SOME EXPLANATIONS—A HUMAN APPETITE—A DINNER AND A BONNE BOUCHE.
The brigadier and myself remained behind to discuss the general
bearings of this unexpected event.
“Your rigid demand for motives, my good sir,” I remarked, “reduces the
Leaplow political morality very much, after all, to the level of the
social-stake system of our part of the world.”
“They both depend on the crutch of personal Interests, it is true;
though there is, between them, the difference of the interests of a
part and of the interests of the whole.”
“And could a part act less commendably than the whole appear to have
acted in this instance?”
“You forget that Leaplow, just at this moment, is under a moral
eclipse. I shall not say that these eclipses do not occur often, but
they occur quite as frequently in other parts of the region, as they
occur here. We have three great modes of controlling monikin affairs,
viz., the one, the few, and the many—”
“Precisely the same classification exists among men!” I interrupted.
“Some of our improvements are reflected backward; twilight following as
well as preceding the passage of the sun,” quite coolly returned the
brigadier. “We think that the many come nearest to balancing the evil,
although we are far from believing even them to be immaculate.
Admitting that the tendencies to wrong are equal in the three systems
(which we do not, however, for we think our own has the least), it is
contended that the many escape one great source of oppression and
injustice, by escaping the onerous provisions which physical weakness
is compelled to make, in order to protect itself against physical
strength.”
“This is reversing a very prevalent opinion among men, sir, who usually
maintain that the tyranny of the many is the worst sort of all
tyrannies.”
“This opinion has got abroad simply because the lion has not been
permitted to draw his own picture. As cruelty is commonly the
concomitant of cowardice, so is oppression nine times out of ten the
result of weakness. It is natural for the few to dread the many, while
it is not natural for the many to dread the few. Then, under
institutions in which the many rule, certain great principles that are
founded on natural justice, as a matter of course, are openly
recognized; and it is rare, indeed, that they do not, more or less,
influence the public acts. On the other hand, the control of a few
requires that these same truths should be either mystified or entirely
smothered: and the consequence is injustice.”
“But, admitting all your maxims, brigadier, as regards the few and the
many, you must yourself allow that here, in your beloved Leaplow
itself, monikins consult their own interests; and this, after all, is
acting on the fundamental principle of the great European social-stake
system.”
“Meaning that the goods of the world ought to be the test of political
power. By the sad confusion which exists among us, at this moment, Sir
John, you must perceive that we are not exactly under the most salutary
of all possible influences. I take it that the great desideratum of
society is to be governed by certain great moral truths. The inferences
and corollaries of these truths are principles, which come of heaven.
Now, agreeably to the monikin dogmas, the love of money is ‘of the
earth, earthy’; and, at the first blush, it would not seem to be quite
safe to receive such an inducement as the governing motive of one
monikin, and, by a pretty fair induction, it would seem to be equally
unwise to admit it for a good many. You will remember, also, that when
none but the rich have authority, they control not only their own
property, but that of others who have less. Your principle supposes,
that in taking care of his own, the elector of wealth must take care of
what belongs to the rest of the community; but our experience shows
that a monikin can be particularly careful of himself, and singularly
negligent of his neighbor. Therefore do we hold that money is a bad
foundation for power.”
“You unsettle everything, brigadier, without finding a substitute.”
“Simply because it is easy to unsettle everything and very difficult to
find substitutes. But, as respects the base of society, I merely doubt
the wisdom of setting up a qualification that we all know depends on an
unsound principle. I much fear, Sir John, that, so long as monikins are
monikins, we shall never be quite perfect; and as to your social-stake
system, I am of opinion that as society is composed of all, it may be
well to hear what all have to say about its management.”
“Many men, and, I dare say, many monikins, are not to be trusted even
with the management of their own concerns.”
“Very true; but it does not follow that other men, or other monikins,
will lose sight of their own interests on this account, if vested with
the right to act as their substitutes. You have been long enough a
legislator, now, to have got some idea how difficult it is to make even
a direct and responsible representative respect entirely the interests
and wishes of his constituents; and the fact will show you how little
he will be likely to think of others, who believes that he acts as
their master and not as their servant.”
“The amount of all this, brigadier, is that you have little faith in
monikin disinterestedness, in any shape; that you believe he who is
intrusted with power will abuse it; and therefore, you choose to divide
the trust, in order to divide the abuses; that the love of money is an
‘earthy’ quality, and not to be confided in as the controlling power of
a state; and, finally, that the social-stake system is radically wrong,
inasmuch as it is no more than carrying out a principle that is in
itself defective.”
My companion gaped, like one content to leave the matter there. I
wished him a good morning, and walked upstairs in quest of Noah, whose
carnivorous looks had given me considerable uneasiness. The captain was
out; and, after searching for him in the streets for an hour or two, I
returned to our abode fatigued and hungry.
At no great distance from our own door, I met Judge People’s Friend,
shorn and dejected, and I stopped to say a kind word, before going up
the ladder. It was quite impossible to see a gentleman, whom one had
met in good society and in better fortunes, with every hair shaved from
his body, his apology for a tail still sore from its recent amputation,
and his entire mien expressive of republican humility, without a desire
to condole with him. I expressed my regrets, therefore, as succinctly
as possible, encouraging him with the hope of seeing a new covering of
down before long, but delicately abstaining from any allusion to the
cauda, whose loss I knew was irretrievable. To my great surprise,
however, the judge answered cheerfully; discarding, for the moment,
every appearance of self-abasement and mortification.
“How is this?” I cried; “you are not then miserable?”
“Very far from it, Sir John—I never was in better spirits, or had
better prospects, in my life.”
I remembered the extraordinary manner in which the brigadier had saved
Noah’s head, and was fully resolved not to be astonished at any
manifestation of monikin ingenuity. Still I could not forbear demanding
an explanation.
“Why, it may seem odd to you, Sir John, to find a politician, who is
apparently in the depths of despair, really on the eve of a glorious
preferment. Such, however, is in fact my case. In Leaplow, humility is
everything. The monikin who will take care and repeat sufficiently
often that he is just the poorest devil going, that he is absolutely
unfit for even the meanest employment in the land, and in other
respects ought to be hooted out of society, may very safely consider
himself in a fair way to be elevated to some of the dignities he
declares himself the least fitted to fill.”
“In such a case, all he will have to do then, will be to make his
choice, and denounce himself loudest touching his especial
disqualifications for that very station?”
“You are apt, Sir John, and would succeed, if you would only consent to
remain among us!” said the judge, winking.
“I begin to see into your management—after all, you are neither
miserable nor ashamed?”
“Not the least in the world. It is of more importance for monikins of
my calibre to seem to be anything than to be it. My fellow-citizens are
usually satisfied with this sacrifice; and, now principle is eclipsed,
nothing is easier.”
“But how happens it, judge, that one of your surprising dexterity and
agility should be caught tripping? I had thought you particularly
expert, and infallible in all the gyrations. Perhaps the little affair
of the cauda has leaked out?”
The judge laughed in my face.
“I see you know little of us, after all, Sir John. Here have we
proscribed caudae, as anti-republican, both public opinions setting
their faces against them; and yet a monikin may wear one abroad a mile
long with impunity if he will just submit to a new dock when he comes
home, and swear that he is the most miserable wretch going. If he can
throw in a favorable word, too, touching the Leaplow cats and dogs—Lord
bless you, sir! they would pardon treason!”
“I begin to comprehend your policy, judge, if not your polity. Leaplow
being a popular government, it becomes necessary that its public agents
should be popular too. Now, as monikins naturally delight in their own
excellences, nothing so disposes them to give credit to another, as his
professions that he is worse than themselves.”
The judge nodded and grinned.
“But another word, dear sir—as you feel yourself constrained to commend
the cats and dogs of Leaplow, do you belong to that school of
philocats, who take their revenge for their amenity to the quadrupeds,
by berating their fellow-creatures?”
The judge started, and glanced about him as if he dreaded a
thief-taker. Then earnestly imploring me to respect his situation, he
added in a whisper, that the subject of the people was sacred with him,
that he rarely spoke of them without a reverence, and that his
favorable sentiments in relation to the cats and dogs were not
dependent on any particular merits of the animals themselves, but
merely because they were the people’s cats and dogs. Fearful that I
might say something still more disagreeable, the judge hastened to take
his leave, and I never saw him afterward. I make no doubt, however,
that in good time his hair grew as he grew again into favor, and that
he found the means to exhibit the proper length of tail on all suitable
occasions.
A crowd in the street now caught my attention. On approaching it, a
colleague who was there was kind enough to explain its cause.
It would seem that certain Leaphighers had been travelling in Leaplow;
and, not satisfied with this liberty, they had actually written books
concerning things that they had seen, and things that they had not
seen. As respects the latter, neither of the public opinions was very
sensitive, although many of them reflected on the Great National
Allegory and the sacred rights of monikins; but as respects the former,
there was a very lively excitement. These writers had the audacity to
say that the Leaplowers had cut off all their caudae, and the whole
community was convulsed at an outrage so unprecedented. It was one
thing to take such a step, and another to have it proclaimed to the
world in books. If the Leaplowers had no tails, it was clearly their
own fault. Nature had formed them with tails. They had bobbed
themselves on a republican principle; and no one’s principles ought to
be thrown into his face, in this rude manner, more especially during a
moral eclipse.
The dispensers of the essence of lopped tails threatened vengeance;
caricaturists were put in requisition; some grinned, some menaced, some
swore, and all read!
I left the crowd, taking the direction of my door again, pondering on
this singular state of society, in which a peculiarity that had been
deliberately and publicly adopted, should give rise to a sensitiveness
of a character so unusual. I very well knew that men are commonly more
ashamed of natural imperfections than those which, in a great measure,
depend on themselves; but then men are, in their own estimation at
least, placed by nature at the head of creation, and in that capacity
it is reasonable to suppose they will be jealous of their natural
privileges. The present case was rather Leaplow than generic; and I
could only account for it, by supposing that nature had placed certain
nerves in the wrong part of the Leaplow anatomy.
On entering the house, a strong smell of roasted meat saluted my
nostrils, causing a very unphilosophical pleasure to the olfactory
nerves, a pleasure which acted very directly, too, on the gastric
juices of the stomach. In plain English, I had very sensible evidence
that it was not enough to transport a man to the monikin region, send
him to parliament, and keep him on nuts for a week, to render him
exclusively ethereal, I found it was vain “to kick against the pricks.”
The odor of roasted meat was stronger than all the facts just named,
and I was fain to abandon philosophy, and surrender to the belly. I
descended incontinently to the kitchen, guided by a sense no more
spiritual than that which directs the hound in the chase.
On opening the door of our refectory, such a delicious perfume greeted
the nose, that I melted like a romantic girl at the murmur of a
waterfall, and, losing sight of all the sublime truths so lately
acquired, I was guilty of the particular human weakness which is
usually described as having the “mouth water.”
The sealer had quite taken leave of his monikin forbearance, and was
enjoying himself in a peculiarly human manner. A dish of roasted meat
was lying before him, and his eyes fairly glared as he turned them from
me to the viand, in a way to render it a little doubtful whether I was
a welcome visitor. But that honest old principle of seamen which never
refuses to share equally with an ancient mess-mate, got the better even
of his voracity.
“Sit down, Sir John,” the captain cried, without ceasing to masticate,
“and make no bones of it. To own the fact, the latter are almost as
good as the flesh. I never tasted a sweeter morsel!”
I did not wait for a second invitation, the reader may be sure; and in
less than ten minutes the dish was as clear as a table that had been
swept by harpies. As this work is intended for one in which truth is
rigidly respected, I shall avow that I do not remember any cultivation
of sentiment which gave me half so much satisfaction as that short and
hurried repast. I look back to it, even now, as to the very beau ideal
of a dinner! Its fault was in the quantity, and not in quality.
I gazed greedily about for more. Just then, I caught a glimpse of a
face that seemed looking at me with melancholy reproach. The truth
flashed upon me in a flood of horrible remorse. Rushing upon Noah like
a tiger, I seized him by the throat, and cried, in a voice of despair:
“Cannibal! what hast thou done?”
“Loosen your grip, Sir John—we do not relish these hugs at Stunin’tun.”
“Wretch! thou hast made me the participator of thy crime! We have eaten
Brigadier Downright.”
“Loosen, Sir John, or human natur’ will rebel.”
“Monster! give up thy unholy repast—dost not see a million reproaches
in the eyes of the innocent victim of thy insatiable appetites?”
“Cast off, Sir John, cast off, while we are friends, I care not if I
have swallowed all the brigadiers in Leaplow—off hands!”
“Never, monster! until thou disgorgest thy unholy meal!”
Noah could endure no more; but, seizing me by the throat, on the
retaliating principle, I soon had some such sensations as one would be
apt to feel if his gullet were in a vice. I shall not attempt to
describe very minutely the miracle that followed. Hanging ought to be
an effectual remedy for many delusions; for, in my case, the bowstring
I was under certainly did wonders in a very short time. Gradually the
whole scene changed. First came a mist, then a vertigo; and finally, as
the captain relaxed his hold, objects appeared in new forms, and
instead of being in our lodgings in Bivouac, I found myself in my old
apartment in the Rue de Rivoli, Paris.
“King!” exclaimed Noah, who stood before me, red in the face with
exertion; “this is no boy’s play, and if it’s to be repeated, I shall
use a lashing! Where would be the harm, Sir John, if a man had eaten a
monkey?”
Astonishment kept me mute. Every object, just as I had left it the
morning we started for London, on our way to Leaphigh, was there. A
table, in the centre of the room, was covered with sheets of paper
closely written over, which, on examination, I found contained this
manuscript as far as the last chapter. Both the captain and myself were
attired as usual; I a la Parisien and he a la Stunin’tun. A small ship,
very ingeniously made, and very accurately rigged, lay on the floor,
with “Walrus” written on her stern. As my bewildered eye caught a
glimpse of this vessel, Noah informed me that, having nothing to do
except to look after my welfare (a polite way of characterizing his
ward over my person, as I afterward found), he had employed his leisure
in constructing the toy.
All was inexplicable. There was really the smell of meat. I had also
that peculiar sensation of fulness which is apt to succeed a dinner,
and a dish well filled with bones was in plain view. I took up one of
the latter, in order to ascertain its genus. The captain kindly
informed me that it was the remains of a pig, which had cost him a
great deal of trouble to obtain, as the French viewed the act of eating
a pig as very little less heinous than the act of eating a child.
Suspicions began to trouble me, and I now turned to look for the head
and reproachful eye of the brigadier.
The head was where I had just before seen it, visible over the top of a
trunk; but it was so far raised as to enable me to see that it was
still planted on its shoulders. A second look enabled me to distinguish
the meditative, philosophical countenance of Dr. Reasono, who was still
in the hussar-jacket and petticoat, though, being in the house, he had
very properly laid aside the Spanish hat with bedraggled feathers.
A movement followed in the antechamber, and a hurried conversation, in
a low, earnest tone, succeeded. The captain disappeared, and joined the
speakers. I listened intently, but could not catch any of the
intonations of a dialect founded on the decimal principle. Presently
the door opened, and Dr. Etherington stood before me!
The good divine regarded me long and earnestly. Tears filled his eyes,
and, stretching out both hands towards me, he asked:
“Do you know me, Jack?”
“Know you, dear sir!—Why should I not?”
“And do you forgive me, dear boy?”
“For what, sir?—I am sure, I have most reason to demand your pardon for
a thousand follies.”
“Ah! the letter—the unkind—the inconsiderate letter!”
“I have not had a letter from you, sir, in a twelvemonth; the last was
anything but unkind.”
“Though Anna wrote, it was at my dictation.”
I passed a hand over my brow, and had dawnings of the truth.
“Anna?”
“Is here—in Paris—and miserable—most miserable!—on your account.”
Every particle of monikinity that was left in my system instantly gave
way to a flood of human sensations.
“Let me fly to her, dear sir—a moment is an age!”
“Not just yet, my boy. We have much to say to each other, nor is she in
this hotel. To-morrow, when both are better prepared, you shall meet.”
“Add, never to separate, sir, and I will be patient as a lamb.”
“Never to separate, I believe it will be better to say.”
I hugged my venerable guardian, and found a delicious relief from a
most oppressive burden of sensations, in a flow of tears,
Dr. Etherington soon led me into a calmer tone of mind. In the course
of the day, many matters were discussed and settled. I was told that
Captain Poke had been a good nurse, though in a sealing fashion; and
that the least I could do was to send him back to Stunin’tun, free of
cost. This was agreed to, and the worthy but dogmatical mariner was
promised the means of fitting out a new “Debby and Dolly.”
“These philosophers had better be presented to some academy,” observed
the doctor, smiling, as he pointed to the family of amiable strangers,
“being already F. U. D. G. E.’s and H. O. A. X.’s. Mr. Reasono, in
particular, is unfit for ordinary society.”
“Do with them as you please, my more than father. Let the poor animals,
however, be kept from physical suffering.”
“Attention shall be paid to all their wants, both physical and moral.”
“And in a day or two, we shall proceed to the rectory?”
“The day after to-morrow, if you have strength.”
“And to-morrow?”
“Anna will see you.”
“And the next day?”
“Nay, not quite so soon, Jack; but the moment we think you perfectly
restored, she shall share your fortunes for the remainder of your
common probation.”