“Man's heart, and view the hell that's there!”
I hope I am quoting correctly, but I am more of a scholar in Wordsworth
than in Byron. Was Parson Young's own heart such a hideous spectacle to
himself?
If it was, he had better have stripped off his surplice. No,--it was
nothing but the cant of his calling. In Byron it was a mood, and he
might have said just the opposite thing the next day, as he did in his
two descriptions of the Venus de' Medici. That picture of old Matthew
abides in the memory, and makes one think better of his kind. What
nobler tasks has the poet than to exalt the idea of manhood, and to make
the world we live in more beautiful?
We have two or three young people with us who stand a fair chance of
furnishing us the element without which life and tea-tables alike are
wanting in interest. We are all, of course, watching them, and curious
to know whether we are to have a romance or not. Here is one of them;
others will show themselves presently.
I cannot say just how old the Tutor is, but I do not detect a gray hair
in his head. My sight is not so good as it was, however, and he may have
turned the sharp corner of thirty, and even have left it a year or two
behind him. More probably he is still in the twenties,--say twenty-eight
or twenty-nine. He seems young, at any rate, excitable, enthusiastic,
imaginative, but at the same time reserved. I am afraid that he is
a poet. When I say “I am afraid,” you wonder what I mean by the
expression. I may take another opportunity to explain and justify it; I
will only say now that I consider the Muse the most dangerous of sirens
to a young man who has his way to make in the world. Now this young
man, the Tutor, has, I believe, a future before him. He was born for a
philosopher,--so I read his horoscope,--but he has a great liking
for poetry and can write well in verse. We have had a number of poems
offered for our entertainment, which I have commonly been requested to
read. There has been some little mystery about their authorship, but
it is evident that they are not all from the same hand. Poetry is as
contagious as measles, and if a single case of it break out in any
social circle, or in a school, there are certain to be a number of
similar cases, some slight, some serious, and now and then one so
malignant that the subject of it should be put on a spare diet of
stationery, say from two to three penfuls of ink and a half sheet
of notepaper per diem. If any of our poetical contributions are
presentable, the reader shall have a chance to see them.
It must be understood that our company is not invariably made up of the
same persons. The Mistress, as we call her, is expected to be always in
her place. I make it a rule to be present. The Professor is almost
as sure to be at the table as I am. We should hardly know what to do
without Number Five. It takes a good deal of tact to handle such a
little assembly as ours, which is a republic on a small scale, for all
that they give me the title of Dictator, and Number Five is a great help
in every social emergency. She sees when a discussion tends to become
personal, and heads off the threatening antagonists. She knows when a
subject has been knocking about long enough and dexterously shifts the
talk to another track. It is true that I am the one most frequently
appealed to as the highest tribunal in doubtful cases, but I often care
more for Number Five's opinion than I do for my own. Who is this Number
Five, so fascinating, so wise, so full of knowledge, and so ready to
learn? She is suspected of being the anonymous author of a book which
produced a sensation when published, not very long ago, and which those
who read are very apt to read a second time, and to leave on their
tables for frequent reference. But we have never asked her. I do not
think she wants to be famous. How she comes to be unmarried is a mystery
to me; it must be that she has found nobody worth caring enough for.
I wish she would furnish us with the romance which, as I said, our
tea-table needs to make it interesting. Perhaps the new-comer will make
love to her,--I should think it possible she might fancy him.
And who is the new-comer? He is a Counsellor and a Politician. Has a
good war record. Is about forty-five years old, I conjecture. Is
engaged in a great law case just now. Said to be very eloquent. Has an
intellectual head, and the bearing of one who has commanded a regiment
or perhaps a brigade. Altogether an attractive person, scholarly,
refined has some accomplishments not so common as they might be in the
class we call gentlemen, with an accent on the word.
There is also a young Doctor, waiting for his bald spot to come, so that
he may get into practice.
We have two young ladies at the table,--the English girl referred to in
a former number, and an American girl of about her own age. Both of them
are students in one of those institutions--I am not sure whether they
call it an “annex” or not; but at any rate one of those schools
where they teach the incomprehensible sort of mathematics and other
bewildering branches of knowledge above the common level of high-school
education. They seem to be good friends, and form a very pleasing pair
when they walk in arm in arm; nearly enough alike to seem to belong
together, different enough to form an agreeable contrast.
Of course we were bound to have a Musician at our table, and we have
one who sings admirably, and accompanies himself, or one or more of our
ladies, very frequently.
Such is our company when the table is full. But sometimes only half a
dozen, or it may be only three or four, are present. At other times
we have a visitor or two, either in the place of one of our habitual
number, or in addition to it. We have the elements, we think, of
a pleasant social gathering,--different sexes, ages, pursuits, and
tastes,--all that is required for a “symphony concert” of conversation.
One of the curious questions which might well be asked by those who had
been with us on different occasions would be, “How many poets are there
among you?” Nobody can answer this question. It is a point of etiquette
with us not to press our inquiries about these anonymous poems too
sharply, especially if any of them betray sentiments which would not
bear rough handling.
I don't doubt that the different personalities at our table will get
mixed up in the reader's mind if he is not particularly clear-headed.
That happens very often, much oftener than all would be willing to
confess, in reading novels and plays. I am afraid we should get a good
deal confused even in reading our Shakespeare if we did not look back
now and then at the dramatis personae. I am sure that I am very apt to
confound the characters in a moderately interesting novel; indeed, I
suspect that the writer is often no better off than the reader in the
dreary middle of the story, when his characters have all made their
appearance, and before they have reached near enough to the denoument to
have fixed their individuality by the position they have arrived at in
the chain of the narrative.
My reader might be a little puzzled when he read that Number Five did or
said such or such a thing, and ask, “Whom do you mean by that title? I
am not quite sure that I remember.” Just associate her with that line of
Emerson,
“Why nature loves the number five,”
and that will remind you that she is the favorite of our table.
You cannot forget who Number Seven is if I inform you that he specially
prides himself on being a seventh son of a seventh son. The fact of
such a descent is supposed to carry wonderful endowments with it.
Number Seven passes for a natural healer. He is looked upon as a kind of
wizard, and is lucky in living in the nineteenth century instead of the
sixteenth or earlier. How much confidence he feels in himself as the
possessor of half-supernatural gifts I cannot say. I think his peculiar
birthright gives him a certain confidence in his whims and fancies which
but for that he would hardly feel. After this explanation, when I speak
of Number Five or Number Seven, you will know to whom I refer.
The company are very frank in their criticisms of each other. “I did not
like that expression of yours, planetary foundlings,” said the Mistress.
“It seems to me that it is too like atheism for a good Christian like
you to use.”
Ah, my dear madam, I answered, I was thinking of the elements and the
natural forces to which man was born an almost helpless subject in
the rudimentary stages of his existence, and from which he has only
partially got free after ages upon ages of warfare with their tyranny.
Think what hunger forced the caveman to do! Think of the surly
indifference of the storms that swept the forest and the waters, the
earthquake chasms that engulfed him, the inundations that drowned him
out of his miserable hiding-places, the pestilences that lay in wait for
him, the unequal strife with ferocious animals! I need not sum up all
the wretchedness that goes to constitute the “martyrdom of man.” When
our forefathers came to this wilderness as it then was, and found
everywhere the bones of the poor natives who had perished in the great
plague (which our Doctor there thinks was probably the small-pox), they
considered this destructive malady as a special mark of providential
favor for them. How about the miserable Indians? Were they anything but
planetary foundlings? No! Civilization is a great foundling hospital,
and fortunate are all those who get safely into the creche before the
frost or the malaria has killed them, the wild beasts or the venomous
reptiles worked out their deadly appetites and instincts upon them. The
very idea of humanity seems to be that it shall take care of itself and
develop its powers in the “struggle for life.” Whether we approve it or
not, if we can judge by the material record, man was born a foundling,
and fought his way as he best might to that kind of existence which we
call civilized,--one which a considerable part of the inhabitants of our
planet have reached.
If you do not like the expression planetary foundlings, I have no
objection to your considering the race as put out to nurse. And what a
nurse Nature is! She gives her charge a hole in the rocks to live in,
ice for his pillow and snow for his blanket, in one part of the world;
the jungle for his bedroom in another, with the tiger for his watch-dog,
and the cobra as his playfellow.
Well, I said, there may be other parts of the universe where there are
no tigers and no cobras. It is not quite certain that such realms of
creation are better off, on the whole, than this earthly residence of
ours, which has fought its way up to the development of such centres of
civilization as Athens and Rome, to such personalities as Socrates, as
Washington.
“One of our company has been on an excursion among the celestial bodies
of our system, I understand,” said the Professor.
Number Five colored. “Nothing but a dream,” she said. “The truth is, I
had taken ether in the evening for a touch of neuralgia, and it set my
imagination at work in a way quite unusual with me. I had been reading
a number of books about an ideal condition of society,--Sir Thomas Mores
'Utopia,' Lord Bacon's 'New Atlantis,' and another of more recent date.
I went to bed with my brain a good deal excited, and fell into a deep
slumber, in which I passed through some experiences so singular that, on
awaking, I put them down on paper. I don't know that there is anything
very original about the experiences I have recorded, but I thought them
worth preserving. Perhaps you would not agree with me in that belief.”
“If Number Five will give us a chance to form our own judgment about
her dream or vision, I think we shall enjoy it,” said the Mistress. “She
knows what will please The Teacups in the way of reading as well as I
do how many lumps of sugar the Professor wants in his tea and how many I
want in mine.”
The company was so urgent that Number Five sent up-stairs for her paper.
Number Five reads the story of her dream.
It cost me a great effort to set down the words of the manuscript from
which I am reading. My dreams for the most part fade away so soon after
their occurrence that I cannot recall them at all. But in this case
my ideas held together with remarkable tenacity. By keeping my mind
steadily upon the work, I gradually unfolded the narrative which
follows, as the famous Italian antiquary opened one of those fragile
carbonized manuscripts found in the ruins of Herculaneum or Pompeii.
The first thing I remember about it is that I was floating upward,
without any sense of effort on my part. The feeling was that of flying,
which I have often had in dreams, as have many other persons. It was the
most natural thing in the world,--a semi-materialized volition, if I may
use such an expression.
At the first moment of my new consciousness,--for I seemed to have just
emerged from a deep slumber, I was aware that there was a companion at
my side. Nothing could be more gracious than the way in which this being
accosted me. I will speak of it as she, because there was a delicacy, a
sweetness, a divine purity, about its aspect that recalled my ideal of
the loveliest womanhood.
“I am your companion and your guide,” this being made me understand,
as she looked at me. Some faculty of which I had never before been
conscious had awakened in me, and I needed no interpreter to explain the
unspoken language of my celestial attendant.
“You are not yet outside of space and time,” she said, “and I am
going with you through some parts of the phenomenal or apparent
universe,--what you call the material world. We have plenty of what you
call time before us, and we will take our voyage leisurely, looking at
such objects of interest as may attract our attention as we pass. The
first thing you will naturally wish to look at will be the earth you
have just left. This is about the right distance,” she said, and we
paused in our flight.
The great globe we had left was rolling beneath us. No eye of one in the
flesh could see it as I saw or seemed to see it. No ear of any mortal
being could bear the sounds that came from it as I heard or seemed
to hear them. The broad oceans unrolled themselves before me. I could
recognize the calm Pacific and the stormy Atlantic,--the ships that
dotted them, the white lines where the waves broke on the shore,--frills
on the robes of the continents,--so they looked to my woman's
perception; the--vast South American forests; the glittering icebergs
about the poles; the snowy mountain ranges, here and there a summit
sending up fire and smoke; mighty rivers, dividing provinces within
sight of each other, and making neighbors of realms thousands of miles
apart; cities; light-houses to insure the safety of sea-going vessels,
and war-ships to knock them to pieces and sink them. All this, and
infinitely more, showed itself to me during a single revolution of the
sphere: twenty-four hours it would have been, if reckoned by earthly
measurements of time. I have not spoken of the sounds I heard while the
earth was revolving under us. The howl of storms, the roar and clash of
waves, the crack and crash of the falling thunderbolt,--these of course
made themselves heard as they do to mortal ears. But there were other
sounds which enchained my attention more than these voices of nature.
As the skilled leader of an orchestra hears every single sound from each
member of the mob of stringed and wind instruments, and above all the
screech of the straining soprano, so my sharpened perceptions made what
would have been for common mortals a confused murmur audible to me as
compounded of innumerable easily distinguished sounds. Above them
all arose one continued, unbroken, agonizing cry. It was the voice of
suffering womanhood, a sound that goes up day and night, one long chorus
of tortured victims.
“Let us get out of reach of this,” I said; and we left our planet, with
its blank, desolate moon staring at it, as if it had turned pale at the
sights and sounds it had to witness.
Presently the gilded dome of the State House, which marked our
starting-point, came into view for the second time, and I knew that
this side-show was over. I bade farewell to the Common with its Cogswell
fountain, and the Garden with its last awe-inspiring monument.
“Oh, if I could sometimes revisit these beloved scenes!” I exclaimed.
“There is nothing to hinder that I know of,” said my companion. “Memory
and imagination as you know them in the flesh are two winged creatures
with strings tied to their legs, and anchored to a bodily weight of a
hundred and fifty pounds, more or less. When the string is cut you can
be where you wish to be,--not merely a part of you, leaving the rest
behind, but the whole of you. Why shouldn't you want to revisit your old
home sometimes?”
I was astonished at the human way in which my guide conversed with
me. It was always on the basis of my earthly habits, experiences, and
limitations. “Your solar system,” she said, “is a very small part of
the universe, but you naturally feel a curiosity about the bodies which
constitute it and about their inhabitants. There is your moon: a bare
and desolate-looking place it is, and well it may be, for it has no
respirable atmosphere, and no occasion for one. The Lunites do not
breathe; they live without waste and without supply. You look as if you
do not understand this. Yet your people have, as you well know, what
they call incandescent lights everywhere. You would have said there can
be no lamp without oil or gas, or other combustible substance, to feed
it; and yet you see a filament which sheds a light like that of noon all
around it, and does not waste at all. So the Lunites live by influx of
divine energy, just as the incandescent lamp glows,--glows, and is not
consumed; receiving its life, if we may call it so, from the central
power, which wears the unpleasant name of 'dynamo.'”
The Lunites appeared to me as pale phosphorescent figures of ill-defined
outline, lost in their own halos, as it were. I could not help thinking
of Shelley's
“maiden
With white fire laden.”
But as the Lunites were after all but provincials, as are the tenants
of all the satellites, I did not care to contemplate them for any great
length of time.
I do not remember much about the two planets that came next to our own,
except the beautiful rosy atmosphere of one and the huge bulk of the
other. Presently, we found ourselves within hailing distance of another
celestial body, which I recognized at once, by the rings which girdled
it, as the planet Saturn. A dingy, dull-looking sphere it was in its
appearance. “We will tie up here for a while,” said my attendant. The
easy, familiar way in which she spoke surprised and pleased me.
Why, said I,--The Dictator,--what is there to prevent beings of another
order from being as cheerful, as social, as good companions, as the
very liveliest of God's creatures whom we have known in the flesh? Is
it impossible for an archangel to smile? Is such a phenomenon as a laugh
never heard except in our little sinful corner of the universe? Do you
suppose, that when the disciples heard from the lips of their Master the
play of words on the name of Peter, there was no smile of appreciation
on the bearded faces of those holy men? From any other lips we should
have called this pleasantry a--
Number Five shook her head very slightly, and gave me a look that seemed
to say, “Don't frighten the other Teacups. We don't call things by the
names that belong to them when we deal with celestial subjects.”
We tied up, as my attendant playfully called our resting, so near
the planet that I could know--I will not say see and hear, but
apprehend--all that was going on in that remote sphere; remote, as
we who live in what we have been used to consider the centre of the
rational universe regard it. What struck me at once was the deadness of
everything I looked upon. Dead, uniform color of surface and surrounding
atmosphere. Dead complexion of all the inhabitants. Dead-looking trees,
dead-looking grass, no flowers to be seen anywhere.
“What is the meaning of all this?” I said to my guide.
She smiled good-naturedly, and replied, “It is a forlorn home for
anything above a lichen or a toadstool; but that is no wonder, when you
know what the air is which they breathe. It is pure nitrogen.”
The Professor spoke up. “That can't be, madam,” he said. “The
spectroscope shows the atmosphere of Saturn to be--no matter, I have
forgotten what; but it was not pure nitrogen, at any rate.”
Number Five is never disconcerted. “Will you tell me,” she said, “where
you have found any account of the bands and lines in the spectrum of
dream-nitrogen? I should be so pleased to become acquainted with them.”
The Professor winced a little, and asked Delilah, the handmaiden, to
pass a plate of muffins to him. The dream had carried him away, and he
thought for the moment that he was listening to a scientific paper.
Of course, my companion went on to say, the bodily constitution of
the Saturnians is wholly different from that of air-breathing, that
is oxygen-breathing, human beings. They are the dullest, slowest, most
torpid of mortal creatures.
All this is not to be wondered at when you remember the inert
characteristics of nitrogen. There are in some localities natural
springs which give out slender streams of oxygen. You will learn by and
by what use the Saturnians make of this dangerous gas, which, as you
recollect, constitutes about one fifth of your own atmosphere. Saturn
has large lead mines, but no other metal is found on this planet.
The inhabitants have nothing else to make tools of, except stones and
shells. The mechanical arts have therefore made no great progress among
them. Chopping down a tree with a leaden axe is necessarily a slow
process.
So far as the Saturnians can be said to have any pride in anything, it
is in the absolute level which characterizes their political and social
order. They profess to be the only true republicans in the solar system.
The fundamental articles of their Constitution are these:
All Saturnians are born equal, live equal, and die equal.
All Saturnians are born free,--free, that is, to obey the rules laid
down for the regulation of their conduct, pursuits, and opinions, free
to be married to the person selected for them by the physiological
section of the government, and free to die at such proper period of life
as may best suit the convenience and general welfare of the community.
The one great industrial product of Saturn is the bread-root. The
Saturnians find this wholesome and palatable enough; and it is well they
do, as they have no other vegetable. It is what I should call a most
uninteresting kind of eatable, but it serves as food and drink, having
juice enough, so that they get along without water. They have a
tough, dry grass, which, matted together, furnishes them with clothes
sufficiently warm for their cold-blooded constitutions, and more than
sufficiently ugly.
A piece of ground large enough to furnish bread-root for ten persons
is allotted to each head of a household, allowance being made for the
possible increase of families. This, however, is not a very important
consideration, as the Saturnians are not a prolific race. The great
object of life being the product of the largest possible quantity
of bread-roots, and women not being so capable in the fields as the
stronger sex, females are considered an undesirable addition to society.
The one thing the Saturnians dread and abhor is inequality. The whole
object of their laws and customs is to maintain the strictest equality
in everything,--social relations, property, so far as they can be said
to have anything which can be so called, mode of living, dress, and all
other matters. It is their boast that nobody ever starved under their
government. Nobody goes in rags, for the coarse-fibred grass from which
they fabricate their clothes is very durable. (I confess I wondered how
a woman could live in Saturn. They have no looking-glasses. There is no
such article as a ribbon known among them. All their clothes are of one
pattern. I noticed that there were no pockets in any of their garments,
and learned that a pocket would be considered prima facie evidence of
theft, as no honest person would have use for such a secret receptacle.)
Before the revolution which established the great law of absolute and
lifelong equality, the inhabitants used to feed at their own private
tables. Since the regeneration of society all meals are taken in common.
The last relic of barbarism was the use of plates,--one or even more to
each individual. This “odious relic of an effete civilization,” as they
called it, has long been superseded by oblong hollow receptacles, one of
which is allotted to each twelve persons. A great riot took place
when an attempt was made by some fastidious and exclusive egotists to
introduce partitions which should partially divide one portion of these
receptacles into individual compartments. The Saturnians boast that
they have no paupers, no thieves, none of those fictitious values called
money,--all which things, they hear, are known in that small Saturn
nearer the sun than the great planet which is their dwelling-place.
“I suppose that now they have levelled everything they are quiet and
contented. Have they any of those uneasy people called reformers?”
“Indeed they have,” said my attendant. “There are the Orthobrachians,
who declaim against the shameful abuse of the left arm and hand, and
insist on restoring their perfect equality with the right. Then there
are Isopodic societies, which insist on bringing back the original
equality of the upper and lower limbs. If you can believe it, they
actually practise going on all fours,--generally in a private way, a
few of them together, but hoping to bring the world round to them in the
near future.”
Here I had to stop and laugh.
“I should think life might be a little dull in Saturn,” I said.
“It is liable to that accusation,” she answered. “Do you notice how many
people you meet with their mouths stretched wide open?”
“Yes,” I said, “and I do not know what to make of it. I should think
every fourth or fifth person had his mouth open in that way.”
“They are suffering from the endemic disease of their planet, prolonged
and inveterate gaping or yawning, which has ended in dislocation of the
lower jaw. After a time this becomes fixed, and requires a difficult
surgical operation to restore it to its place.”
It struck me that, in spite of their boast that they have no paupers, no
thieves, no money, they were a melancholy-looking set of beings.
“What are their amusements?” I asked.
“Intoxication and suicide are their chief recreations. They have a way
of mixing the oxygen which issues in small jets from certain natural
springs with their atmospheric nitrogen in the proportion of about
twenty per cent, which makes very nearly the same thing as the air of
your planet. But to the Saturnians the mixture is highly intoxicating,
and is therefore a relief to the monotony of their every-day life. This
mixture is greatly sought after, but hard to obtain, as the sources
of oxygen are few and scanty. It shortens the lives of those who have
recourse to it; but if it takes too long, they have other ways of
escaping from a life which cuts and dries everything for its miserable
subjects, defeats all the natural instincts, confounds all individual
characteristics, and makes existence such a colossal bore, as your
worldly people say, that self-destruction becomes a luxury.”
Number Five stopped here.
Your imaginary wholesale Shakerdom is all very fine, said I. Your
Utopia, your New Atlantis, and the rest are pretty to look at. But your
philosophers are treating the world of living souls as if they were,
each of them, playing a game of solitaire,--all the pegs and all the
holes alike. Life is a very different sort of game. It is a game of
chess, and not of solitaire, nor even of checkers. The men are not all
pawns, but you have your knights, bishops, rooks,--yes, your king and
queen,--to be provided for. Not with these names, of course, but all
looking for their proper places, and having their own laws and modes of
action. You can play solitaire with the members of your own family for
pegs, if you like, and if none of them rebel. You can play checkers with
a little community of meek, like-minded people. But when it comes to the
handling of a great state, you will find that nature has emptied a box
of chessmen before you, and you must play with them so as to give each
its proper move, or sweep them off the board, and come back to the
homely game such as I used to see played with beans and kernels of corn
on squares marked upon the back of the kitchen bellows.
It was curious to see how differently Number Five's narrative was
received by the different listeners in our circle. Number Five herself
said she supposed she ought to be ashamed of its absurdities, but she
did not know that it was much sillier than dreams often are, and she
thought it might amuse the company. She was herself always interested by
these ideal pictures of society. But it seemed to her that life must be
dull in any of them, and with that idea in her head her dreaming fancy
had drawn these pictures.
The Professor was interested in her conception of the existence of the
Lunites without waste, and the death in life of the nitrogen-breathing
Saturnians. Dream-chemistry was a new subject to him. Perhaps Number
Five would give him some lessons in it.
At this she smiled, and said she was afraid she could not teach him
anything, but if he would answer a few questions in matter-of-fact
chemistry which had puzzled her she would be vastly obliged to him.
“You must come to my laboratory,” said the Professor.
“I will come to-morrow,” said Number Five.
Oh, yes! Much laboratory work they will do! Play of mutual affinities.
Amalgamates. No freezing mixtures, I'll warrant!
Why shouldn't we get a romance out of all this, hey?
But Number Five looks as innocent as a lamb, and as brave as a lion. She
does not care a copper for the looks that are going round The Teacups.
Our Doctor was curious about those cases of anchylosis, as he called it,
of the lower jaw. He thought it a quite possible occurrence. Both the
young girls thought the dream gave a very hard view of the optimists,
who look forward to a reorganization of society which shall rid mankind
of the terrible evils of over-crowding and competition.
Number Seven was quite excited about the matter. He had himself drawn
up a plan for a new social arrangement. He had shown it to the
legal gentleman who has lately joined us. This gentleman thought it
well-intended, but that it would take one constable to every three
inhabitants to enforce its provisions.
I said the dream could do no harm; it was too outrageously improbable to
come home to anybody's feelings. Dreams were like broken mosaics,--the
separated stones might here and there make parts of pictures. If
one found a caricature of himself made out of the pieces which had
accidentally come together, he would smile at it, knowing that it was an
accidental effect with no malice in it. If any of you really believe
in a working Utopia, why not join the Shakers, and convert the world to
this mode of life? Celibacy alone would cure a great many of the evils
you complain of.
I thought this suggestion seemed to act rather unfavorably upon the
ladies of our circle. The two Annexes looked inquiringly at each other.
Number Five looked smilingly at them. She evidently thought it was time
to change the subject of conversation, for she turned to me and said,
“You promised to read us the poem you read before your old classmates
the other evening.”
I will fulfill my promise, I said. We felt that this might probably be
our last meeting as a Class. The personal reference is to our greatly
beloved and honored classmate, James Freeman Clarke.