 CHAPTER XVII The Vrilia being excluded from all sight of the heavenly bodies, and having no other difference between night and day than that which they deem it convenient to make for themselves, do not, of course, arrive at their divisions of time by the same process that we do. But I found it easy by the aid of my watch which I luckily had about me to compute their time with great nicety. I reserve for a future work on the science and literature of the Vrilia should I live to complete it, all details as to the manner in which they arrive at their rotation of time, and content myself here with saying that in point of duration their year differs very slightly from ours, but that the divisions of their year are by no means the same. Their day, including what we call night, consists of twenty hours of our time instead of twenty-four, and, of course, their year comprises the corresponding increase in the number of days by which it is summed up. They subdivide the twenty hours of their day thus, eight hours called the silent hours for repose, eight hours called the earnest time for the pursuits and occupations of life, and four hours called the easy time with which what I may term their day closes, allotted to festivities, sport, recreation, or family converse according to their several tastes and inclinations. Note, for the sake of convenience I adopt the word hours, days, years, etc., in any general reference to subdivisions of time among the Vrilia, those terms but loosely corresponding, however, with such subdivisions. And note. But in truth, out of doors there is no night. They maintain both in the streets and in the surrounding country to the limits of their territory the same degree of light at all hours. Only within doors they lower it to a soft twilight during the silent hours. They have a great horror of perfect darkness, and their lights are never wholly extinguished. On occasions of festivity they continue the duration of full light, but equally keep note of the distinction between night and day by mechanical contrivances which answer the purpose of our clocks and watches. They are very fond of music, and it is by music that these chronometers strike the principal division of time. At every one of their hours during the day the sounds coming from all the timepieces in their public buildings, and caught up, as it were, by those of houses or hamlets scattered amidst the landscapes without the city, have an effect singularly sweet, and yet singularly solemn. But during the silent hours these sounds are so subdued as to be only faintly heard by a waking ear. They have no change of seasons, and at least on the territory of this tribe, the atmosphere seems to me very equable, warm as that of an Italian summer, and humid rather than dry. In the forenoon usually very still, but at times invaded by strong blasts from the rocks that made the borders of their domain. But time is the same to them for sowing or reaping as in the golden aisles of the ancient poets. At the same moment you see the younger plants in blade or bud, the older in ear or fruit. All fruit-bearing plants, however, after frutage, either shed or change the color of their leaves. But that which interested me most in reckoning up their divisions of time was the ascertainment of the average duration of life amongst them. I found, on minute inquiry, that this very considerably exceeded the term allotted to us on the upper earth. What seventy years are to us, one hundred years are to them, nor is this the only advantage they have over us in longevity, for as few among us attain to the age of seventy, so, on the contrary, few among them die before the age of one hundred. And they enjoy a general degree of health and vigor, which makes life itself a blessing even to the last. Various causes contribute to this result. The absence of all alcoholic stimulants, temperance in food, more especially, perhaps, a serenity of mind undisturbed by anxious occupations and eager passions. They are not tormented by our avarice or our ambition. They appear perfectly indifferent even to the desire of fame. They are capable of great affection, but their love shows itself in a tender and cheerful complacence, and, while forming their happiness, seems rarely, if ever, to constitute their woe. As the Ghee is sure only to marry where she herself fixes her choice, and as here not less than above ground, it is the female on whom the happiness of home depends. So the Ghee, having chosen the mate she prefers to all others, is lenient to his faults, consults his humours, and does her best to secure his attachment. The death of a beloved one is, of course, with them, as with us, a cause for sorrow. But not only is death with them so much more rare before that age in which it becomes a release, but, when it does occur, the survivor takes much more consolation than, I'm afraid, the generality of us do, in the certainty of reunion in another and yet happier life. All these causes, then, concur to the healthful and enjoyable longevity, though, no doubt, much also must be owing to hereditary organisation. According to their records, however, in those earlier stages of their society, when they lived in communities resembling ours, agitated by fierce competition, their lives were considerably shorter, and their maladies more numerous and grave. They themselves say that the duration of life, too, has increased and is still on the increase, since their discovery of the invigorating and medicinal properties of Ryl applied for remedial purposes. They have few professional and regular practitioners of medicine, and these are chiefly jaillet, who, especially if widowed and childless, find great delight in the healing art, and even undertake surgical operations in those cases required by accident, or, more rarely, by disease. They have their diversions and entertainments, and, during the easy time of their day, they are wont to assemble in great numbers for those winged sports in the air, which I have already described. They have also public halls for music, and even theatres, at which are performed pieces that appear to me somewhat to resemble the place of the Chinese. Dramas that are thrown back into distant times for their events and personages, in which all classic unities are outrageously violated, and the hero in one scene a child, in the next is an old man, and so forth. These plays are of very ancient composition, and their stories cast in remote times. They appear to me very dull on the whole, but were relieved by startling mechanical contrivances, and a kind of farcical broad humor, and detached passages of great vigor and power expressed in language highly poetical, but somewhat overcharged with metaphor and trope. In fine, they seem to me very much what the place of Shakespeare seemed to a Parisian in the time of Louis XV, or perhaps to an Englishman in the reign of Charles II. The audience, of which the jaillet constituted the chief portion, appeared to enjoy greatly the representation of these dramas, which, for so sedate and majestic a race of females, surprised me, till I observed that all the performers were under the age of adolescents, and conjectured truly that the mothers and sisters came to please their children and brothers. I have said that these dramas are of great antiquity. No new plays, indeed, no imaginative work sufficiently important to survive their immediate day, appear to have been composed for several generations. In fact, though there is no lack of new publications, and they have even what may be called newspapers, these are chiefly devoted to mechanical science, reports of new inventions, announcements respecting various details of business, in short, to practical matters. Sometimes a child writes a little tale of adventure, or a young gi vents her amorous hopes or fears in a poem, but these effusions are a very little merit, and are seldom read except by children and maiden jaillet. The most interesting works of a purely literary character are those of explorations and travels into other regions of this netherworld, which are generally written by young immigrants, and are read with great avidity by the relations and friends they have left behind. I could not help expressing to Upper Lin my surprise that a community in which mechanical science had made so marvelous a progress, and in which intellectual civilization had exhibited itself in realizing those objects for the happiness of the people which the political philosophers above ground had, after ages of struggle, pretty generally agreed to consider unattainable visions, should nevertheless be so holy without a contemporaneous literature, despite the excellence to which culture had brought a language at once so rich and simple, vigorous and musical. My host replied, Do you not perceive that a literature such as you mean would be wholly incompatible with that perfection of social and political felicity at which you do us the honor to think we have arrived? We have at last, after centuries of struggle, settled into a form of government with which we are content, and in which as we allow no differences of rank and no honors are paid to administrators distinguishing them from others, there is no stimulus given to individual ambition. No one would read works advocating theories that involved any political or social change, and therefore no one writes them. If now and then an on feels himself dissatisfied with our tranquil mode of life, he does not attack it, he goes away. Thus all that part of literature and to judge by the ancient books in our public libraries, it was once a very large part, which relates to speculative theories on society, is become utterly extinct. Again, formally there was a vast deal written respecting the attributes and essence of the all good, and the arguments for and against a future state. But now we all recognize two facts, that there is a divine being, and there is a future state, and we all equally agree that if we wrote our fingers to the bone we could not throw any light upon the nature and conditions of that future state, or quicken our apprehensions of the attributes and essence of that divine being. Thus another part of literature has become also extinct, happily for our race. For in the time when so much was written on subjects which no one could determine, people seemed to live in a perpetual state of quarrel and contention. So too a vast part of our ancient literature consists of historical records of wars and revolutions during the times when the Anah lived in large and turbulent societies, each seeking a grandisement at the expense of the other. You see our serene mode of life now, such it has been for ages. We have no events to chronicle. What more of us can be said than that they were born, they were happy, they died. Coming next to that part of literature, which is more under the control of the imagination, such as what we call glub sila, or colloquially globes, and you call poetry, the reasons for its decline amongst us are abundantly obvious. We find, by referring to the great masterpieces in that department of literature which we all still read with pleasure, but of which none would tolerate imitations, that they consist in their portraiture of passions which we no longer experience, ambition, vengeance, unhallowed love, the thirst for warlike renown, and such like. The old poets lived in an atmosphere impregnated with these passions and felt vividly what they expressed glowingly. No one can express such passions now, for no one can feel them, or meet with any sympathy in his readers if he did. Again the old poetry has a main element in its dissection of those complex mysteries of human character which conduce to abnormal vices and crimes, or lead to signal and extraordinary virtues. But our society, having got rid of temptations to any prominent vices and crimes, has necessarily rendered the moral average so equal that there are no very salient virtues. Without its ancient food of strong passions, vast crimes, heroic excellences, poetry therefore is, if not actually starved to death, reduced to a very meager diet. There is still the poetry of description, description of rocks and trees and waters, and common household life, and our young jaillet weave much of this insipid kind of composition into their love-verses. Such poetry, said I, might surely be made very charming, and we have critics amongst us who consider it a higher kind than that which depicts the crimes or analyzes the passions of man. At all events poetry of the inspired kind you mention is a poetry that nowadays commands more readers than any other among the people I have left above ground. Possibly, but then I suppose the writers take great pains with the language they employ and devote themselves to the culture and polish of words and rhythms of an art. Certainly they do. All great poets do that. Though the gift of poetry may be inborn, the gift requires as much care to make it available as a block of metal does to be made into one of your engines. And doubtless your poets have some incentive to bestow all those pains upon such verbal prettinesses? Well, I presume their instinct of song would make them sing as the bird does. But to cultivate the song into verbal or artificial prettiness probably does need an inducement from without, and our poets find it in the love of fame, perhaps now and then in the want of money. Precisely so, but in our society we attach fame to nothing which man in that moment of his duration which is called life can perform. We should soon lose that equality which constitutes the felicitous essence of our commonwealth if we selected any individual for preeminent praise. Preeminent praise would confer preeminent power and the moment it were given evil passions now dormant would awake. Other men would immediately covet praise, then would arise envy and with envy hate, and with hate, calamity and persecution. Our history tells us that most of the poets and most of the writers who in the old time were favored with the greatest praise were also assailed by the greatest vituperation and even on the whole rendered very unhappy partly by the attacks of jealous rivals partly by the diseased mental constitution which an acquired sensitiveness to praise and to blame tends to engender. As for the stimulus of want, in the first place no man in our community knows the goad of poverty and secondly if he did almost every occupation would be more lucrative than writing. Our public libraries contain all the books of the past which time has preserved. Those books for the reasons above stated are infinitely better than any can write nowadays and they are open to all to read without cost. We are not such fools as to pay for reading inferior books when we can read superior books for nothing. With us novelty has an attraction and a new book, if bad, is read when an old book, though good, is neglected. Novelty, to barbarous states of society struggling and despair for something better, has no doubt an attraction, denied to us who see nothing to gain in novelties, but after all it is observed by one of our great authors four thousand years ago that he who studies old books will always find in them something new and he who reads new books will always find in them something old. But to return to the question you have raised, there being then amongst us no stimulus to painstaking labor, whether in desire of fame or in pressure of want, such as have the poetic temperament no doubt vented in song as you say the bird sings, but for lack of elaborate culture it fails of an audience and failing of an audience dies out of itself amidst the ordinary applications of life. But how is it that these discouragements to the cultivation of literature do not operate against that of science? Your question amazes me. The motive to science is the love of truth apart from all consideration of fame, and the science with us, too, is devoted almost solely to practical uses, essential to our social conversation and the comforts of our daily life. No fame is asked by the inventor and none is given to him. He enjoys an occupation congenial to his tastes and needing no wear and tear of the passions. Man must have exercise for his mind as well as body, and continuous exercise rather than violent is best for both. Our most ingenious cultivators of science are, as a general rule, the longest lived and the most free from disease. Painting is an amusement to many, but the art is not what it was in former times when the great painters in our various communities vied with each other for the prize of a golden crown which gave them a social rank equal to that of the kings under whom they lived. You will thus doubtless have observed in our archaeological department how superior in point of art the pictures were several thousand years ago. Perhaps it is because music is, in reality, more allied to science than it is to poetry, that of all the pleasurable arts music is that which flourishes the most amongst us. Still even in music the absence of stimulus and praise or fame has served to prevent any great superiority of one individual over another, and we rather excel in choral music with the aid of our vast mechanical instruments in which we make great use of the agency of water than in single performers. Note, this may remind the student of Nero's invention of a musical machine by which water was made to perform the part of an orchestra, and on which he was employed when the conspiracy against him broke out. End note. We have had scarcely any original composer for some ages. Our favorite heirs are very ancient in substance, but have admitted many complicated variations by inferior though ingenious musicians. Are there no political societies among the Anna which are animated by those passions subjected to those crimes, and admitting those disparities in condition, in intellect, and in morality, which the state of your tribe, or indeed of the Vriliad generally, has left behind in its progress to perfection? If so, among such societies, perhaps poetry and her sister arts still continue to be honored and to improve. There are such societies in remote regions, but we do not admit them within the pale of civilized communities. We scarcely even give them the name of Anna, and certainly not that of Vriliad. They are savages, living chiefly in that low stage of being, Kumpush, tending necessarily to its own hideous dissolution in Gleknas. Their wretched existence is passed in perpetual contest and perpetual change. When they do not fight with their neighbors, they fight among themselves. They are divided into sections which abuse, plunder, and sometimes murder each other, and on the most frivolous points of difference than would be unintelligible to us, if we had not read history, and seen that we too have passed through the same early state of ignorance and barbarism. Any trifle is sufficient to set them together by the ears. They pretend to be all equals, and the more they have struggled to be so by removing old distinctions and starting afresh, the more glaring and intolerable the disparity becomes, because nothing in hereditary affections and associations is left to soften the one naked distinction between the many who have nothing and the few who have much. Of course the many hate the few, but without the few they could not live. The many are always assailing the few. Sometimes they exterminate the few, but as soon as they have done so, a new few starts out of the many and is harder to deal with than the old few. For where societies are large and competition to have something is the predominant fever, there must be always many losers and few gainers. In short, they are savages groping their way in the dark toward some gleam of light, and would demand our commiseration for their infirmities, if, like all savages, they did not provoke their own destruction by their arrogance and cruelty. Can you imagine that creatures of this kind, armed only with such miserable weapons as you may see in our Museum of Antiquities, clumsy iron tubes charged with salt peter, have more than once threatened with destruction a tribe of the Relyah which dwells nearest to them? Because they say they have thirty millions of population and that tribe may have fifty thousand? If the latter do not accept their notions of soak-sick, money-getting, on some trading principles which they have the impudence to call a law of civilization. But thirty millions of population are formidable odds against fifty thousand? My host stared at me astonished. Stranger, said he, you could not have heard me say that this threatened tribe belongs to the Relyah, and it only waits for these savages to declare war in order to commission some half a dozen small children to sweep away their whole population. At these words I felt a thrill of horror, recognizing much more affinity with the savages than I did with the Relyah and remembering all I had said in praise of the glorious American institutions which Apollon stigmatized as Kumpush. Recovering my self-possession I asked if there were modes of transit by which I could safely visit this Temerarius and remote people. You can travel with safety by Vril agency either along the ground or amid the air, throughout all the range of the communities with which we are allied and akin. But I cannot vouch for your safety in barbarous nations governed by different laws from ours. Nations, indeed, so benighted that there are among them large numbers who actually live by stealing from each other, and one could not with safety in the silent hours even leave the doors of one's own house open. Here our conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Ta'i, who came to inform us that he, having been deputed to discover and destroyed the enormous reptile which I had seen on my first arrival, had been on the watch for it ever since his visit to me, and had begun to suspect that my eyes had deceived me, or that the creature had made its way through the cavities within the rocks to the wild regions in which dwelt its kindred race. When it gave evidences of its whereabouts by a great devastation of the herbage bordering one of the lakes, and, said Ta'i, I feel sure that within that lake it is now hiding, so, turning to me, I thought it might amuse you to accompany me to see the way we destroy such unpleasant visitors. As I looked at the face of the young child, and called to mind the enormous size of the creature he proposed to exterminate, I felt myself shudder with fear for him, and perhaps fear for myself if I accompanied him in such a chase. But my curiosity to witness the destructiveness effects of the boasted drill, and my unwillingness to lower myself in the eyes of an infant, by betraying apprehensions of personal safety, prevailed over my first impulse. Accordingly, I thank Ta'i for his courteous consideration for my amusement, and professed my willingness to set out with him on so diverting an enterprise. CHAPTER 18 As Ta'i and myself, on quitting the town, and leaving to the left the main road which led to it, struck into the fields, the strange and solemn beauty of the landscape, lighted up by numberless lamps, to the verge of the horizon, fascinated my eyes, and rendered me for some time an inattentive listener to the talk of my companion. Along our way various operations of agriculture were being carried on by machinery, the forms of which were new to me, and for the most part very graceful. For among these people, art being so cultivated for the sake of mere utility, exhibits itself in adorning or refining the shapes of useful objects. Precious metals and gems are so profuse among them that they are lavished on things devoted to purposes the most common place, and their love of utility leads them to beautify its tools, and quickens their imagination in a way unknown to themselves. In all service, whether in or out of doors, they make great use of automaton figures which are so ingenious, and so pliant to the operations of rill, that they actually seem gifted with reason. It was scarcely possible to distinguish the figures I beheld, apparently guiding or superintending the rapid movements of vast engines, from human forms endowed with thought. By degrees as we continued to walk on, my attention became roused by the lively and acute remarks of my companion. The intelligence of the children among this race is marvelously precocious, perhaps from the habit of having entrusted to them at so early an age the toils and responsibilities of middle age. Indeed, in conversing with Thayi, I felt as if talking with some superior and observant man of my own years. I asked him if he could form any estimate of the number of communities into which the race of the Vrelia is subdivided. Not exactly, he said, because they multiply, of course, every year as the surplus of each community is drafted off. But I heard my father say that, according to the last report, there were a million and a half of communities speaking our language and adopting our institutions and forms of life and government. But I believe, with some differences about which you had better ask Zee, she knows more than most of the Anadu. An An cares less for things that do not concern him than a Gi does. The Jayae are inquisitive creatures. Does each community restrict itself to the same number of families or amount of population that you do? No, some have much smaller populations, some have larger, varying according to the extent of the country they appropriate, or to the degree of excellence to which they have brought their machinery. Each community sets its own limit, according to circumstances, taking care always, that there shall never arise any class of poor by the pressure of population upon the productive powers of the domain, and that no state shall be too large for a government resembling that of a single well-ordered family. I imagine that Novril community exceeds 30,000 households, but as a general rule, the smaller the community, provided there be hands enough to do justice to the capacities of the territory it occupies, the richer each individual is, and the larger the sum contributed to the general treasury. Above all, the happier and the more tranquil is the whole political body, and the more perfect the products of its industry. The state which all tribes of the Vrilya acknowledge to be the highest in civilization, and which has brought the Vril force to its fullest development, is perhaps the smallest. It limits itself to 4,000 families, but every inch of its territory is cultivated to the utmost perfection of garden-ground. Its machinery excels that of every other tribe, and there is no product of its industry in any department which is not sought for at extraordinary prices by each community of our race. All our tribes make this state their model, considering that we should reach the highest state of civilization, allowed to mortals, if we could unite the greatest degree of happiness with the highest degree of intellectual achievement. And it is clear that the smaller the society, the less difficult that will be. Ours is too large for it. This reply sent me thinking. I reminded myself of that little state of Athens with only 20,000 free citizens, and which to this day are a mightiest nation's regard as the supreme guide and model in all departments of intellect. But then Athens permitted fierce rivalry and perpetual change, and was certainly not happy. Rousing myself from the reverie into which these reflections had plunged me, I brought back our talk to the subjects connected with emigration. But, said I, when, I suppose, yearly a certain number among you agree to quit home and found a new community elsewhere, they must necessarily be very few and scarcely sufficient, even with the help of the machines they take with them, to clear the ground and build towns, and form a civilized state with the comforts and luxuries in which they had been reared. You mistake. All the tribes of the Vriliya are in constant communication with each other, and settle amongst themselves each year what proportion of one community will unite with the immigrants of another, so as to form a state of sufficient size. And the place for emigration is agreed upon at least a year before, and pioneers sent from each state to level rocks and embank waters and construct houses, so that when the immigrants at last go, they find a city already made, and a country around it at least partially cleared. Our hardy life as children make us take cheerfully to travel and adventure. I mean to emigrate myself when of age. Do the immigrants always select places hitherto uninhabited and barren? As yet, generally, because it is our rule never to destroy except when necessary to our well-being. Of course, we cannot settle in lands already occupied by the Vriliya, and if we take the cultivated lands of the other races of Anna, we must utterly destroy the previous inhabitants. Sometimes, as it is, we take waste spots and find that a troublesome quarrel some race of Anna, especially if under the administration of Kumpush or Gliknas, resents our vicinity and picks a quarrel with us. Then, of course, as menacing our welfare, we destroy it. There is no coming to terms of peace with the race so idiotic that it is always changing the form of government which represents it. Kumpush, said the child emphatically, is bad enough, still it has brains, though at the back of its head, and is not without a heart. But in Gliknas, the brain and heart of the creatures disappear, and they become all jaws, claws, and belly. You express yourself strongly. Allow me to inform you that I myself, and I am proud to say it, am the citizen of a Kumpush. I no longer, answered Ta'i, wonder to see you here so far from your home. What was the condition of your native community before it became a Kumpush? A settlement of immigrants, like those settlements which your tribe sends forth, but so far unlike your settlements that it was dependent on the state from which it came. It took off that yoke, and crowned with eternal glory became a Kumpush. Eternal glory, how long has the Kumpush lasted? About a hundred years. The length of an aunt's life, a very young community. In much less than another hundred years your Kumpush will be a Gliknas. Nay, the oldest states in the world I come from, have such faith in its duration that they are all gradually shaping their institutions so as to melt into ours, and their most thoughtful politicians say that whether they like it or not, the inevitable tendency of these old states is towards Kumpushery. The old states? Yes, the old states. With populations very small in proportion to the area of productive land? On the contrary, with populations very large in proportion to that area. I see old states, indeed, so old as to become driveling if they don't pack off that surplus population, as we do ours. Very old states. Very, very old. Pray, Tish, do you think it wise for very old men to try to turn head over heels as very young children do? And if you ask them why they attempted such antics, should you not laugh, if they answered, that by imitating very young children they could become very young children themselves? Ancient history abounds with instances of this sort a great many thousand years ago, and in every instance a very old state that plate at Kumpush soon tumbled into Glegnas. Then, in horror of its own self, it cried out for a master, as an old man in his dotage cries out for a nurse. And after a succession of masters or nurses, more or less long, that very old state died out of history. A very old state attempting Kumpushary is like a very old man who pulls down the house to which he has been accustomed, but he has so exhausted his vigor in pulling down, that all he can do in the way of rebuilding is to run up a crazy hut in which himself and his successors whine out, how the wind blows, how the walls shake. My dear Tyee, I make all excuse for your unenlightened prejudices, which every schoolboy educated in a Kumpush could easily controvert, though he might not be so precociously learned in ancient history as you appear to be. I learned, not a bit of it, but would a schoolboy educated in your Kumpush ask his great-great-grandfather or great-great-grandmother to stand on his or her head with the feet uppermost? And if the poor old folks hesitated, say, what do you fear? See how I do it. Tyee, I disdain to argue with the child of your age. I repeat, I make allowances for your want of that culture which a Kumpush alone can bestow. I, in my turn, answer Tyee with an air of suave but lofty good-breeding which characterizes his race, not only make allowances for you as not educated among the Vrelia, but I entreat you to vouchsafe me your pardon for the insufficient respect to the habits and opinions of so amiable a Tish. I ought before to have observed that I was commonly called Tish by my host and his family as being a polite and indeed a pet-name literally signifying a small barbarian. The children apply it endearingly to the tame species of frog which they keep in their gardens. We had now reached the banks of a lake, and Tyee here paused to point out to me the ravages made in the fields skirting it. The enemy certainly lies within these waters, said Tyee, observe what shoals of fish are crowded together at the margin. Even the great fishes with the small ones, who are their habitual prey and who generally shun them, all forget their instincts in the presence of a common destroyer. This reptile certainly must belong to the class of Krek'ah, which are more devouring than any other, and are said to be among the few surviving species of the world's dreadest inhabitants before the ana were created. The appetite of a Krek'ah is insatiable. It feeds alike upon vegetable and animal life. But for the swift-footed creatures of the elk-species it is too slow in its movements. Its favourite dainty is an on when it can catch him unawares, and hence the ana destroy it relentlessly whenever it enters their dominion. I have heard that when our forefathers first cleared this country, these monsters and others like them abounded, and Vril being then undiscovered, many of our race were devoured. It was impossible to exterminate them wholly till that discovery which constitutes the power and sustains the civilisation of our race. But after the uses of Vril became familiar to us, all creatures inimical to us were soon annihilated. Still, once a year or so, one of these enormous creatures wanders from the unreclaimed and savage districts beyond, and within my memory one has ceased upon a young ye who was bathing in this very lake. Had she been on land and armed with her staff, it would not have dared even to show itself. For, like all savage creatures, the reptile has a marvellous instinct which warns it against the bearer of the Vril wand. How they teach their young to avoid him, though seen for the first time, is one of those mysteries which you may ask Z to explain, for I cannot. The reptile in this instinct does but resemble our wild birds and animals, which will not come in reach of a man armed with a gun. When the electric wires were first put up, partridges struck against them in their flight and fell down wounded. No younger generations of partridges meet with a similar accident. So long as I stand here, the monster will not stir from its lurking place, but we must now decoy at fourth. Will that not be difficult? Not at all. Seat yourself yonder on that crag about one hundred yards from the bank while I retire to a distance. In a short time the reptile will catch sight or scent of you and perceiving that you are no Vril bearer will come forth to devour you. As soon as it is fairly out of the water it becomes my prey. Do you mean to tell me that I am to be decoy to that horrible monster which could engulf me within its jaws in a second? I beg to decline. The child laughed. Fear nothing, said he, only sit still. Instead of obeying the command I made a bound and was about to take fairly to my heels when Tai-Yi touched me slightly on the shoulder and fixing his eye steadily on mine I was rooted to the spot. All power of volition left me. Submissive to the infant's gesture I followed him to the crag he had indicated and seated myself there in silence. Most readers have seen something of the effects of electrobiology whether genuine or spurious. No professor of that doubtful craft had ever been able to influence a thought or a movement of mine but I was a mere machine at the will of this terrible child. Meanwhile he expanded his wings, soared aloft and alighted amidst a copse at the brow of a hill at some distance. I was alone and turning my eyes with an indescribable sensation of horror towards the lake I kept them fixed on its water spellbound. It might be ten or fifteen minutes. To me it seemed ages before the still surface gleaming under the lamplight began to be agitated towards the center. At the same time the shoals of fish near the margin evinced their sense of the enemy's approach by a splash and leap and bubbling circle. I could detect their hurried flight hither and tither some even casting themselves ashore. A long, dark, undulous furrow came moving along the waters nearer and nearer till the vast head of the reptile emerged, its jaws bristling with fangs and its dull eyes fixing themselves hungrily on the spot where I sat motionless. And now its four feet were on the strand, now its enormous breast, scaled on either side as an armor, in the center showing its corrugated skin of a dull venomous yellow. And now its whole length was on the land, a hundred feet or more from the jaw to the tail. Another stride of those ghastly feet would have brought it to the spot where I sat. There was but a moment between me and this grim form of death when what seemed a flash of lightning shot through the air, smote and for a space of time briefer than that in which a man can draw his breath enveloped the monster. And then as the flash vanished there lay before me a blackened, charred, smoldering mass, a something gigantic but of which even the outlines of form were burnt away and rapidly crumbling into dust and ashes. I remained still seated, still speechless, ice-cold with a new sensation of dread. What had been horror was now awe. I felt the child's hand on my head. Fear left me. The spell was broken. I rose up. You see with what ease the Vriliya destroyed their enemies, said Thayi, and then moving towards the bank he contemplated the smoldering relics of the monster and said quietly, I have destroyed larger creatures, but none with so much pleasure. Yes, it is a creak. What suffering it must have inflicted while it lived. Then he took up the poor fishes that had flung themselves ashore and restored them mercifully to their native element. CHAPTER 19 As we walked back to the town, Thayi took a new and circuitous way in order to show me what to use a familiar term I will call The Station, from which immigrants or travellers to other communities commenced their journeys. I had, on a former occasion, expressed a wish to see a new and circuitous way in order to show me what to use a familiar term I will call The Station, from which immigrants or travellers to other communities commenced their journeys. I had, on a former occasion, expressed a wish to see their vehicles. These I found to be of two kinds, one for land journeys, one for aerial voyages. The former were of all sizes and forms, some not larger than an ordinary carriage, some movable houses of one story and containing several rooms furnished according to the ideas of comfort or luxury which are entertained by the Vrilya. The aerial vehicles were of light substances, not the least resembling our balloons, but rather our boats and pleasure vessels, with helm and rudder, with large wings or paddles, and a central machine worked by Vril. All the vehicles both for land or air were indeed worked by that potent and mysterious agency. I saw a convoy set out on its journey, but it had few passengers containing chiefly articles of merchandise, and was bound to a neighbouring community, for among all the tribes of the Vrilya there is considerable commercial interchange. I may here observe that their money currency does not consist of the precious metals, which are too common among them for that purpose. The smaller coins in ordinary use are manufactured from a peculiar fossil shell, the comparatively scarce remnant of some very early deluge or other convulsion of nature by which a species has become extinct. It is minute and flat as an oyster and takes a jewel-like polish. This coinage circulates among all the tribes of the Vrilya. Their larger transactions are carried on, much like ours, by bills of exchange and thin metallic plates which answer the purpose of our bank notes. Let me take this occasion of adding that the taxation among the tribe I became acquainted with was very considerable compared with the amount of population. But I never heard that anyone grumbled at it, for it was devoted to purposes of universal utility and indeed necessary to the civilisation of the tribe. The cost of lighting so large a range of country of providing for emigration, of maintaining the public buildings at which the various operations of national intellect were carried on, from the first education of an infant to the departments in which the College of Sages were perpetually trying new experiments in mechanical science, all these involved the necessity for considerable state funds. To these I must add an item that struck me as very singular. I have said that all the human labour required by the state is carried on by children up to the marriageable age. For this labour the state pays and at a rate immeasurably higher than our own renumeration to labour even in the United States. According to their theory, every child, male or female, on attaining the marriageable age and their terminating the period of labour should have acquired enough for an independent competence during life. As no matter what the disparity of fortune in the parents, all the children must equally serve, so all are equally paid according to their several ages or the nature of their work. Where the parents or friends choose to retain a child in their own service they must pay into the public fund in the same ratio as the state pays to the children it employs. And this sum is handed over to the child when the period of service expires. This practice serves, no doubt, to render the notion of social equality familiar and agreeable. And if it may be said that all the children form a democracy, no less truly it may be said that all the adults form an aristocracy. The exquisite politeness and refinement of manners among the Vrelia, the generosity of their sentiments, the absolute leisure they enjoy for following out their own private pursuits, the amenities of their domestic intercourse, in which they seem as members of one noble order that can have no distrust of each other's word or deed, all combined to make the Vrelia the most perfect nobility which a political disciple of Plato or Sidney could conceive for the ideal of an aristocratic republic. CHAPTER 20 From the date of the expedition with Thayy which I have just narrated, the child paid me frequent visits. He had taken a liking to me which I cordially returned. Indeed, as he was not yet twelve years old and had not commenced the course of scientific studies with which childhood closes in that country, my intellect was less inferior to his than to that of the elder members of his race, especially of the Jaya, and most especially of the accomplished Z. The children of the Vrelia, having upon their minds the weight of so many active duties and grave responsibilities, are not generally mirthful. But Thayy with all his wisdom had much of the playful good humor one often finds the characteristic of elderly men of genius. He felt that sort of pleasure in my society which a boy of a similar age in the upper world has in the company of a pet dog or monkey. It amused him to try and teach me the ways of his people as it amuses a nephew of mine to make his poodle walk on his hind legs or jump through a hoop. I willingly lent myself to such experiments but I never achieved the success of the poodle. I was very much interested, at first, in the attempt to ply the wings which the youngest of the Vrelia use as nimbly and easily as ours do their legs and arms. But my efforts were attended with contusions serious enough to make me abandon them in despair. These wings, as I before said, are very large reaching to the knee and in repose thrown back so as to form a very graceful mantle. They are composed from the feathers of a gigantic bird that abounds in the rocky heights of the country, the color mostly white but sometimes with reddish streaks. They are fastened round the shoulders with light but strong springs of steel and, when expanded, the arms slide through loops for that purpose forming as it were a stout central membrane. As the arms are raised a tubular lining beneath the vest or tunic becomes by mechanical contrivance inflated with air increased or diminished at will by the movement of the arms and serving to buoy the whole form as on bladders. The wings and the balloon-like apparatus are highly charged with Vrelia and when the body is thus wafted upward it seems to become singularly lightened of its weight. I found it easy enough to soar from the ground. Indeed, when the wings were spread it was scarcely possible not to soar but then came the difficulty and the danger. I utterly failed in the power to use and direct the pinions, though I am considered among my own race, unusually alert and ready in bodily exercises, and am a very practiced swimmer. I could only make the most confused and blundering efforts at flight. I was the servant of the wings, the wings were not my servants. They were beyond my control, and when by a violent strain of muscle, and I must fairly own, in that abnormal strength which is given by excessive fright I curbed their gyrations and brought them near to the body, it seemed as if I lost the sustaining power stored in them and the connecting bladders, as when the air is let out of a balloon, and found myself precipitated again to the earth, saved indeed by some spasmodic flutterings from being dashed to pieces, but not saved from the bruises and the stun of a heavy fall. I would, however, have persevered in my attempts but for the advice or the commands of the scientific Zee, who had benevolently accompanied my flutterings, and indeed on the last occasion, flying just under me, received my form as it fell on her own expanded wings and preserved me from baking my head on the roof of the pyramid from which we had ascended. I see, she said, that your trials are in vain, not from the fault of the wings and their appurtenances, nor from any imperfectness and malformation of your own corpuscular system, but from irremediable, because organic, defect in your power of volition. Learn that the connection between the will and the agencies of that fluid which has been subjected to the control of the Vrelia was never established by the first discoverers, never achieved by a single generation. It has gone on increasing, like other properties of race, in proportion as it has been uniformly transmitted from parent to child, so that, at last, it has become an instinct, and an infant on of our race wills to fly as intuitively and unconsciously as he wills to walk. He thus plies his invented or artificial wings with as much safety as a bird plies those with which it is born. I did not think sufficiently of this when I allowed you to try an experiment which allured me, for I have longed to have in you a companion. I shall abandon the experiment now, your life is becoming dear to me. Herewith the Ghee's voice and face softened, and I felt more seriously alarmed than I had been in my previous flights. Now that I am on the subject of wings, I ought not to omit mention of a custom among the Jayae, which seems to me very pretty and tender in the sentiment it implies. A Ghee wears wings habitually when yet a virgin. She joins the Anah in their aerial sports. She adventures alone and afar into the wilder regions of the sunless world. In the boldness and height of her soaring, not less than in the grace of her movements, she excels the opposite sex. But from the day of her marriage she wears wings no more. She suspends them with her own willing hand over the nuptial couch, never to be resumed unless the marriage tie be severed by divorce or death. Now when Ghee's voice and eyes thus softened, and at that softening I prophetically recoiled and shuttered, T'ai who had accompanied us in our flights, but who, childlike, had been much more amused with my awkwardness than sympathizing in my fears or aware of my danger, hovered over us, poised amidst spread wings and hearing the endearing words of the young Ghee, laughed aloud, said he, if a tish cannot learn the use of wings, you may still be his companion, Z, for you can suspend your own. CHAPTER XXI I had for some time observed in my hosts highly informed and powerfully proportioned daughter that kindly and protective sentiment, which, whether above the earth or below it, an all-wise providence has bestowed upon the feminine division of the human race. But until very lately I had ascribed it to that affection for pets which a human female at every age shares with a human child. I now became painfully aware that the feeling with which Z. Dain to regard me was different from that which I had inspired in T'ai. But this conviction gave me none of that complacent gratification which the vanity of man ordinarily conceives from a flattering appreciation of his personal merits on the part of the fair sex. On the contrary, it inspired me with fear. Yet, of all the Jayae in the community, if Z. were perhaps the wisest and the strongest, she was, by common repute, the gentlest, and she was certainly the most popularly beloved. The desire to aid, to secure, to protect, to comfort, to bless seemed to pervade her whole being. Though the complicated miseries that originate in penury and guilt are unknown to the social system of the Vrelia, still no sage had yet discovered in Vrel an agency which could banish sorrow from life. And wherever amongst her people sorrow found its way, there Z. followed in the mission of Comforter. Did some sister Ghee fail to secure the love she sighed for? Z. sought her out and brought all the resources of her lure and all the consolations of her sympathy to bear upon a grief that so needs the solace of a confidant. In the rare cases when grave illness seized upon childhood or youth, and the cases less rare when, in the hardy and adventurous probation of infants, some accident attended with pain and injury occurred, Z. forsook her studies and her sports, and became the healer and nurse. Her favorite flights were towards the extreme boundaries of the domain, where children were stationed on guard against outbreaks of warring forces in nature or the invasions of devouring animals, so that she might warn them of any peril which her knowledge detected or foresaw, or be at hand if any harm had befallen. Nay, even in the exercise of her scientific acquirements, there was a concurrent benevolence of purpose and will. Did she learn any novelty in invention that would be useful to the practitioner of some special art or craft? She hastened to communicate and explain it. Was some veteran sage of the college perplexed and wearied from the toil of an obstruous study? She would patiently devote herself to his aid, work out details for him, sustain his spirits with her hopeful smile, quicken his wit with her luminous suggestion, be to him, as it were, his own good genius, made visible as the strengthener and inspirer. The same tenderness she exhibited to the inferior creatures. I have often known her bring home some sick and wounded animal, and tend and cherish it as a mother would tend and cherish her stricken child. Many a time when I sat in the balcony or hanging garden on which my window opened, I have watched her rising in the air on her radiant wings, and in a few moments groups of infants below catching sight of her would soar upward with joyous sound of greeting, clustering and sporting around her so that she seemed a very center of innocent delight. When I had walked with her amidst the rocks and valleys without the city, the elk-deer would scent or see her from afar, come bounding up, eager for the caress of her hand, or follow her footsteps till dismissed by some musical whisper that the creature had learned to comprehend. It is the fashion among the Virgin Giae to wear on their foreheads a circlet, a coronet, with gems resembling opals arranged in four points or rays like stars. These are lusterless and ordinary use, but if touched by the Vrilwand they take a clear lambent flame which illuminates yet not burns. This serves as an ornament in their festivities and as a lamp if in their wanderings beyond their artificial lights they have to traverse the dark. There are times when I have seen Zee's thoughtful majesty of face lighted up by this crowning halo that I could scarcely believe her to be a creature of mortal birth, and bent my head before her as the vision of being among the celestial orders. But never once did my heart feel for this lofty type of the noblest womanhood a sentiment of human love. Is it that among the race I belong to, man's pride so far influences his passions that woman loses to him her special charm of woman if he feels her to be in all things eminently superior to himself. But by what strange infatuation could this peerless daughter of a race which in the supremacy of its powers and the felicity of its conditions, ranked all other races in the category of barbarians, have deigned to honor me with her preference. In personal qualifications, though I passed for good-looking amongst the people I came from, the handsomest of my countrymen might have seemed insignificant and homely beside the grand and serene type of beauty which characterized the aspect of the Vreliya. That novelty, the very difference between myself and those to whom Zee was accustomed, might serve to bias her fancy, was probable enough, and as the reader will see later, such a cause might suffice to account for the predilection with which I was distinguished by a young gie scarcely out of her childhood, and very inferior in all respects to Zee. But whoever will consider those tender characteristics which I have just ascribed to the daughter of Apalin may readily conceive that the main cause of my attraction to her was in her instinctive desire to cherish, to comfort, to protect, and in protecting, to sustain and to exalt. Thus when I look back, I account for the only weakness unworthy of her lofty nature which bowed the daughter of the Vreliya to a woman's affection for one so inferior to herself as was her father's guest. But be the cause what it may, the consciousness that I had inspired such affection thrilled me with awe, a moral awe of her very imperfections, of her mysterious powers, of the inseparable distinctions between her race and my own. And with that awe I must confess to my shame there combine the moral material and ignoble dread of the perils to which her preference would expose me. Under these anxious circumstances, fortunately my conscious and sense of honor were free from reproach. It became clearly my duty, if Zee's preference continued manifest, to intimate it to my host, with, of course, all the delicacy which is ever to be preserved by a well-bred man in confiding to another any degree of favor by which one of the fair sex may condescend to distinguish him. Thus at all events I should be freed from responsibility or suspicion of voluntary participation in the sentiments of Zee. And the superior wisdom of my host might probably suggest some sage extrication from my perilous dilemma. In this resolve I obeyed the ordinary instinct of civilized and moral man who, erring though he be, still generally prefers the right course in those cases where it is obviously against his inclinations, his interests, and his safety to elect the wrong one. CHAPTER XXII As the reader has seen, Apalin had not favored my general and unrestricted intercourse with his countrywomen. Though relying on my promise to abstain from giving any information as to the world I had left, and still more on the promise of those to whom had been put the same request not to question me which Zee had exacted from Ta'ee, yet he did not feel sure that if I were allowed to mix with the strangers whose curiosity the sight of me had aroused, I could sufficiently guard myself against their inquiries. When I went out, therefore, it was never alone. I was always accompanied either by one of my host's family or my child friend Ta'ee. Bra, Apalin's wife, seldom stirred beyond the gardens which surrounded the house, and was fond of reading the ancient literature which contained something of romance and adventure not to be found in the writings of recent ages, and presented pictures of a life unfamiliar to her experience and interesting to her imagination. Pictures, indeed, of a life more resembling that which we lead every day above ground, colored by our sorrows, sins, passions, and much to her what the tales of the Jeannee or the Arabian knights are to us. But her love of reading did not prevent Bra from the discharge of her duties as mistress of the largest household in the city. She went daily the rounds of the chambers and saw that the automata and the other mechanical contrivances were in order that the numerous children employed by Apalin, whether in his private or public capacity, were carefully attended. Bra also inspected the accounts of the whole estate, and it was her great delight to assist her husband in the business connected with his office as chief administrator of the lighting department, so that her avocations necessarily kept her much within doors. The two sons were both completing their education at the College of Sages, and the elder, who had a strong passion for mechanics, and especially for works connected with the machinery of timepieces and automata, had decided on devoting himself to these pursuits, and was now occupied in constructing a shop or warehouse at which his inventions could be exhibited and sold. The younger son preferred farming and rural occupations, and when not attending the college at which he chiefly studied the theories of agriculture, was much absorbed by his practical application of that science to his father's lands. It will be seen by this how completely equality of ranks is established among these people, a shopkeeper being of exactly the same grade in estimation as the large landed proprietor. Apalin was the wealthiest member of the community, and his eldest son preferred keeping a shop to any other avocation, nor was this choice thought to show any want of elevated notions on his part. This young man had been much interested in examining my watch, the works of which were new to him, and was greatly pleased when I made him a present of it. Shortly after he returned the gift with interest by a watch of his own construction marking both the time as in my watch and the time as kept among the Vrelias. I have that watch still, and it has been much admired by many among the most eminent watchmakers of London and Paris. It is of gold, with diamond hands and figures, and it plays a favorite tune among the Vrelias and striking the hours. It only requires to be wound up once in ten months, and has never gone wrong since I had it. These young brothers being thus occupied, my usual companions in that family when I went abroad were my host or his daughter. Now, agreeably with the honourable conclusions I had come to, I began to excuse myself from these invitations to go out alone with her, and seized an occasion when that learned ghee was delivering a lecture at the College of Sages to ask Apalin to show me his country seat. As this was at some little distance, and as Apalin was not fond of walking, while I had discreetly relinquished all attempts at flying, we proceeded to our destination in one of the aerial boats belonging to my host. A child of eight years old in his employ was our conductor. My host and myself reclined on cushions, and I found the movement very easy and luxurious. Apalin, said I, you will not, I trust, be displeased with me if I ask your permission to travel for a short time, and visit other tribes or communities of your illustrious race. I have also a strong desire to see those nations which do not adopt your institutions, and which you consider as savages. It would interest me greatly to notice what are the distinctions between them and the races whom we consider civilised in the world I have left. It is utterly impossible that you should go hence alone, said Apalin. Even among the Vreliya you would be exposed to great dangers, certain peculiarities of formation and colour, and the extraordinary phenomenon of her suit bushes upon your cheeks and chin, denoting in you a species of on distinct alike from our own race and any known race of barbarians yet extant would attract, of course, the special attention of the College of Sages and whatever community of Vreliya you visited, and it would depend upon the individual temper of some individual sage whether you would be received as you have been here, hospitably, or whether you would not be at once dissected for scientific purposes. Know that when the tour first took you to his house, and while you were there put to sleep by Ta'i in order to recover from your previous pain or fatigue, the sages summoned by the tour were divided in opinion whether you were a harmless or an obnoxious animal. During your unconscious state your teeth were examined, and they clearly showed that you were not only graminivorous but carnivorous. Carnivorous animals of your size are always destroyed as being of savage and dangerous nature. Our teeth, as you have doubtless observed, are not those of the creatures who devour flesh. Note, I never had observed it, and if I had, I am not physiologist enough to have distinguished the difference. It is, indeed, maintained by Z and other philosophers, that as in remote ages the anah did prey upon living beings of the brute species, their teeth must have been fitted for that purpose. But even if so, they have been modified by hereditary transmission and suited to the food on which we now exist, nor are even the barbarians who adopt the turbulent and ferocious institutions of Glek Nas devourers of flesh like beasts of prey. In the course of this dispute it was proposed to dissect you, but Ta'i begged you off, and the tour being by office averse to all novel experiments at variance with our custom of sparing life, except where it is clearly proved to be for the good of the community to take it, sent to me, whose business it is, as the richest man of the state, to afford hospitality to strangers from a distance. It was at my option to decide whether or not you were a stranger whom I could safely admit. Had I declined to receive you, you would have been handed over to the College of Sages, and what might there have befallen you I do not like to conjecture. Apart from this danger you my chance to encounter some child of four years old just put in possession of his Vrelstaff and who in alarm at your strange appearance and in the impulse of the moment might reduce you to a cinder. Ta'i himself was about to do so when he first saw you, had his father not checked his hand. Therefore I say you cannot travel alone, but with Z you would be safe, and I have no doubt that she would accompany you on a tour round the neighboring communities of Relya to the savage states no. I will ask her. Now as my main object in proposing to travel was to escape from Z, I hastily exclaimed, Nay, pray do not. I relinquish my design. You have said enough as to its dangers to deter me from it. And I can scarcely think at right that a young gi of the personal attractions of your lovely daughter should travel into other regions without a better protector than a tish of my insignificant strength and stature. Apolin emitted the soft, sibilant sound which is the nearest approach to laughter that a full groan on permits to himself ere he replied, pardon my discourteous but momentary indulgence of Merce at any observation seriously made by my guest. I could not but be amused at the idea of Z who is so fond of protecting others that the children call her the guardian, needing a protector herself against any dangers arising from the audacious admiration of males. Know that our Jayae, while unmarried, are accustomed to travel alone among other tribes, to see if they find there some on who may please them more than the Anad they find at home. Z has already made three such journeys, but either to her heart has been untouched. Here the opportunity which I sought was afforded to me, and I said, looking down and with faltering voice, will you, my kind host, promise to pardon me if what I am about to say gives offence? Say only the truth, and I cannot be offended, or could I be so it would not be for me but for you to pardon? Well, then, assist me to quit you, and, much as I should have liked to witness more of the wonders, and enjoy more of the felicity which belong to your people, let me return to my own. I fear there are reasons why I cannot do that. At all events, not without permission from the tour, and he probably would not grant it. You are not destitute of intelligence. You may, though I do not think so, have concealed the degree of destructive powers possessed by your people. You might, in short, bring upon us some danger, and if the tour entertains that idea, it would clearly be his duty, either to put an end to you, or enclose you in a cage for the rest of your existence. But why should you wish to leave a state of society which you so politely allow to be more felicitous than your own? Oh, Apalyn, my answer is plain. Lest in naught and unwittingly I should betray your hospitality. Lest in the caprice of will which in our world is proverbial among the other sex, and from which even a gi is not free, your adorable daughter should deign to regard me, though a tish, as if I were a civilized on, and court you as her spouse, put in Apalyn gravely, and without any visible sign of surprise or displeasure. You have said it. That would be a misfortune, resumed my host after a pause. And I feel you have acted as you ought in warning me. It is, as you imply, not uncommon for an unwitted gi to conceive tastes as to the object she covets which appear whimsical to others. But there is no power to compel a young gi to any course opposed to that which she chooses to pursue. All we can do is to reason with her, and experience tells us that the whole college of sages would find it vain to reason with the gi in a matter that concerns her choice in love. I grieve for you, because such a marriage would be against the aglauran, or good of the community, for the children of such a marriage would adulterate the race. They might even come into the world with the teeth of carnivorous animals. This could not be allowed. Zee, as a gi, cannot be controlled, but you as a tish can be destroyed. I advise you then to resist her addresses, to tell her plainly that you can never return her love. This happens constantly, many an on, however ardently wooed by one gi, rejects her and puts an end to her persecution by wedding another. The same course is open to you. No, for I cannot wed another gi without equally injuring the community, and exposing it to the chance of rearing carnivorous children. That is true. All I can say, and I say it with the tenderness due to a tish and the respect due to a guest, is frankly this. If you yield, you will become a cinder. I must leave it to you to take the best way you can to defend yourself. Perhaps you better tell Zee that she is ugly. That assurance on the lips of him she woos generally suffices to chill the most ardent gi. Here we are at my country house.