receives at her mother's knee in Meleager is the Sun Myth, with its
picturesque fables of the Sun-god and his incarnated Child. The divine
nature and mission of the latter are always dwelt on by the teacher
with particular insistence and with due solemnity; and his sanctity is
described as placing him outside the pale of ordinary men with ordinary
passions. And not only this. Should the Child of the Sun forget the
sacred character of his entrusted mission to his father's people and
flout his father's precepts so far as to stoop to philander with any
maiden of his kingdom, not only will the disobedient monarch incur his
divine parent's grave displeasure, but also a most terrible fate awaits
the unhappy object of his attentions. From this last portion of the
advice instilled into the growing female mind, I conclude that alarming
scandals have actually occurred in the past; and who can marvel at it?
But how recent or remote are these love intrigues in date; and how or
where or when they were detected and punished I am quite ignorant, nor
am I ever likely to receive enlightenment thereon. But it is also in
harmony with my theory of past troubles of this nature that a salutary
story (which is by no means regarded here as a legend) has long been
in circulation. The tale itself is strongly reminiscent of the old
Greek myth of Zeus and Semele, and in Meleager it takes the shape of an
intrigue between a foolish maiden of the people, Anata by name, and
the then reigning Child of the Sun, who fell a victim to her charms
or her advances. For it is gravely related that Anata actually made
her way to the private apartments of the King by stealth. Whether or
no she obtained any satisfaction from her forbidden interview will
never be known, but it is certain her body was found next morning in
the royal bed-chamber charred and almost unrecognisable as the dire
result of her clandestine embraces in the arms of the son of the God
of Fire. To become the mistress therefore of the Sun-child, should
the monarch descend so low as to forget his divine calling, is but
the certain prelude to an ignominious and horrible death; and such a
belief is firmly held by all women dwelling on Meleager. It is also
pronounced dangerous (as it is voted most decidedly immodest) for any
young woman, whether maiden or married, to allow even the casual glance
of the Sun-child to fall full on her face; so that it is usual for all
girls to fling the light veil, or mantilla, which every Meleagrian
woman wears, over her features in the event of her encountering
accidentally the person of the King. This custom, however, is not an
actual regulation, and I have often noticed girls, especially those of
the populace, indulge in a good solid stare as I have come riding or
walking down the streets of the capital, though sooner or later some
pretence of covering the eyes with the veil was carried out. Amongst
the nobility this formal hiding of the face is more strictly insisted
on, if only as a detail of good breeding. From what I have seen, the
young women of Meleager are short, dark and comely, with fine brown
merry eyes, small features, and dark hair. In extreme youth they are
often remarkably pretty and attractive, but after child-birth they
are very liable to lose their elegant symmetry, and to find what was
an agreeable plumpness exchanged for a rather prominent bulkiness of
figure.
I have never yet so much as spoken to a woman below the age of thirty
or thereabouts, and though the fundamental law forbidding my intimacy
with any woman in the pride and beauty of her youth is quite wise and
logical, according both to the letter and the spirit of Meleagrian
state craft, yet it is a rule that presses very cruelly upon myself.
For remember, _I_ do not grow old and languid; my own vitality is
mysteriously renewed at short intervals, and male youth craves the
society and companionship of female youth; whilst also in my case this
natural desire can never diminish with the passing of the years. In
this respect I stand therefore betwixt the devil and the deep sea,
between Scylla and Charybdis. On the one hand, I have to curb my
juvenile longings and tastes which tend rather to grow stronger and
more insistent; whilst on the other, any attempt to circumvent this
ordinance of the hierarchy would not only end in my own discomfiture,
and possibly removal, but would most certainly result in the miserable
fate of any poor favourite of my choice. The story of silly Anata's
disgrace was not invented by the hierarchy merely to serve as an empty
fable, one may be sure of that. I feel convinced, too, that the palace
teems with spies for this very purpose of thwarting any such intrigue,
and though hitherto I have given no cause even for suspicion, I feel
my position most acutely. It is so false, and I know it to be false,
and so do those who have manœuvred this particular piece of policy
concerning their monarch.
When women have once exceeded the age of thirty (which is considered
the child-bearing limit in Meleager), and have presumably lost all
officially suspected attraction in the eyes of the Child of the Sun,
the embargo is removed, though there is never much intercourse between
the King and the middle-aged or elderly ladies of the nobility.
Whenever I honour the country home of one of my nobles with my
presence, all the young women of the household, married or unmarried,
are removed elsewhere, but such as are above the fixed age of thirty
are suffered to remain, though even in these cases I note that I am
seldom left alone with women, no matter what their age. No doubt the
female mind, so strongly imbued in childhood with the inherent mystical
terrors of their monarch, still shrinks with awe from too close
proximity with such a force of potential danger. Possibly, however, I
may err on this point, and in reality some ancient notion of etiquette
unknown to me is being served by this noticeable self-effacement on
the part of the older women. Of course, the deference wherewith I am
treated by the male folk is intensified in the case of the ladies, who
regard me much in the same light that a bigoted Catholic would regard a
tangible apparition of St Peter or St Paul in their houses.
Politically, women possess no rights, but then no more do the men,
except the handful who compose the executive council, so they cannot
well complain of invidious treatment on this score, even were they
anxious to discover grievances of sex. As with the historic Prussian
queen, their empire admittedly lies in the nursery, for all children
are completely under the charge of their mothers according to
immemorial custom. In the nobility the tacit law seems to be that the
man is master outside the house, whilst the woman is mistress within
doors; and this maxim is generally acted upon throughout all spheres of
social life. Women are exempt from the poll-tax, which is levied on all
males, and indeed no taxes are exacted from women at all, except in the
rare and transitory instances of unmarried heiresses of landed estates.
Whether or no, vague, restless, unsatisfied aspirations and longings
occasionally assail the minds of some of the younger men I cannot
say for certain; but I do feel sure that the womanhood of Meleager
is absolutely satisfied with its present lot and cannot so much as
conceive of any betterment of existing conditions. The conversations
I have had with the wives or sisters of my hosts at different times
were usually of a rather stilted and uninteresting nature; but I never
failed to note their supreme content and buoyant cheerfulness.
Nevertheless, although women have never been admitted into the ranks
of the hierarchy, and presumably never will be, yet they possess a
species of council of their own sex in the college of the priestesses
of the Sun, who inhabit a large block of buildings contiguous to the
great temple. This institution is based on rules somewhat similar to
those which prevail in the Council of the Seventy, but it is worked and
administered on broader lines, and the age limit is not so strictly
drawn as in the case of the hierarchy. Girls who have no desire or
vocation for matrimony may enter the portals of this convent (if I may
so term it) as novices; nor is the acceptance of applicants confined
to one social class, as is the rule concerning the probationers of
the hierarchy. On the contrary, a fair proportion of the inmates of
this convent are drawn from the middle and lower classes, and thus the
atmosphere of the convent is of a distinctly democratic type. Even the
highest office of all, that of Domina, or lady abbess, is occasionally
attained by a plebeian, for the rules of election here are carefully
compiled so as to secure the choice of the most popular and capable of
the candidates. The senior ladies of the convent are kept in constant
touch with the members of the council, who frequently apply to the
priestesses of the Sun for advice in various matters of a social and
remedial nature, which may be deemed expedient. Thus all regulations
concerning the welfare of women and children have been carefully
scrutinised and approved by the Domina and her assessors before ever
they are enforced by the officials of the council. But how closely and
on what lines the temple and the convent work together is of course
beyond my knowledge, though it is evident that the two institutions are
conducted in apparent harmony with one another.
XI
It is scarcely fair to offer any comparison between the moral progress
as shown in Meleager and that prevailing on the Earth, and in any case
such a comparison would prove impossible, seeing how varied and how
complex are the many moral systems of the greater planet. With our
numerous nationalities it is only logical there should result great
diversities of opinion on ethics, and we are made to realise our
difficulty in estimating any average sum-total of earthly morals to
bring into the field of comparison. Has not one writer of note averred
that the views of sexual morality held by the phallic worshippers of
old and by the extreme Puritans of to-day rest equally on a common
religious foundation? And has not our British poet of empire somewhere
written that
"The wildest dreams of Kew are the facts of Khatmandù,
And the crimes of Clapham chaste in Martaban"?
In the instance of my own kingdom the many defunct and surviving
systems of the nations of the Earth have all been studied and have
doubtless been partially adapted here and there, so that in a sense the
Meleagrian outlook on morals is extremely interesting, as affording
the result of careful unprejudiced investigation over a wide space
of time. But of course the outcome of these secret researches and
deductions cannot possibly be agreeable or obvious to any one people or
set of thinkers on Earth, for it will be remembered that whereas the
Earth is a congeries of tribes and climates and faiths, so Meleager
is homogeneous, unless one takes into account the colder and almost
unexplored parts of Barbaria. And thus, as the consequence of careful
study for many, many generations by acute well-trained intellects, a
sort of eclecticism has been created here in the field of morals, as
has already arisen in the case of religious tenets.
Here there are no hard and fast rules on moral behaviour, but each
individual is supposed to be guided by his or her instincts, which
it is considered expedient to depress or encourage, according to the
benefit or damage that may accrue thereby to society at large, or to
the state, if you prefer to regard it as such. The open exhibition of
harmful instincts then is looked on by the ruling caste of Meleager as
an occasion not for punishment but for segregation; such tendencies
in themselves being disregarded so long as they are practised in
secret and kept, as it were, under personal control. And here I am
speaking only of traits and tendencies, not of actual crimes, of fraud
or violence, for the punishment of which there exists a severe code
based apparently on the Mosaic laws. A cold-blooded murder is repaid
by a death penalty, which is carried out privately in the case of a
nobleman, by beheadal in prison of a merchant, and by public hanging in
the case of a plebeian. Crimes of assault are met with strokes from the
lash coupled with a fine; outrages on children are punished by death.
But vile crimes and executions are very rare indeed, and this highly
desirable state of things I attribute to the long period wherein the
rulers of Meleager have been gradually eliminating the feeble-minded
and evil-disposed members of the community by their careful and
judicious system of segregation. Other cases of wrong-doing of a more
venial type are usually met by a scale of fines, which are intended
to compensate the injured party for any damage he may have incurred;
whilst minor instances of violence or disturbance of the peace are
frequently punished by an order to administer a certain number of
lashes there and then in open court, this penalty being not uncommonly
awarded to drunken or refractory persons belonging to the seafaring,
peddling, long-shore and such humbler sections of the populace.
Thanks again to the past measures taken to repress crime and to
ensure good behaviour, the physical health of the kingdom leaves
almost nothing to be desired. Epidemic diseases are practically
unknown, as are also contagious venereal maladies. It is the constant,
and possibly rather trying and officious, visitations made by the
sanitary inspectors into every homestead, small or great, patrician
or plebeian, which have doubtless helped to induce this highly
commendable condition of affairs. Disease and dirt are the two evils
which are attacked without rest or mercy by the councillors appointed
for their control, and by their equally energetic representatives.
Cleanliness is not reckoned as next to godliness in Meleager; it is
an inherent part of religion itself, and hygienic regulations are
perpetually being enforced upon what is now become a willing, though
no doubt in past times it was an unwilling, population. I suppose many
English Puritans would look askance at the thermal establishments
which exist both in the cities and in the rural districts, seeing
that the two sexes have here opportunities of studying one another in
a nude state; but then, as I have said before, Meleagrian morals do
not exist for morality's sake, but have evidently been framed for the
special purpose of securing a healthy vigorous race. Early marriage is
encouraged, but, paradoxical as it may appear, large families are not
considered desirable; whilst there is a curious custom which permits
of a husband no longer cohabiting with his wife after she has borne
him three children living. I have heard that this eccentric, and no
doubt to many offensive, notion also prevails in the upper ranks of
the civilised Latin races, though possibly my informant may have been
mistaken in his statement. I gather that such a tacit understanding has
its origin in the fear of over-population, and certainly the limited
land surface of Meleager possessing a desirable climate may plead as a
reasonable excuse for the holding of this whimsical tenet, which seems
to savour of the school of Malthus. Apparently the growth of population
in Meleager is somewhat analogous to that of modern France, and seeing
the high place in which French philosophy and culture are held by the
leading nations of the Earth, the Meleagrians are at least erring in
good company.
Turning to the coarser side of the question of public morals,
prostitution exists, but neither to a great extent nor openly.
Those who can recall the nocturnal conditions of the main London
thorough-fares during the latter part of Queen Victoria's reign would
be agreeably surprised to detect no outward flaunting of vice after
dusk in the streets of Tamarida; and the least tendency to riot or
disturbance is promptly quelled by the military patrols. Not that
licence and debauchery do not abound, for there are, I believe, plenty
of resorts of a certain class in the towns; but the doings of such
places do not rise to the surface, and those who frequent them dare not
offend the quiet of their neighbours.
Meanwhile the priestesses of the Sun are constantly busied with the
ultimate fate of the harlot, and their emissaries are often engaged
in reclaiming girls from a licentious career and in training them
to become useful wives, for such early lapses are held lightly by
the mass of the people. And in not a few instances these "_filles
de joie_" become wedded to their paramours, and make good mothers.
Such an outlook is of course utterly unmoral to large sections of the
civilised and Christianised nations of Europe and America; but the
Meleagrian view is shared by many other races of the Earth who have
enjoyed a longer and perhaps a better record of civilisation than
have these complacent modern nations whose ancestors were half-naked
savages in the days of the Roman Empire. Universal chastity, in
short, is a feature almost exclusively confined to northern tribes of
barbarians, for whom it has great natural advantages certainly, for it
tends to breed a hardy and prolific race. But I do not think it can be
classed as a genuine virtue in itself, and it always tends promptly
to disappear the moment the trammels of education and development are
assumed. Now the Meleagrians can lay claim to be an intensely civilised
race, whereby I mean their rulers have been engaged in the study of the
arts of peace and progress for many centuries, and have consequently
left behind them the old barbarian necessity for absolute chastity,
though they still recognise its value as a wholesome ingredient of
married family life. For with marriage chastity in their eyes takes on
another aspect, which must not be confounded with the former, and that
is faithfulness. A faithless wife is very rare indeed in Meleager, and
her treatment at the hands of her neighbours is not enviable.
XII
Religion has already entered so significantly into my narrative that I
feel I must apologise for a special dissertation on this subject. Yet I
have never so far described the exact nature or scope of the Meleagrian
faith which may be said to permeate and regulate the whole private and
public existence of the people.
The inhabitants of Meleager--and in the ensuing statements, of course,
I always except the hierarchy--are worshippers of the Sun, who is
their sole deity. He is visible to them for a large portion of almost
each day; he is tangible, in so far as they can feel the warmth of his
beams; he is alive and in constant motion, as they watch him "ride the
heavens like a horse" and disappear into the waters of the western sea
only to uprear again next morning above the eastern horizon. As in the
old Greek mythos, the Sun is popularly supposed to drive his golden
chariot with its flaming wheels and with its yoke of fretting stallions
across the dome of heaven, till finally god and car alike pass over the
containing rim of the Meleagrian world. Below the flat surface of the
land and sea the Sun-god inhabits a vast palace, whose splendours far
exceed anything known to men. Here he rests after his daily labours
amongst his numerous progeny, and refreshes himself after his late
exertions undertaken solely for the benefit of the favoured race, that
in the illimitable past he created in his own image. The firmament
is his field of action; the space below the ground is his haven of
retirement. At night the dome of heaven shorn of his effulgent presence
is lighted only by the sparkling stars; "jewels of the Sun," as they
are termed in Meleagrian parlance; or else the great vacant arc is
illumined by the sickly lustre of the Moon. For the Moon stands to
the Meleagrian mind, as it did largely to the antique and mediæval
imagination, for all that is uncanny and malign. Few Meleagrians will
walk abroad in clear moonlight, if they can reasonably avoid so doing;
and in the many tales and legends that are current the Moon in her
various phases and with her evil influence always occupies a prominent
place. The oldest legend concerning the Moon, that is a legend parallel
with such theories as the origin of the rainbow or the story of the
Ark on Mount Ararat of the Jewish Pentateuch, relates how in the days
of chaos there were two Suns, rivals, who fought one another for the
possession of the beautiful world of Meleager; and that after a titanic
combat, wherein the heavens thundered and the mountains belched forth
fire and smoke, and the waters tossed and hissed furiously, the benign
Sun conquered and slew the opposing deity, whose dead body still floats
abroad in the sky, wherein it serves as an eternal trophy to the
prowess of the victor. In the popular imagination however the corpse
of the vanquished Moon is not wholly impotent for ill. A scintilla of
mischievous vitality is still believed to lurk in its form, during
the hours of the night, what time the Sun himself is absent from the
heavens. The average Meleagrian therefore has a peculiar dread of the
night, and of a moonlit night in a special degree. The practice of
magic, both of the black and white types, is fairly common in all ranks
of Meleagrian society, and its preparations and philtres are always
popularly associated with the period of the Moon's fulness, when that
deity's surviving spark of life is deemed most active.
The cult of the Meleagrians for the Sun not only recognises his vital
warmth and fructifying properties, but also attributes to him the
gathering or dispersal of the clouds which drop the refreshing rain
upon the thirsty soil and swell the opening buds of tree and plant. The
winds are also under the Sun's control, and are apparently regarded as
his offspring, who sometimes disobey their august parent's injunctions,
and either sportively or maliciously vex the people of Meleager with
unwelcome gales that imperil the fisher-folk at sea, and injure the
springing crops on land. But speaking broadly, the Meleagrian is of
St James's opinion that "every good gift and every perfect gift is
from above, and cometh down from the Father of Lights with whom is no
variableness neither shadow of turning." And in truth the unchangeable
benignity and faithfulness of the Sun-god are so evident to his people
that one can scarcely wonder at their fixed belief in his omnipresent
power for good, and at his unsullied reputation of their sole
benefactor.