of a higher and more useful
nature; nor do we usually recognize our friends by their countenances,
which at the best are no more than so many false signals, but by their
tails.”
“This is admirable! What a facility you possess for recognizing an
acquaintance who may happen to be up a tree! But may I presume to
inquire, Dr. Reasono, what are the most approved of the advantages of
the politico-numerical-identity system? For impatience is devouring my
vitals.”
“They are connected with the interests of government. You know, sir,
that society is established for the purposes of governments, and
governments, themselves, mainly to facilitate contributions and
taxations. Now, by the numerical system, we have every opportunity of
including the whole monikin race in the collections, as they are
periodically checked off by their numbers. The idea was a happy thought
of an eminent statistician of ours, who gained great credit at court by
the invention, and, in fact, who was admitted to the academy in
consequence of its ingenuity.”
“Still it must be admitted, my dear Doctor,” put in Lord Chatterino,
always with the modesty, and, perhaps I might add, with the generosity
of youth, “that there are some among us who deny that society was made
for governments, and who maintain that governments were made for
society; or, in other words, for monikins.”
“Mere theorists, my good lord; and their opinions, even if true, are
never practised on. Practice is everything in political matters; and
theories are of no use, except as they confirm practice.”
“Both theory and practice are perfect,” I cried, “and I make no doubt
that the classification into colors, or castes, enables the authorities
to commence the imposts with the richest, or the ‘purples.’”
“Sir, monikin prudence never lays the foundation-stone at the summit;
it seeks the base of the edifice; and as contributions are the walls of
society, we commence with the bottom. When you shall know us better,
Sir John Goldencalf, you will begin to comprehend the beauty and
benevolence of the entire monikin economy.”
I now adverted to the frequent use of this word “monikin”; and,
admitting my ignorance, desired an explanation of the term, as well as
a more general insight into the origin, history, hopes, and polity of
the interesting strangers; if they can be so called who were already so
well known to me. Dr. Reasono admitted that the request was natural and
was entitled to respect; but he delicately suggested the necessity of
sustaining the animal function by nutriment, intimating that the ladies
had supped but in an indifferent way the evening before, and
acknowledging that, philosopher as he was, he should go through the
desired explanations after improving the slight acquaintance he had
already made with certain condiments in one of the armoires, with far
more zeal and point, than could possibly be done in the present state
of his appetite. The suggestion was so very plausible that there was no
resisting it; and, suppressing my curiosity as well as I could, the
bell was rung. I retired to my bed-chamber to resume so much of my
attire as was necessary to the semi-civilization of man, and then the
necessary orders were given to the domestics, who, by the way, were
suffered to remain under the influence of those ordinary and vulgar
prejudices that are pretty generally entertained by the human, against
the monikin family.
Previously to separating from my new friend Dr. Reasono, however, I
took him aside, and stated that I had an acquaintance in the hotel, a
person of singular philosophy, after the human fashion, and a great
traveller; and that I desired permission to let him into the secret of
our intended lecture on the monikin economy, and to bring him with me
as an auditor. To this request, No. 22,817, brown-study color, or Dr.
Reasono, gave a very cordial assent; hinting delicately, at the same
time, his expectation that this new auditor, who, of course, was no
other than Captain Noah Poke, would not deem it disparaging to his
manhood, to consult the sensibilities of the ladies, by appearing in
the garments of that only decent and respectable tailor and draper,
nature. To this suggestion I gave a ready approval; when each went his
way, after the usual salutations of bowing and tail-waving, with a
mutual promise of being punctual to the appointment.