JOURNEYING UPWARD.
"The old order changeth, giving place to the new,
And God fulfils himself in many ways."
--TENNYSON.
My conversation with Elodia had the effect of crystallizing my
nebulous plans about visiting the Caskians into a sudden resolve. I
could not remain longer in her presence without pain to myself; and,
to tell the truth, I dreaded lest her astounding lack of the
moral sense--which should be the foundation stone of woman's
character--would eventually dull my own. Men are notoriously weak
where women are concerned--the women they worship.
As soon as I had communicated with the Caskians and learned that they
were still anticipating my coming, with--they were so kind as to say
it--the greatest pleasure, I prepared to set forth.
In the meantime, an event occurred which further illustrated the
social conditions in Paleveria. Claris, the wife of Massilla, died
very suddenly, and I was astonished at the tremendous sensation the
circumstance occasioned throughout the city. It seemed to me that the
only respect it was possible to pay to the memory of such a woman must
be that which is expressed in absolute silence,--even charity could
not be expected to do more than keep silent. But I was mistaken,
Claris had been a woman of distinction, in many ways; she was
beautiful, rich, and talented, and she had wielded an influence in
public and social affairs. Immediately, the various periodicals in
Thursia, and in neighboring cities, flaunted lengthy eulogistic
obituaries headed with more or less well executed portraits of the
deceased. It seemed as if the authors of these effusions must have run
through dictionaries of complimentary terms, which they culled
lavishly and inserted among the acts and facts of her life with a kind
of journalistic sleight-of-hand. And private comment took its cue from
these authorities. It was said that she was a woman of noble traits,
and pretty anecdotes were told of her, illustrating her generous
impulses, her wit, her positiveness. She had had great personal
magnetism, many had loved her, many had also feared her, for her
tongue could cut like a sword. It was stated that her children had
worshiped her, and that her death had prostrated her husband with
grief. Of the chief blackness of her character none spoke.
Severnius invited me to attend the funeral obsequies which took place
in the Auroras' Temple, where the embalmed body lay in state; with
incense burning and innumerable candles casting their pallid light
upon the bier. I observed as we drove through the streets that the
closed doors of all the business houses exhibited the emblems of
respect and sorrow.
The Auroras were assembled in great numbers, having come from distant
parts of the country to do honor to the dead. They were in full
regalia, with mourning badges, and carried inverted torches. The
religious ceremonies and mystic rites of the Order were elaborate and
impressive. The dirge which followed, and during which the members of
the Order formed in procession and began a slow march, was so
unutterably and profoundly sad that I could not keep back the tears. A
little sobbing voice directly in front of me wailed out "Mamma!
Mamma!" A woman stooped down and whispered, "Do you want to go up and
kiss Mamma 'good-by' before they take her away?" But the child shrank
back, afraid of the pomp and ghostly magnificence surrounding the dead
form.
Elodia was of course the chief figure in the procession, and she bore
herself with a grave and solemn dignity in keeping with the
ceremonies. The sight of her beautiful face, with its subdued but
lofty expression, was more than I could bear. I leaned forward and
dropped my face in my hands, and let the sorrow-laden requiem rack my
soul with its sweet torture as it would.
That was my last day in Thursia.
I had at first thought of taking my aeroplane along with me,
reflecting that I might better begin my homeward flight from some
mountain top in Caskia; but Severnius would not hear of that.
"No indeed!" said he, "you must return to us again. I wish to get
ready a budget for you to carry back to your astronomers, which I
think will be of value to them, as I shall make a complete map of the
heavens as they appear to us. Then we shall be eager to hear about
your visit. And besides, we want to see you again on the ground of
friendship, the strongest reason of all!"
"You are too kind!" I responded with much feeling. I knew that he was
as sincere as he was polite. This was at the last moment, and Elodia
was present to bid me "good-by." She seconded her brother's
invitation,--"O, yes, of course you must come back!" and turned the
whole power of her beautiful face upon me, and for the first time gave
me her hand. I had coveted it a hundred times as it lay lissome and
white in her lap. I clasped it, palm to palm. It was as smooth as
satin, and not moist,--I dislike a moist hand. I felt that up to that
moment I had always undervalued the sense of touch,--it was the
finest of all the senses! No music, no work of art, no wondrous scene,
had ever so thrilled me and set my nerves a-quiver, as did the
delicate, firm pressure of those magic fingers. The remembrance of it
made my blood tingle as I went on my long journey from Thursia to
Lunismar.
It was a long journey in miles, though not in time, we traveled like
the wind.
Both Clytia and Calypso were at the station to meet me, with their two
children, Freya and Eurydice. I learned that nearly all Caskians are
named after the planetoids or other heavenly bodies,--a very
appropriate thing, since they live so near the stars!
My heart went out to the children the moment my eyes fell upon their
faces.
They were as beautiful as Raphael's cherubs, you could not look upon
them without thrills of delight. They were two perfect buds of the
highest development humanity has ever attained to,--so far as we know.
I felt that it was a wonderful thing to know that in these lovely
forms there lurked no germs of evil, over their sweet heads there
hung no Adam's curse! They were seated in a pretty pony carriage, with
a white canopy top lined with blue silk. Freya held the lines. It
appeared that Eurydice had driven down and he was to drive back. The
father and mother were on foot. They explained that it was difficult
to drive anything but the little carriage up the steep path to their
home on the hillside, half a mile distant.
"Who would wish for any other means of locomotion than nature has
given him, in a country where the buoyant air makes walking a luxury!"
I cried, stretching my legs and filling my lungs, with an unwonted
sense of freedom and power.
I had become accustomed to the atmosphere of Paleveria, but here I had
the same sensations I had experienced when I first landed there.
"If you would rather, you may take my place, sir?" said the not much
more than knee-high Freya, ready to relinquish the lines. I felt
disposed to laugh, but not so the wise parents.
"The little ponies could not draw our friend up the hill, he is too
heavy," explained Clytia.
"Thank you, my little man, all the same!" I added.
It was midsummer in Paleveria, but here I observed everything had the
newness and delightful freshness of spring. A busy, bustling, joyous,
tuneful spring. The grass was green and succulent; the sap was in the
trees and their bark was sleek and glossy, their leaves just unrolled.
Of the wild fruit trees, every branch and twig was loaded with eager
buds crowding upon each other as the heads of children crowd at a
cottage window when one goes by. Every thicket was full of bird life
and music. I heard the roar of a waterfall in the distance, and
Calypso told me that a mighty river, the Eudosa, gathered from a
hundred mountain streams, was compressed into a deep gorge or canyon
and fell in a succession of cataracts just below the city, and finally
spread out into a lovely lake, which was a wonder in its way, being
many fathoms deep and as transparent as the atmosphere.
We paused to listen,--the children also.
"How loud it is to-day, Mamma," exclaimed Freya. His mother assented
and turned to me with a smile. "The falls of Eudosa constitute a large
part of our life up here," she said; "we note all its moods, which are
many. Sometimes it is drowsy, and purrs and murmurs; again it is
merry, and sings; or it is sublime, and rises to a thunderous roar.
Always it is sound. Do you know, my ears ached with the silence when I
was down in Paleveria!"
I have said Clytia's eyes were black; it was not an opaque blackness,
you could look through them down into her soul. I likened them in my
mind to the waters of the Eudosa which Calypso had just described.
Every moment something new attracted our attention and the brief
journey was full of incident; the children were especially alive to
the small happenings about us, and I never before took such an
interest in what I should have called insignificant things. Sometimes
the conversation between my two friends and myself rose above the
understanding of the little ones, but they were never ignored,--nor
were they obtrusive; they seemed to know just where to fit their
little questions and remarks into the talk. It was quite wonderful. I
understood, of course, that the children had been brought down to meet
me in order that I might make their acquaintance immediately and
establish my relations with them, since I was to be for some time a
member of the household. They had their small interests apart from
their elders--carefully guarded by their elders--as children should
have; but whenever they were permitted to be with us, they were of us.
They were never allowed to feel that loneliness in a crowd which is
the most desolate loneliness in the world. Clytia especially had the
art of enveloping them in her sympathy, though her intellectual
faculties were employed elsewhere. And how they loved her! I have seen
nothing like it upon the Earth.
Perhaps I adapt myself with unusual readiness to new environments, and
assimilate more easily with new persons than most people do. I had, as
you know, left Paleveria with deep reluctance, under compulsion of my
will--moved by my better judgment; and throughout my journey I had
deliberately steeped myself in sweet and bitter memories of my life
there, to the exclusion of much that might have been interesting and
instructive to me on the way,--a foolish and childish thing to have
done. And now, suddenly, Paleveria dropped from me like a garment.
Some moral power in these new friends, and perhaps in this city of
Lunismar,--a power I could feel but could not define,--raised me to a
different, unmistakably a higher, plane. I felt the change as one
feels the change from underground to the upper air.
We first walked a little way through the city, which quite filled the
valley and crept up onto the hillsides, here and there.
Each building stood alone, with a little space of ground around it,
upon which grass and flowers and shrubbery grew, and often trees. Each
such space bore evidence that it was as tenderly and scrupulously
tended as a Japanese garden.
It was the cleanest city I ever saw; there was not an unsightly place,
not a single darksome alley or lurking place for vice, no huddling
together of miserable tenements. I remarked upon this and Calypso
explained:
"Our towns used to be compact, but since electricity has annihilated
distance we have spread ourselves out. We have plenty of ground for
our population, enough to give a generous slice all round. Lunismar
really extends through three valleys."
Crystal streams trickled down from the mountains and were utilized for
practical and æsthetic purposes. Small parks, exquisitely pretty, were
very numerous, and in them the sparkling water was made to play
curious pranks. Each of these spots was an ideal resting place, and I
saw many elderly people enjoying them,--people whom I took to be from
sixty to seventy years of age, but who, I was astonished to learn,
were all upwards of a hundred. Perfect health and longevity are among
the rewards of right living practiced from generation to generation.
The forms of these old people were erect and their faces were
beautiful in intelligence and sweetness of expression.
I remarked, apropos of the general beauty and elegance of the
buildings we passed:
"This must be the fine quarter of Lunismar."
"No, not especially," returned Calypso, "it is about the same all
over."
"Is it possible! then you must all be rich?" said I.
"We have no very poor," he replied, "though of course some have larger
possessions than others. We have tried, several times in the history
of our race, to equalize the wealth of the country, but the experiment
has always failed, human nature varies so much."
"What, even here?" I asked.
"What do you mean?" said he.
"Why, I understand that you Caskians have attained to a most perfect
state of development and culture, and--" I hesitated and he smiled.
"And you think the process eliminates individual traits?" he inquired.
Clytia laughingly added:
"I hope, sir, you did not expect to find us all exactly alike, that
would be too tame!"
"You compliment me most highly," said Calypso, seriously, "but we must
not permit you to suppose that we regard our 'development' as anywhere
near perfect, In fact, the farther we advance, the greater, and the
grander, appears the excellence to which we have not yet attained.
Though it would be false modesty--and a disrespect to our
ancestors--not to admit that we are conscious of having made some
progress, as a race. We know what our beginnings were, and what we now
are."
After a moment he went on:
"I suppose the principle of differentiation, as we observe it in plant
and animal life, is the same in all life, not only physical, but
intellectual, moral, spiritual. Cultivation, though it softens salient
traits and peculiarities, may develop infinite variety in every kind
and species."
I understood this better later on, after I had met a greater number of
people, and after my perceptions had become more delicate and
acute,--or when a kind of initiatory experience had taught me how to
see and to value excellence.
A few years ago a border of nasturtiums exhibited no more than a
single color tone, the pumpkin yellow; and a bed of pansies resembled
a patch of purple heather. Observe now the chromatic variety and
beauty produced by intelligent horticulture! A group of commonplace
people--moderately disciplined by culture--might be compared to the
pansies and nasturtiums of our early recollection, and a group of
these highly refined Caskians to the delicious flowers abloom in
modern gardens.
We crave variety in people, as we crave condiments in food. For me,
this craving was never so satisfied--and at the same time so
thoroughly stimulated--as in Caskian society, which had a spiciness of
flavor impossible to describe.
Formality was disarmed by perfect breeding, there was nothing that you
could call "manner." The delicate faculty of intuition produced
harmony. I never knew a single instance in which the social atmosphere
was disagreeably jarred,--a common enough occurrence where we depend
upon the machinery of social order rather than upon the vital
principle of good conduct.
I inquired of Calypso, as we walked along, the sources of the people's
wealth. He replied that the mountains were full of it. There were
minerals and precious stones, and metals in great abundance; and all
the ores were manufactured in the vicinity of the mines before being
shipped to the lower countries and exchanged for vegetable products.
This prompted me to ask the familiar question:
"And how do you manage the labor problem?" He did not understand me
until after I had explained about our difficulties in that line. And
then he informed me that most of the people who worked in mines and
factories had vested interests in them.
"Physical labor, however," he added, "is reduced to the minimum;
machinery has taken the place of muscle."
"And thrown an army of workers out of employment and the means of
living, I suppose?" I rejoined, taking it for granted that the small
share-holders had been squeezed out, as well as the small operators.
"O, no, indeed," he returned, in surprise. "It has simply given them
more leisure. Everybody now enjoys the luxury of spare time, and may
devote his energies to the service of other than merely physical
needs." He smiled as he went on, "This labor problem the Creator gave
us was a knotty one, wasn't it? But what a tremendous satisfaction
there is in the thought--and in the fact--that we have solved it."
I was in the dark now, and waited for him to go on.
"To labor incessantly, to strain the muscles, fret the mind, and weary
the soul, and to shorten the life, all for the sake of supplying the
wants of the body, and nothing more, is, I think, an inconceivable
hardship. And to have invoked the forces of the insensate elements and
laid our burdens upon them, is a glorious triumph."
"Yes, if all men are profited by it," I returned doubtfully.
"They are, of course," said he, "at least with us. I was shocked to
find it quite different in Paleveria. There, it seemed to me,
machinery--which has been such a boon to the laborers here--has been
utilized simply and solely to increase the wealth of the rich. I saw a
good many people who looked as though they were on the brink of
starvation."
"I don't see how you manage it otherwise," I confessed.
"It belongs to the history of past generations," he replied. "Perhaps
the hardest struggle our progenitors had was to conquer the lusts of
the flesh,--of which the greed of wealth is doubtless the greatest.
They began to realize, generations ago, that Mars was rich enough to
maintain all his children in comfort and even luxury,--that none need
hunger, or thirst, or go naked or houseless, and that more than this
was vanity and vain-glory. And just as they, with intense assiduity,
sought out and cultivated nature's resources--for the reduction of
labor and the increase of wealth--so they sought out and cultivated
within themselves corresponding resources, those fit to meet the new
era of material prosperity; namely, generosity and brotherly love."
"Then you really and truly practice what you preach!" said I, with
scant politeness, and I hastened to add, "Severnius told me that you
recognize the trinity in human nature. Well, we do, too, upon the
Earth, but the Three have hardly an equal chance! We preach the
doctrine considerably more than we practice it."
"I understand that you are a highly intellectual people," remarked
Calypso, courteously.
"Yes, I suppose we are," said I; "our achievements in that line are
nothing to be ashamed of. And," I added, remembering some felicitous
sensations of my own, "there is no greater delight than the travail of
intellect which brings forth great ideas."
"Pardon me!" he returned, "the travail of soul which brings forth a
great love--a love willing to share equally with others the fruits of
intellectual triumph--is, to my mind, infinitely greater."
We had reached the terrace, or little plateau, on which my friends'
house stood; it was like a strip of green velvet for color and
smoothness.
The house was built of rough gray stone which showed silver glintings
in the sun. Here and there, delicate vines clung to the walls. There
was a carriage porch--into which the children drove--and windows
jutting out into the light, and many verandas and little balconies,
that seemed to give the place a friendly and hospitable air. Above
there was a spacious observatory, in which was mounted a very fine
telescope that must have cost a fortune,--though my friends were not
enormously rich, as I had learned from Severnius. But these people do
not regard the expenditure of even very large sums of money for the
means of the best instruction and the best pleasures as extravagance,
if no one suffers in consequence. I cannot go into their economic
system very extensively here, but I may say that it provides primarily
that all shall share bountifully in the general good; and after that,
individuals may gratify their respective tastes--or rather, satisfy
their higher needs; for their tastes are never fanciful, but always
real--as they can afford.
I do not mean that this is a written law, a formal edict, to be evaded
by such cunning devices as we know in our land, or at best loosely
construed; nor is it a mere sentiment preached from pulpits and
glorified in literature,--a beautiful but impracticable conception! It
is purely a moral law, and being such it is a vital principle in each
individual consciousness.
The telescope was Calypso's dearest possession, but I never doubted
his willingness to give it up, if there should come a time when the
keeping of it would be the slightest infringement of this law. I may
add that in all the time I spent in Caskia, I never saw a man, woman,
or child, but whose delight in any possession would have been marred
by the knowledge that his, or her, gratification meant another's
bitter deprivation. The question between Thou and I was always settled
in favor of Thou. And no barriers of race, nationality, birth, or
position, affected this universal principle.
I made a discovery in relation to the Caskians which would have
surprised and disappointed me under most circumstances; they had no
imagination, and they were not given to emotional excitation. Their
minds touched nothing but what was real. But mark this: Their real was
our highest ideal. The moral world was to them a real world; the
spiritual world was to them a real world. They had no need of imagery.
And they were never carried away by floods of feeling, for they were
always up to their highest level,--I mean in the matter of kindness
and sympathy and love. Moreover, their intellectual perceptions were
so clear, and the mysteries of nature were unrolled before their
understanding in such orderly sequence, that although their increase
of knowledge was a continuous source of delight, it never came in
shocks of surprise or excited childish wonderment. I cannot hope to
give you more than a faint conception of the dignity and majesty of a
people whose triple nature was so highly and so harmoniously
developed. One principle governed the three: Truth. They were true to
every law under which they had been created and by which they were
sustained. They were taught from infancy--but of this further on. I
wish to reintroduce Ariadne to you and let her explain some of the
wonders of their teaching, she being herself a teacher.
The observatory was a much used apartment, by both the family and by
guests. It was a library also, and it contained musical instruments. A
balcony encircled it on the outside, and here we often sat of
evenings, especially if the sky was clear and the stars and moon were
shining. The heavens as seen at night were as familiar to Clytia and
Calypso, and even to the children, as a friend's face.
It was pleasant to sit out upon the balcony even on moonless nights
and when the stars were hidden, and look down upon the city all
brilliantly alight, and listen to the unceasing music of the Falls of
Eudosa. I, too, soon learned his many "moods."
Back of the house there rose a long succession of hills, ending
finally in snow-capped mountains, the highest of which was called the
Spear, so sharply did it thrust its head up through the clouds into
the heavens.
The lower hills had been converted into vineyards. A couple of men
were fixing the trellises, and Calypso excused himself to his wife and
me and went over to them. A neatly dressed maid came out of the house
and greeted the children, who had much important news to relate
concerning their drive; and a last year's bird-nest to show her, which
they took pains to explain was quite useless to the birds, who were
all making nice new nests. The sight of the maid,--evidently an
intelligent and well-bred girl,--whose face beamed affectionately upon
the little ones, prompted a question from me:
"How do you manage about your servants, I mean house servants," I
asked; "do you have people here who are willing to do menial work?"
Clytia looked up at me with an odd expression. Her answer, coming from
any one less sincere, would have sounded like cant.
"We do not regard any work as mean."
"But some kinds of work are distasteful, to say the least," I
insisted.
"Not if you love those for whom you labor," she returned. "A mother
does not consider any sort of service to her child degrading."
"O, I know that," said I; "that is simply natural affection."
"But natural affection, you know, is only the germ of love. It is
narrow,--only a little broader than selfishness."
"Well, tell me how it applies in this question of service?" I asked.
"I am not able to comprehend it in the abstract."
"We do not require people to do anything for us which we would not do
for ourselves, or for them," she said. "And then, we all work. We
believe in work; it means strength to the body and relief to the mind.
No one permits himself to be served by another for the unworthy
reason, openly or tacitly confessed, that he is either too proud, or
too indolent, to serve himself."
"Then why have servants at all?" I asked.
"My husband explained to you," she returned, "that our people are not
all equally rich; and they are not all adapted to what you would call,
perhaps, the higher grades of service. You see the little maid yonder
with the children; she has the gifts of a teacher,--our teachers are
very carefully chosen, and as carefully instructed. She has been
placed with me for our mutual benefit,--I could not intrust my little
ones to the care of a mere paid nurse who thought only of her wages.
Nor could she work simply for wages. The money consideration is the
smallest item in the arrangement. My husband superintends some steel
works in which he has some shares. The man he is talking with now--who
is attending to the grape vines--has also a large interest in the
steel works, but he has no taste or faculty for engaging in that kind
of business. He might spend his whole life in idleness if he chose, or
in mental pursuits, for he is a very scholarly man, but he loves the
kind of work he is doing now, and our vineyard is his especial pride.
Moreover," a beautiful smile touched her face as she looked up at the
two men on the hillside, "Fides loves my Calypso, they are soul
friends!"
When I became more familiar with the household, I found that the same
relations existed all round; mutual pleasure, mutual sympathy, mutual
helpfulness. First there seemed to be on the part of each employe a
distinct preference and liking for the kind of work he or she had
undertaken to do; second, a fitness and careful preparation for the
work; and last, the love of doing for those who gave appreciation,
love, and another sort of service or assistance in return. I heard one
of them say one day:
"I ask nothing better than to be permitted to cook the meals for these
dear people!"
This was a woman who wrote monthly articles on chemistry and botany
for one of the leading scientific journals. She was a middle-aged
woman and unmarried, who did not wish to live alone, who abhorred
"boarding," and who had found just such a comfortable nest in Clytia's
home as suited all her needs and desires. Of course she did not slave
in the kitchen all day long, and her position did not debar her from
the best and most intelligent society, nor cut her off from the
pleasure and privileges that sweeten life. She brought her scientific
knowledge to the preparation of the food she set before us, and took
as much pride in the results of her skill as an inventor takes in his
appliances. And such wholesome, delicious, well-cooked dishes I have
never eaten elsewhere. Clytia believed in intelligently prepared food,
as she believed in intelligent instruction for her children; she would
have thought it a crime to set an ignorant person over her kitchen.
And this woman of whom I am speaking knew that she held a place of
honor and trust, and she filled it not only with dignity but
lovingness. She had some younger women to assist her, whom she was
instructing in the science and the art of cooking, and who would
by-and-by take responsible positions themselves. These women, or
girls, assisted also in the housekeeping, which was the most perfect
system in point of cleanliness, order and beauty that it is possible
to conceive of in a home; because skill, honesty and conscientiousness
enter into every detail of the life of these people. The body is held
in honor, and its needs are respected. Life is sacred, and physical
sins,--neglect or infringement of the laws of health,--are classed in
the same category with moral transgressions. In fact, the same
principles and the same mathematical rules apply in the Three Natures
of Man,--refined of course to correspond with the ascending scale from
the lowest to the highest, from the physical to the spiritual. But so
closely are the Three allied that there are no dividing lines,--there
is no point where the Mind may say, "Here my responsibility ends," or
where the Body may affirm, "I have only myself to please." Day by day
these truths became clear to me. There was nothing particularly new in
anything that I heard,--indeed it was all singularly familiar, in
sound. But the wonder was, that the things we idealize, and theorize
about, they accept literally, and absorb into their lives. They have
made living facts of our profoundest philosophy and our sublimest
poetry. Are we then too philosophical, too poetical,--and not
practical? A good many centuries have rolled up their records and
dropped them into eternity since we were given the simple, wonderful
lesson, "Whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap,"--and we have
not learned it yet! St. Paul's voice rings through the Earth from age
to age, "Work out your own salvation," and we do not comprehend. These
people have never had a Christ--in flesh and blood--but they have put
into effect every precept of our Great Teacher. They have received the
message, from whence I know not,--or rather by what means I know
not,--"A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another."