Kind to me as I found all in this household, the young daughter of my
host was the most considerate and thoughtful in her kindness. At her
suggestion I laid aside the habiliments in which I had descended
from the upper earth, and adopted the dress of the Vril-ya, with the
exception of the artful wings which served them, when on foot, as a
graceful mantle. But as many of the Vril-ya, when occupied in urban
pursuits, did not wear these wings, this exception created no marked
difference between myself and the race among whom I sojourned, and I was
thus enabled to visit the town without exciting unpleasant curiosity.
Out of the household no one suspected that I had come from the upper
world, and I was but regarded as one of some inferior and barbarous
tribe whom Aph-Lin entertained as a guest.
The city was large in proportion to the territory round it, which was of
no greater extent than many an English or Hungarian nobleman’s estate;
but the whole if it, to the verge of the rocks which constituted its
boundary, was cultivated to the nicest degree, except where certain
allotments of mountain and pasture were humanely left free to the
sustenance of the harmless animals they had tamed, though not for
domestic use. So great is their kindness towards these humbler
creatures, that a sum is devoted from the public treasury for the
purpose of deporting them to other Vril-ya communities willing to
receive them (chiefly new colonies), whenever they become too numerous
for the pastures allotted to them in their native place. They do not,
however, multiply to an extent comparable to the ratio at which, with
us, animals bred for slaughter, increase. It seems a law of nature that
animals not useful to man gradually recede from the domains he occupies,
or even become extinct. It is an old custom of the various sovereign
states amidst which the race of the Vril-ya are distributed, to leave
between each state a neutral and uncultivated border-land. In the
instance of the community I speak of, this tract, being a ridge of
savage rocks, was impassable by foot, but was easily surmounted, whether
by the wings of the inhabitants or the air-boats, of which I shall speak
hereafter. Roads through it were also cut for the transit of vehicles
impelled by vril. These intercommunicating tracts were always kept
lighted, and the expense thereof defrayed by a special tax, to which all
the communities comprehended in the denomination of Vril-ya contribute
in settled proportions. By these means a considerable commercial traffic
with other states, both near and distant, was carried on. The surplus
wealth on this special community was chiefly agricultural. The community
was also eminent for skill in constructing implements connected with the
arts of husbandry. In exchange for such merchandise it obtained articles
more of luxury than necessity. There were few things imported on which
they set a higher price than birds taught to pipe artful tunes in
concert. These were brought from a great distance, and were marvellous
for beauty of song and plumage. I understand that extraordinary care was
taken by their breeders and teachers in selection, and that the species
had wonderfully improved during the last few years. I saw no other
pet animals among this community except some very amusing and sportive
creatures of the Batrachian species, resembling frogs, but with very
intelligent countenances, which the children were fond of, and kept in
their private gardens. They appear to have no animals akin to our dogs
or horses, though that learned naturalist, Zee, informed me that such
creatures had once existed in those parts, and might now be found in
regions inhabited by other races than the Vril-ya. She said that they
had gradually disappeared from the more civilised world since the
discovery of vril, and the results attending that discovery had
dispensed with their uses. Machinery and the invention of wings had
superseded the horse as a beast of burden; and the dog was no longer
wanted either for protection or the chase, as it had been when the
ancestors of the Vril-ya feared the aggressions of their own kind, or
hunted the lesser animals for food. Indeed, however, so far as the horse
was concerned, this region was so rocky that a horse could have been,
there, of little use either for pastime or burden. The only creature
they use for the latter purpose is a kind of large goat which is much
employed on farms. The nature of the surrounding soil in these
districts may be said to have first suggested the invention of wings and
air-boats. The largeness of space in proportion to the space occupied by
the city, was occasioned by the custom of surrounding every house with a
separate garden. The broad main street, in which Aph-Lin dwelt, expanded
into a vast square, in which were placed the College of Sages and all
the public offices; a magnificent fountain of the luminous fluid which I
call naptha (I am ignorant of its real nature) in the centre. All these
public edifices have a uniform character of massiveness and solidity.
They reminded me of the architectural pictures of Martin. Along the
upper stories of each ran a balcony, or rather a terraced garden,
supported by columns, filled with flowering plants, and tenanted by
many kinds of tame birds.
From the square branched several streets, all broad and brilliantly
lighted, and ascending up the eminence on either side. In my excursions
in the town I was never allowed to go alone; Aph-Lin or his daughter was
my habitual companion. In this community the adult Gy is seen walking
with any young An as familiarly as if there were no difference of sex.
The retail shops are not very numerous; the persons who attend on a
customer are all children of various ages, and exceedingly intelligent
and courteous, but without the least touch of importunity or cringing.
The shopkeeper himself might or might not be visible; when visible, he
seemed rarely employed on any matter connected with his professional
business; and yet he had taken to that business from special liking for
it, and quite independently of his general sources of fortune.
The Ana of the community are, on the whole, an indolent set of beings
after the active age of childhood. Whether by temperament or philosophy,
they rank repose among the chief blessings of life. Indeed, when you
take away from a human being the incentives to action which are found in
cupidity or ambition, it seems to me no wonder that he rests quiet.
In their ordinary movements they prefer the use of their feet to that
of their wings. But for their sports or (to indulge in a bold misuse of
terms) their public ‘promenades,’ they employ the latter, also for the
aerial dances I have described, as well as for visiting their country
places, which are mostly placed on lofty heights; and, when still young,
they prefer their wings for travel into the other regions of the Ana, to
vehicular conveyances.
Those who accustom themselves to flight can fly, if less rapidly than
some birds, yet from twenty-five to thirty miles an hour, and keep up
that rate for five or six hours at a stretch. But the Ana generally, on
reaching middle age, are not fond of rapid movements requiring violent
exercise. Perhaps for this reason, as they hold a doctrine which our
own physicians will doubtless approve--viz., that regular transpiration
through the pores of the skin is essential to health, they habitually
use the sweating-baths to which we give the name Turkish or Roman,
succeeded by douches of perfumed waters. They have great faith in the
salubrious virtue of certain perfumes.
It is their custom also, at stated but rare periods, perhaps four times
a-year when in health, to use a bath charged with vril.*
* I once tried the effect of the vril bath. It was very similar in its
invigorating powers to that of the baths at Gastein, the virtues
of which are ascribed by many physicians to electricity; but though
similar, the effect of the vril bath was more lasting.
They consider that this fluid, sparingly used, is a great sustainer of
life; but used in excess, when in the normal state of health, rather
tends to reaction and exhausted vitality. For nearly all their diseases,
however, they resort to it as the chief assistant to nature in throwing
off their complaint.
In their own way they are the most luxurious of people, but all their
luxuries are innocent. They may be said to dwell in an atmosphere of
music and fragrance. Every room has its mechanical contrivances for
melodious sounds, usually tuned down to soft-murmured notes, which seem
like sweet whispers from invisible spirits. They are too accustomed to
these gentle sounds to find them a hindrance to conversation, nor, when
alone, to reflection. But they have a notion that to breathe an air
filled with continuous melody and perfume has necessarily an effect
at once soothing and elevating upon the formation of character and the
habits of thought. Though so temperate, and with total abstinence from
other animal food than milk, and from all intoxicating drinks, they are
delicate and dainty to an extreme in food and beverage; and in all their
sports even the old exhibit a childlike gaiety. Happiness is the end at
which they aim, not as the excitement of a moment, but as the prevailing
condition of the entire existence; and regard for the happiness of each
other is evinced by the exquisite amenity of their manners.
Their conformation of skull has marked differences from that of any
known races in the upper world, though I cannot help thinking it a
development, in the course of countless ages of the Brachycephalic type
of the Age of Stone in Lyell’s ‘Elements of Geology,’ C. X., p. 113, as
compared with the Dolichocephalic type of the beginning of the Age of
Iron, correspondent with that now so prevalent amongst us, and called
the Celtic type. It has the same comparative massiveness of forehead,
not receding like the Celtic--the same even roundness in the frontal
organs; but it is far loftier in the apex, and far less pronounced
in the hinder cranial hemisphere where phrenologists place the animal
organs. To speak as a phrenologist, the cranium common to the Vril-ya
has the organs of weight, number, tune, form, order, causality, very
largely developed; that of construction much more pronounced than
that of ideality. Those which are called the moral organs, such as
conscientiousness and benevolence, are amazingly full; amativeness
and combativeness are both small; adhesiveness large; the organ of
destructiveness (i.e., of determined clearance of intervening
obstacles) immense, but less than that of benevolence; and their
philoprogenitiveness takes rather the character of compassion and
tenderness to things that need aid or protection than of the animal love
of offspring. I never met with one person deformed or misshapen. The
beauty of their countenances is not only in symmetry of feature, but in
a smoothness of surface, which continues without line or wrinkle to the
extreme of old age, and a serene sweetness of expression, combined with
that majesty which seems to come from consciousness of power and the
freedom of all terror, physical or moral. It is that very sweetness,
combined with that majesty, which inspired in a beholder like myself,
accustomed to strive with the passions of mankind, a sentiment of
humiliation, of awe, of dread. It is such an expression as a painter
might give to a demi-god, a genius, an angel. The males of the Vril-ya
are entirely beardless; the Gy-ei sometimes, in old age, develop a small
moustache.
I was surprised to find that the colour of their skin was not uniformly
that which I had remarked in those individuals whom I had first
encountered,--some being much fairer, and even with blue eyes, and hair
of a deep golden auburn, though still of complexions warmer or richer in
tone than persons in the north of Europe.
I was told that this admixture of colouring arose from intermarriage
with other and more distant tribes of the Vril-ya, who, whether by the
accident of climate or early distinction of race, were of fairer hues
than the tribes of which this community formed one. It was considered
that the dark-red skin showed the most ancient family of Ana; but they
attached no sentiment of pride to that antiquity, and, on the contrary,
believed their present excellence of breed came from frequent crossing
with other families differing, yet akin; and they encourage such
intermarriages, always provided that it be with the Vril-ya nations.
Nations which, not conforming their manners and institutions to those
of the Vril-ya, nor indeed held capable of acquiring the powers over
the vril agencies which it had taken them generations to attain and
transmit, were regarded with more disdain than the citizens of New York
regard the negroes.
I learned from Zee, who had more lore in all matters than any male with
whom I was brought into familiar converse, that the superiority of
the Vril-ya was supposed to have originated in the intensity of their
earlier struggles against obstacles in nature amidst the localities
in which they had first settled. “Wherever,” said Zee, moralising,
“wherever goes on that early process in the history of civilisation, by
which life is made a struggle, in which the individual has to put forth
all his powers to compete with his fellow, we invariably find this
result--viz., since in the competition a vast number must perish, nature
selects for preservation only the strongest specimens. With our
race, therefore, even before the discovery of vril, only the highest
organisations were preserved; and there is among our ancient books a
legend, once popularly believed, that we were driven from a region
that seems to denote the world you come from, in order to perfect our
condition and attain to the purest elimination of our species by the
severity of the struggles our forefathers underwent; and that, when our
education shall become finally completed, we are destined to return
to the upper world, and supplant all the inferior races now existing
therein.”
Aph-Lin and Zee often conversed with me in private upon the
political and social conditions of that upper world, in which Zee so
philosophically assumed that the inhabitants were to be exterminated
one day or other by the advent of the Vril-ya. They found in my
accounts,--in which I continued to do all I could (without launching
into falsehoods so positive that they would have been easily detected by
the shrewdness of my listeners) to present our powers and ourselves in
the most flattering point of view,--perpetual subjects of comparison
between our most civilised populations and the meaner subterranean races
which they considered hopelessly plunged in barbarism, and doomed to
gradual if certain extinction. But they both agreed in desiring to
conceal from their community all premature opening into the regions
lighted by the sun; both were humane, and shrunk from the thought of
annihilating so many millions of creatures; and the pictures I drew of
our life, highly coloured as they were, saddened them. In vain I boasted
of our great men--poets, philosophers, orators, generals--and defied the
Vril-ya to produce their equals. “Alas,” said Zee, “this predominance
of the few over the many is the surest and most fatal sign of a race
incorrigibly savage. See you not that the primary condition of mortal
happiness consists in the extinction of that strife and competition
between individuals, which, no matter what forms of government they
adopt, render the many subordinate to the few, destroy real liberty to
the individual, whatever may be the nominal liberty of the state, and
annul that calm of existence, without which, felicity, mental or bodily,
cannot be attained? Our notion is, that the more we can assimilate life
to the existence which our noblest ideas can conceive to be that of
spirits on the other side of the grave, why, the more we approximate
to a divine happiness here, and the more easily we glide into the
conditions of being hereafter. For, surely, all we can imagine of the
life of gods, or of blessed immortals, supposes the absence of self-made
cares and contentious passions, such as avarice and ambition. It seems
to us that it must be a life of serene tranquility, not indeed without
active occupations to the intellectual or spiritual powers,
but occupations, of whatsoever nature they be, congenial to the
idiosyncrasies of each, not forced and repugnant--a life gladdened by
the untrammelled interchange of gentle affections, in which the moral
atmosphere utterly kills hate and vengeance, and strife and rivalry.
Such is the political state to which all the tribes and families of
the Vril-ya seek to attain, and towards that goal all our theories of
government are shaped. You see how utterly opposed is such a progress to
that of the uncivilised nations from which you come, and which aim at
a systematic perpetuity of troubles, and cares, and warring passions
aggravated more and more as their progress storms its way onward. The
most powerful of all the races in our world, beyond the pale of the
Vril-ya, esteems itself the best governed of all political societies,
and to have reached in that respect the extreme end at which political
wisdom can arrive, so that the other nations should tend more or less to
copy it. It has established, on its broadest base, the Koom-Posh--viz.,
the government of the ignorant upon the principle of being the most
numerous. It has placed the supreme bliss in the vying with each other
in all things, so that the evil passions are never in repose--vying for
power, for wealth, for eminence of some kind; and in this rivalry it
is horrible to hear the vituperation, the slanders, and calumnies which
even the best and mildest among them heap on each other without remorse
or shame.”
“Some years ago,” said Aph-Lin, “I visited this people, and their
misery and degradation were the more appalling because they were always
boasting of their felicity and grandeur as compared with the rest of
their species. And there is no hope that this people, which evidently
resembles your own, can improve, because all their notions tend to
further deterioration. They desire to enlarge their dominion more and
more, in direct antagonism to the truth that, beyond a very limited
range, it is impossible to secure to a community the happiness which
belongs to a well-ordered family; and the more they mature a system
by which a few individuals are heated and swollen to a size above the
standard slenderness of the millions, the more they chuckle and exact,
and cry out, ‘See by what great exceptions to the common littleness of
our race we prove the magnificent results of our system!’”
“In fact,” resumed Zee, “if the wisdom of human life be to approximate
to the serene equality of immortals, there can be no more direct flying
off into the opposite direction than a system which aims at carrying
to the utmost the inequalities and turbulences of mortals. Nor do I see
how, by any forms of religious belief, mortals, so acting, could fit
themselves even to appreciate the joys of immortals to which they still
expect to be transferred by the mere act of dying. On the contrary,
minds accustomed to place happiness in things so much the reverse of
godlike, would find the happiness of gods exceedingly dull, and would
long to get back to a world in which they could quarrel with each
other.”