CHAPTER XII.

The pr?tor and his family, including Cleorita and Oviata Arcos, with the Four, awaited, on the morning succeeding the eventful day of Manito’s animalculan introduction, the coming of the Dosch of Manatitla in the audience chamber of the house, dedicated by Correliana in aptitude to the developing powers of the tympano-microscope, “the auriculum.” After a short delay of expectation, the courier falcon appeared at poise, from which in swift descent it came in downward incline direct to its perch on Correliana’s wrist. But a second elapsed before the tympanum re?choed in cheery tones of salutation the voice of our expected visitor. Our attention attracted to the field of magnifying reflection, discovered a coterie of animalculans, of nearly the same size, grouped about the speaker. With the salutation, “Afferens scientiam errantes gigantes,” he addressed us as follows:—

For ages untold, our race have waited in patient expectation for the morning’s dawn when they could salute yours face to face, and impart to you a source of happiness that in life realizes communion with immortality. To us has been vouchsafed this coveted privilege, and it shall be our study to improve it to your advantage. Notwithstanding the malapropos accident—casting upon Correliana an arch glance that wrought for her face a scarlet veil—of yesterday, which detracted from the dignity of an introduction so important to the regenerative welfare of your 130race, we were glad that auspicious mirth was the trophy of the occasion, rather than tears of grief, of which we shall be mindful in adjudging our censure to the cause. Joyous mirth we have esteemed an evidence of goodness, for it declares itself beyond the reach of selfish impediment that breeds evil intention; even when the foibles of our kind become the subjects of humorous provocation. Mirth is ill timed, when preconcerted with a knowledge that a portion of those present will be unable to appreciate the humorous incentive; as it opens wide the door of suspicion with your peoples, who have been educated under the partial sway of national habits and customs. Dissimilarity in habits and customs, under national patronage, begets from seeming incongruity a disposition to gibe with missile retorts, fledged and tipped with ironical sarcasms, as rankling in effect as the pointed weapons in the mouth of Mr. Welson’s knighted chief. To be frank, if the ludicrous scene of yesterday had occurred with matured acquaintance, I should not have spared the demure, but conscious blushes of the fair medium. Our first acquaintance with you, although not mutual in personal recognition, is of older date than yesterday, and upon it has been founded our predilections, which in train have led to the many concurrent circumstances favoring the happy issue of our more direct scheme, devised for the liberation of your race from the pampering trammels of instinct. It would have been quite easy for our first giantescoes to have obtained an introduction to your race, if they had emulated the desire of being exhibited as an iotian monstrosity for the gratification of giga greed and curiosity. But fortunately for our present hoped-for issue, our system of education, devised for the development of affectionate confidence, encouraged the past generations of our race to wait for an opening free from the entailment of experimental disadvantage. A knowledge of our race 131for the gratification of your scientific savants curiosity, would have been as profitless for good, as their sight-seeing acquaintance with the moon and stars. Our Manatitlan sages have from the earliest period recommended extreme caution to prevent the premature introduction of our race to yours. The favorable indications to be watched for in premonition of a successful issue were those of extreme folly, heralding a closing cycle; for the contrast afforded by the result of our happy example would attract kindly imitation of those inclined to affectionate goodness.

Desideratus, one of our most approved prognosticators, deposed that the affections of woman afford the best test of a closing giga cycle. When frivolity and the gossiping comparisons of vanity gain the ascendency over natural affection, inherent as the birthright of woman, then you may know that the symbolic serpent’s tail has received its final circle inclination for union with the mouth. This inclination was foreshadowed in the eighteenth century, with invention of power looms; which with the largely increased acceleration of steam, fabricated in excess of the world’s actual requirements for healthy protection and comely adornment. With steam as an inductive aid to civilized progression, the Eugenic era was ushered in, when the frail mortal tenements of women became subject to empirical vanity, and in rivalry, the standard-bearers for cumbersome mechanical products, to the utter perversion of healthy elasticity, comfort, and their special vocation of fostering for immortality affectionate goodness. This dereliction of giga women from their manifest duty, has brought in train domestic and dynastic miseries, while from dreary self conviction their hopeless prospect closes with the grave. As we have now adventured the only opportunity that has ever occurred, with a prospect of success, for extending the influence of our happy experience to your race, we will with 132our introduction premise a description of Our Country.

Manatitla is situated in the Andean district of La Plata, with a southern aspect. It occupies a space between the parallels of 20° 40? and 30° south latitude and 40° 50° west longitude, embracing an area of forty square furlongs, of Manatitlan measurement. Its surface is diversified, combining in well-defined variety mountains, hills, and vales, with their concomitant streams, lakes, and brooks; affording with arable advantages, prospects unrivaled in beauty, which have been enhanced by the grateful labor of its inhabitants in acknowledgment for the benefits bestowed. The climate is salubrious and free from the extremes of heat and cold, having a valley altitude varying but little from six thousand feet above the estuary of the La Plata. The adjacent country is occupied by the giga and animalculan wild hordes. The Minim is the largest river. Its source is derived from Lake Areta, located in the Andean spur of Ultisimma; flowing in a northeasterly direction it finally becomes tributary to the Vermejo. On the northwestern bank is situated our chief city, Manicul?. Forty of our miles below, on the same bank, is situated the City of Iota, containing twenty thousand inhabitants. Nearly opposite the last named city, is the town of Speck, its inhabitants, in transition, being chiefly occupied in the manufacture of auro-silicate for edificial construction and textile fabrics, rendering them indestructible and repulsive to cumulative adhesion. The entire population of Manatitla is estimated at eighteen millions, with a healthy tendency to a continued rapid decrease in number, from causes which will be described hereafter.

The Traditional History of Manatitla, is coeval with the imaginary date of Mauna Che’s advent as a deity from the La Plata into Alta Peru, reaching in your time measurement to eleven thousand years, 133which probably embraces relics of truth, among others a like origin with the Heracleans; as we are without doubt descended from castaway parasites of gigas from the eastern continent. But as it is a constant repetition of acts of oppression, in kind with your classical written history, we will not shock you with their rehearsal.

The Actual, or Written History of Manatitla, was commenced in the latter portion of the reign of King Primus, from which dates our transition period, or emancipation of our people from the instinctive rule of the stomach and its engendered lusts. But from its resemblance in factional disruptions to your own, culminating in a parallel to their cycle condition, we will only allude to the causes that immediately preceded, and in tendency wrought the changes that finally effected partition from old habits, and the reverenced usages of instinct. Arbitrary, religious, and civil exactions, seconded by compulsory persuasion against all nonconformists, signalized the tendencies of the period, and gave birth to an ultra instinctive race, styled liberal democrats, who claimed the inalienable right of suffragian equality bestowed upon the lower orders of the animal creation, in the exercise of their untrammeled state of field and forest freedom. The regular national church, and king, persecuted the nonconformists and schismatics with dire vengeance, under the patronage of godhead personification, translating the living heretics with tortures, burnings, and repetitions of drowning suffocations by resuscitations from a moribund state, and like admonitory chastenings in transition for the final judgment of their long enduring and merciful godhead. The persecuted schismatics emigrated to distant lands, in order that they might worship their God of reformation in freedom from invidious restriction of rites. When located, they in turn used the same strenuous arguments to subvert the tribal 134forms of worship. Gaining the ascendency, with destructive agents, they deprived the aboriginals of local option, forcing them to conform, with death and displacement, until they had obliged the remnant descendants of their benefactors to accept a conditional exile on the outskirts of progressive civilization, in transit for a grave ultimatum. The notable invention of letters signalized the latter portion of the reign of Primus, and to it he laid claim as king rief discoverer; which in the law of entail declares the subject a utensil to be used for the exaltation of kingly prerogative; being identified with everything that pertains to the glory of the throne and its legitimate scionry, his assumptive appropriation was sustained with ministerial affidavits and legal opinions, in attestation of King Primus’s great literary and inventive capacity, allied to clemency, justice, and generosity. But after his death, there was found concealed in the hut of a bard, who had disappeared just anterior to the announcement of the king’s invention, parchments inscribed with the newly introduced characters, which set forth the bard’s adverse claims in these terms:—
With symbolic signs, I have found,
The art of representing sound.
On distant business one can send,
Or with them greet a distant friend.

From this scrap of post circumstantial testimony, it is evident that he either intended to filch from the king, or that the king did obtain his reputation for literary invention from the fior’s or bard’s genius. The latter presumption receives probable confirmation from our aura-mention of similar pretentions to authorship advanced by giga potentates of the past and present age.

The rule of King Primus was of the most despotic description ever enforced by an arbitrary will over the weak subserviency of plodding human instinct, 135which in kindred affinity with the dogs, is content to give vent to a growling yelp when the freedom of its tail is ground by the heel of the oppressor. Whenever these constitutional growls foreboded an insurrectionary show of teeth, the gregarious spirit of commune revolt was allayed by the grant of a new charter of rights, but if this precedental sop failed to lay the retaliative spirit engendered by oppression, the current of their wrath was turned against their neighbors, with arbitrary conjurations as the provocations, of war. As an infallible test of his infallibility death displaced him to make room for a successor. The people put on sackcloth, and rolled in the dust of humiliation, in mournful semblance of grief for the loss of their demi-god, whose dealings had been grievous and past finding out.

After public eulogistic exaltations, funereal orations and lamentations had subsided, his only son was proclaimed successor with jubilant rejoicings. But Justinatus, the son, resolutely announced his determination to reject the succession, recommending the people to select from the wise men of the nation a council to decide upon a form of government best suited in adaptation for the requirements of the people; but they with their faces and thoughts turned to the rear, in reverence for past usage, clamored for a king. But they found in Justinatus a man as determined for the enforcement of right, as his father had been for wrong. He commanded them to turn their faces to the future, and act according to his direction, not for themselves or their generation alone, but for those who were to succeed them. Submissive to the letter of his direction, but in conformity with precedental creed, they elected eight men by ballot, and instructed them to proclaim Justinatus king. With this evidence of their precedental stupidity he assumed the power of directing them for their own good, selecting four men of as well approved wisdom as his judgment 136could discover, he placed at their head his early instructor as chief advisor, with the titled designation of Dosch. After this inauguration of an advisorial system, Justinatus, as a pupil, received from them instruction; combining, with his advance in knowledge, his aid in promoting the practical development of means for insuring equality in thought and judgment, necessary for the promotion of the common welfare.

In consideration of the fluctuating variations incident to common usage, their first endeavors were directed for the devisement of a method that would insure exampled conformity in act. The difficulty of effecting uniform compatibility, in the then present habits of the people, soon became apparent. As a dernier of preparation, a division of labor was enforced, according with the personal healthy capacity of each individual. Under this system of equalized industry for community support, the drones were soon discovered, and subjected to the taskmaster supervision of those capable of exercising self control for the common good. Of course the outcry of slavery and oppression became rampant with the ill disposed and vicious; but compelled association with the good soon wrought a happy change; but not before many revolutionary schemes of revolt had been planned by the democratic majority, and nipped in the bud. The great bar to the full success of the renovating process, was the all absorbing lust for selfish gratification, procured from the sacrifice of others’ welfare. Exhortations and demonstrations of the evil effects and instability of pleasures having a material dependency upon the appetites and passions of the body were of no avail. Stimulating provocations, for the production of inordinate appetites, had held an increasing sway from time immemorial, and the infatuation still continued to subvert the efforts of the Doschate of advisors for the establishment of a 137rational source of happiness, that should extend its blessings for the reciprocal appreciation of all. Laws and penal restrictions proved of easy evasion, and the local option of individuals native to Manatitla, having a desire to establish in perpetuity the happiness of their people, as a beacon light of example, were openly defied by aliens. To restrict emigration, which was claimed as a privileged right ordained as an inherent instinct of animality, they did not dare! as it was declared by the majority an assumption that would directly controvert the rights of septs and nationalities guaranteed by deity. The civilized progenitors of the races represented by tribes and small nationalities occupying the country adjacent to Manatitla, had undoubtedly been parasitical attaches to giga castaways like those of the Manatitlans. This stumbling block of perversion, continued from generation to generation for centuries; until the advent of the Dosch Desiderata, who with the aid of his advisors, turned the tide anarchy by the adoption of foreigners as guests, withholding the privilege of citizenship for bestowal upon their children’s children of the third generation. This inaugurated an era memorable for the change of precedental precept, based upon warlike achievements, into a source of abhorrence with the increasing minority. Thoughtful consideration bestowed upon example for the transmitted improvement of future generations in goodness, produced a wonderful effect upon the actors of the then present generation by the induction of harmony from reciprocal goodwill. Through his wise deductions, that clearly demonstrated the necessity of self government in association with others, woman threw off her shroud of vanity, and labored earnestly for the renewal of her lost prestige of trust, bestowed for the transmission of purity and goodness. The incipient struggles of the minority, under the direction of Desiderata, were short and decisive; but for the time being evoked 138with groveling bitterness fierce invective from the majority. A memorial address of remonstrance, from the democratic majority, against the abrogation of the rights of citizenship, in the first and second degree of alien residence, set forth, that God had created all men free and equal without respect to color or habits, with the command that they should work out their own way of salvation, and that each individual was guaranteed an inalienable right to participate in the government of his fellow man. “And that, whereas, as hereinafter stated,” the citizens of Manatitla represent different nationalities, it was but just and right that they should have a voice in the council of advisors, in order that they might guard and protect their own liberties and safety. With this preamble, imitated from giga precept, the contest can be realized without repeating the stale platitudes of democratic subterfuge. The promulgated reply was as follows:——

“The Dosch of Manatitla and his advisors, to the alien guests (heretofore, in acceptation, adopted citizens) of their people and country, greeting! We have received your petition, and have reviewed with care the requests you have proffered. Our answer is set forth in the subjoined proclamation.

“‘To the residents of Manatitla of foreign birth! As it is our matured desire to emancipate the people native to our country from their own degrading habits, and the deleterious example of those derived from extraneous source, we herewith announce the corrective enactments we have devised for the collective well being and happiness of all within our advisorial control. As it is manifest, from the conclusive evidence of creative design, that mankind are in bodily and functional alliance with all the different grades of animality, through the representative agency of omnivorous instinct; it is also as clearly evident that his endowed superiority resides in his privileged capacity 139for self control, with an ultimate intention equally apparent. For a rational realization of this saving clause, an easy estimate can be made of all the tangible sources of happiness held by human kind independent of the body’s instincts. As upon these depend our hopes of happiness in life, in premonition of immortality, it is imperative with all to hold them in reciprocal cultivation for the confluent control—in subjection—of the passions inherent with the vital functions of animality. As woman, the endowed source and mother of our race, when free from the attaint of man’s selfish invention, expresses a natural repugnance to everything opposed to purity and goodness, and in the full fruition of her endowment is reverenced as the germ ideal of immortality; we have through her a direct indication of the immortal source of happiness bestowed with creative intention for the local option of mankind. In negative assurance, that purity and goodness is the endowed source of happiness; woman when lost to their sustenance, becomes hopelessly degraded, sinking with loathsome taint below the vilest brute, and utterly lost to the instinctive ties of affection, will not hesitate to sacrifice mother, husband, sister, and child to the poisonous lust of her reptile selfishness.

“‘That the cause of this ferocious degeneration, which has the power of transforming woman from the glorious ideal of immortality, into an object too repulsive for her destroyer to find in his vocabulary words of beastly vulgarity sufficiently strong in the odor of putrefactive designation for expressing in comparison the foulness of his scorn, is derived from man’s insatiate devisement, cannot be denied! For the exampled amendment of this woful cause of degeneration, we have provided family censors, and nurses, in sufficient number for present requirement, whose duty it will be to hold in check parental indiscretions, and mutations incited from the instinctive variations of fondness 140and petulance. With the close of the second year, the provisorial charge of the family censor and nurse will be transferred with the infant to the national school of the department in which they reside, their guardian duties continuing until the seventh year, at the commencement of which the child is matriculated as a pupil, with full scholastic adoption by the censors and teachers. For the additional furtherance of our system, subserving for the vindication of creative indications for the elimination of our immortal endowment, we have separated the sexes that in the process of educational attainment they may remain free from the natural temptations inherent with instinct.

“‘The benefits conferred by our national system of education you have realized in the peaceful confidence and unity imparted in after association; also the sequent inseparable unity of our marriage conjunctions. In truth, they are happily too apparent to be gainsaid. So that in accepting our hospitality as guests, you cannot avoid, in courtesy, a willing recognition of our rights of freehold pre?mption, for preserving our habits and customs of purity and goodness, intact from the infringements of foreign attaint; or question the justice of our privilege of enforcing their observance; or in default, question our corrective enactments devised for the culprit’s realization of practical liabilities incurred by the transgressor. These will be strictly enforced. But that there may be no cavilings, with the hue and cry of barbarous excess in punishment, we have provided accommodations adapted to the specie degradation of the lower orders of animal instinct, of sufficient capacity for associate occupation by human emulators of bestiality in kind; through all the gradations from the omnium gatherum ‘swine,’ blood thirsty ‘tiger,’ down to the reptile conservators of poison. For the correction of women who have lapsed from their vocation of conservators 141of purity and goodness, into the incipient stages of gadding and gossiping detraction, we have provided cage apartments for their mutual accommodation with birds representing their kind, in the hopping vent of thoughtless words. We have provided for initiatory correction pavonias (animalculan peacocks) for the exemplar admonition of the vain-glorious; and jab-boracidas (jackdaws and magpies) for the likeness of gossipping repeaters; for the loud mouthed and strepitant clackitas (parrots and cockatoos), and for the ‘fashionable’ imitators, simia curios (female monkeys). These, as occasion may require, will extend invitations to their ‘likes’ of the human sex to attend their levées, which will be subject to the auditorial outside inspection of the public, if morbid curiosity should prompt witnesses to the ordeal of misery. These provisos and corrective conceptions have been devised for, and proved to be of universal benefit, with the evidence of well attested experience; and we desire your co?peration, as guests, for the perfection of our system designed for the advancement of purity and goodness. But shall strenuously insist that your children shall become participants in the privileges conferred by our system of education.’”

As you will readily conceive, this proclamation of Desiderata and his associates caused the fulmination of bitter invectives and threats of vengeance, which served to vindicate the wisdom of the predicated precautions. But the writers of the period state that in a few generations the influence for good extended to savage tribes, who petitioned for admission of their children into our national schools. The improvement was so marked in its demonstration of a realizing source of happiness, that but three centuries elapsed from the period of organization, before the foreign nationalities were peacefully absorbed, their subjects becoming educated citizens of Manatitla.

With the illustrative sketch that I have given of 142Manatitla’s transition period of extension, you, and the readers of the historiographer’s transcript, will readily understand the inceptive source and stages that premised the establishment of our practical system of education. But owing to the limited number of words and terms for the expression of purity and goodness, with their practical variations, in your languages, we are of necessity obliged to use them in frequent repetition.