CHAPTER XXX. Buenos Ayres, November 5th, 187-.

Dear Don Guillermo: You will be very much surprised, notwithstanding the forewarning of intention, to find yourself unexpectedly greeted in Heraclea by your little favorites Lovieta and Lavoca. It has cost us a painful struggle to part with them; but we should have been unmindful of our privilege and duty as conservators for their future welfare, in joyous transmission, if we had consulted the disposition of our selfish feelings. Even if our household was of the most suitable description known to civilization for rearing children, I should not have hesitated a moment in imploring your influence for their admission into the Heraclean school. Consolata, with unprejudiced consideration, fully appreciates the advantages of the protective course, for conferring present and future happiness.

Realmente, the evidence appeals so directly to the affectionate understanding, the ni?as fully comprehend the advantages that it will afford, which in thoughtful mood they expressed, by asking us if we did not think the Manatitlans and Heracleans from having such nice parents for so long a time were better than good? I am free to confess that I felt a wince at the touch palpable the question conveyed; tears glistened in the eyes of Consolata, as she enfolded the unconscious challengers in her arms, with a languaged embrace that impressed them with affirmative conviction, while it imparted a desire for their 418forgiveness, which trebly admonished me of my own unworthiness. It is strange how little use we now have for voiced words to give expression to our thoughts. This silent source of happy intercourse bespeaks with increasing flow our current perception of a joyous unity in affection, including in its circle of communion M. Baudois and our neighborly confluents. In our morning and evening walks for the exampled demonstration of happy regeneration, that in practice its source may be made known to others, reflections from objects are so similar in impression that a glance is sufficient for the conveyance of coincident thought comparisons. Last evening, while on our way to visit the “industrial” establishments of our foreign “citizens” (by invitation), who are constantly begging for governmental concessions for the encouragement of their enterprising “undertakings,” we passed many of our black priestly scentipedes, and it was with conscious emotions of joy that I felt the confiding pressure of Consolata’s arm, as she averted her face to avoid the necessity of hypocritical salutation. As my governmental position had evoked from Mr. Hogg an invitation to visit his distillery, I proposed to M. Baudois the advisability of taking the family, that we might observe the effect produced by the improvements, upon my wife and children. With his approval they were taken; and while we were cautiously picking our path along the causeway crossing of the slough that separates the brewery premises of Von Guzzledorf from those of the distillery, Mr. Hogg, in his obsequious desire to honor our visit with propitious attention, hastened to meet us with his ponderous body and jowled cheeks and neck in jellied tremor from the emotions of a waddling gait, in gloat of the expectant relish of selfish gratification. After a wheezing prelude, with a cough that in fitful gusts conveyed the foul odors of gamey engorgement, he lamented his asthmatic affliction, that refused to yield 419to remedies, although he had spared no expense to avail himself of the best talent that could be secured for “love” or money. But recently, he said, he had obtained great relief from the prescriptions of Dr. Bull, a member of the royal college of surgeons, who had recently come out from London, at his instigation; a man of eminent ability who had gained a great reputation for his prophylactic pills, a box of which every family should keep in their house, to be taken regular every morning. While engaged in this preliminary detail of health and its providential means of preservation, Lovieta and Lavoca with ill suppressed disdainful sniffs of comparison, allowed their eyes to alternate between his person and a family of his namesake’s, who, with a strong personal resemblance and odor, were indulging in the luxurious contributions from the neighboring brewery and kindred establishments bordering upon the slough.

Our visits to the distillery and brewery were certainly not propitious for securing the desired grant of land, for the enlargement of their industrial facilities, notwithstanding the sacrificial offering of a box of Wolf’s Scheidam Schnapps and a dozen of old London Dock Sherry, of 1824. When leaving, Mr. Hogg begged me for the welfare of myself and family, not to forget that Dr. Bull was for the present stopping at the Hotel del Mundo. On our return home, a bath was held in requisition for purification from the attaint of the visit. Under these contrasted impressions, our thoughts have withheld us from instinctive gratification by the force of repulsive comparison. Of course, our singularity has evoked the despiteful recognition of the evil disposed, but we feel an enduring recompense in the loving reciprocations of our household; for we no longer suffer from those transitions which of old subjected us in a day to mutations, that realized within the zones of affection, tropical heats, with terror motor accompaniments of tornado, 420thunder gusts, and intermediate alternations to the frosty stillness of the frigid.

With realized happiness, we are encouraged with the approving commendations of our Manatitlan sojourners to believe that a perfect eradication of the parental past will be accomplished in the memories of our children, under Heraclean tuition, for in the change they already recognize the happy cause. When a sufficient time has elapsed for the fulfillment of an end so desirable, we shall, with the pr?tor’s permission, make Heraclea our permanent home. Then, with the privilege of monthly visits to our daughters, we shall enter upon an era of happiness that we feel assured will outlast the records of time; for we have already tested the efficacy of purity and goodness, in sufficient degree for an initial impression of immortality. In companionship with you and the members of the corps, under the direction of the Dosch, and the example of the Heracleans, I shall endeavor to amend my own crotchety humors, which, if we except the superstitious devotion of instinct to rites and ceremonies, and herding predilections, are in no great degree above those I affect to despise, in the matter of stability. But I am fully impressed with the belief, that Creative wisdom devised purity and goodness, as the simple creed of self legislation and approving test of immortality.

I will now offer for your remorseful consideration, a counterblast. Have you reflected upon the responsibility you have incurred in leading us astray from the glorious system of rewards and punishments offered for the encouragement and correction of indulgences, by the “good” old mother church? Why did you not leave us in ignorance of the audacious Manatitlan system of education, that dares usurp with self legislation the infallible promulgations of law and gospel for the correction of excessive indulgences. The substitution of direct responsibility for 421salvation by saving grace, deprives instinctive humanity of its barter privilege of using the gold of its god as a compromising compensation for indulgence, and the consolations of confession and absolution, causing us, especially, to hold them in extreme contempt as subterfuges begot from the vileness of hereditary cause and effect. The instinctive reverence we once paid to priestly mediums of heavenly assurance against the devices of hell, you have turned into the bitterness of shame, from the reflection of past humiliation imposed by their impudent assumptions of delegated divine authority.

Our present feeling of responsibility for perfection in purity and goodness, revolts at the thought that our perceptions were ever so weak as to believe there ever existed in the pampered bodies of priests, other than a swinish divinity endowed with an instinctive audacity that prefers deception to honest labor. We now avoid church and street mummeries of host processions and masses, as a profanation of good instinctive common sense, as our presence would implicate us in the blasphemous degradation. To our chance acquaintance with you, fostered with affectionate sympathy, I must charge this defection, also the retrospective pangs of shame engendered from sensitive regrets for my stupidity, which suffers from revival with every rattling peal of church bells. Not content with casting these heretical shadows across our path, you have devised to rob us of our ni?as, our abiding source of love. Bethink you of the accountability you have incurred, with your chances of self-forgiveness.

With a falcon script in acknowledgment we shall feel assured that you will bestow upon our ni?étas a father’s care and love.... P. G.

Mr. Welson joyfully exclaimed, as he closed the letter, “It is really reviving to hope, to hear a provincial, 422of Spanish descent, express himself with such perceptive clearness, in freedom from the thraldom of sensual embargo, which has rendered our race the phantasmal victims of stomach indulgence, from time out of date!”

The Dosch, in confirmation of Mr. Welson’s train of thought, urged, “It has required our utmost efforts to hold our feelings of contempt subdued that they might not altogether usurp the rule of discreet generosity, in view of the obstinate stupidity of civilized Giga races; who, with star gazing, and moon conjectures, forget their preservative accountability to Creative indications designed for the attainment of a living realization of immortality. How it has been possible for the races of civilized humanity to exist in individual communion with self, and the advantage it affords for deductive comparison, aside from the mutations of attrition, through so many cycles of re-degradation, without discovering the active cause and remedial source, puzzles our comprehension. The ridiculous abstractions of your philosophers, which in thoughtless aberration leads them to lose the substance while pursuing the shadow, was aptly illustrated by some of our frolicsome dames, who decoyed Dr. Baāhar, in successful test of his lack of discernment, to follow the shadow, more vehemently, from its supposed evasions, than he had previously bestowed upon the gossamer substance of a butterfly. While amusing themselves with a morning volant airing upon a beautiful azure-tinted specimen of the L. Matutinal in its wafting sips from the flowers of the latifundium, it caught the covetous gaze of the doctor, who was on his way with his net for a hunt beyond the walls. After pursuing its doubling variations in flight, which from graceful composure seemed void of evasive intention, to the verge of vexatious anxiety, while his back was to the sun, it suddenly soared, substituting its shadow, which the 423dames made still more attractive by prismatic colors rayed from their silicoth mantles. His efforts grew more frantic from the apparently miraculous escape of the coveted prize through the meshes of the net; which caused the infatuated pursuer to suppose that its illusive power indicated a new species. To our surprise the illusive chase continued with increased avidity as the prismatic colors were varied, the shadow being kept just in advance of the net’s swoop, until after an hour’s pursuit, the excited naturalist fell exhausted upon his knees in the formulistic attitude of prayer. In this position, with upraised eyes and hands, he watched imploringly the lessening shadow of his morning’s devotions. Although surrounded with evidences, which should have led to an impulsive detection of the cause of the tantalizing movements, previous to substitution, there never was for a moment the least hesitation that indicated suspicion or doubt of the limn’s substance reality.”

In character, nothing has surprised us more than the insensibility of Gigas, who claim the disciplined aid of collegiate education, to the effects evolved from their own experience. Yet, notwithstanding the contempt you personally feel for the selfish enactments of your past life, your relapse, in partial degree, would not appear strange if subjected to reversed example. But with the Heracleans, from hereditary usage the impression has become immutable. The contrast will lead you to realize the great difficulties that will attend the inceptive stages required for reversing the progressive position of your people; as they have been accustomed to advance with their backs to the future from time immemorial, the change will prove embarrassing for many generations. These contrasted facts, which expose in extremity the habits of usage, with the inveteracy incurred for good or evil, has caused us to view the act of self-denial on the part of the parents of your 424pets, as a trustful deviation that exceeds any in our former experience, and it will certainly insure a harmonious transmission. If the mother’s affection had been void of delusive infatuation, permitting her to act in accordance with the promptings of its natural expression, the devisement of the children to the Heraclean school would not have appeared strange, as unprejudiced by delusive agency and its evil tendencies the love of maternity extends to the future. In exemplification of the evil tendencies of your delusive legendary book of creeds, that has defied the efforts of ninety-five thousand human commentators to render it comprehensible, with accumulating legions of preaching expounders, I will relate an event that transpired during the inceptive period of my auramental labors.

The dramatis person? in the triangular scriptural duel I am about to relate, for exemplifying the utter perversion of intelligent affection, wrought by this precedental tramway to discord, were in scenic representation, a grandmother of Scotch extraction, derived from the amiable clan McGregor, her daughter, and granddaughter, who in passionate exacerbation occupied counter positions in domestic antagonism. The locale of the scenic enactment, for your more perfect understanding of its mouthpat entente cordiale, we will award to Londonderry, Ireland. Having, by a strange fatality peculiar to auramentation in youth, been led by diverse circumstances to become a member of the household, I was forced to witness the repulsive drama in all the progressive stages to culmination. When in the morning avocations the three “fell out” to disagree, from a flux of hereditary passion, they would exhaust their store of word provocations, and then have recourse to prayer, after the mid-mother had read a formal challenge from the creed “omnium gatherum.” These formulistic rites concluded, and the male members dispersed to their 425employments foreign to the house, the three antagonists would enter the “sitting-room” to decide their quarrel, each taking a corner of the room with their book of missals in hand. With the room appropriately darkened, they would each, with hasty avidity, hurriedly search for some virulent passage of “scripture” of innuendic import, and when found it would be hurled in venomous recital against her adversaries. Often the voices of the three would be intermingled in the combined discharge of offensive similitudes, each vying in the melée encounter for ascendancy in loudness of report, and precision in the diabolic aim of their denunciations. Slight wounds, of Jezabelic imputation, were borne heroically, but the grandam of eighty when severely hurt by thrusts into old wounds rankling with the personal reflection of her accountability for whatever was amiss from lack of amiability in the tempers of daughter and granddaughter, would seize her plaid, and, in defiance of weather, would seek an asylum in the house of her son, distant two miles from the scene of action. The flight of the grandam would add new vigor to the vituperative discharge of invective quotation between mother and daughter, which generally resulted in a drawn battle, leaving the envenomed cause to smoulder in belligerent tendency, until their magazines were replenished with holy war munitions, sufficient for the adventure of another trial of anathematizing strength. When one of these encounters had proved fatal to the grandam, from a severe cold caught from wading through the snaw broo in her retreat from the battle-field, her grandsons invoked from day the fall of darkness, to stay the portended renewal of hostilities, in opposition to the commands of Joshua, but coincident with the prayer of the modern battle hero of Waterloo, for Blucher or night. These belligerent domestic inconsistencies incited by creed incongruities, and indigestible food, and lack of bodily exercise, are 426by no means rare among the civilized peoples of the old and new world. As with the Scotch, singed sheep’s head, haggis, and whiskey, were the inciting cause of religious intolerance and border warfare, it will be found that like causes rule as a source of provocation for distempered aberrations of every kind.

“We will now seek your infantile protégés, and see how it fares with the newly united.”

“First resolve me of my doubts with regard to your consistency,” urged Mr. Welson. “How do you reconcile the hasty unions you have sanctioned, with your ‘invariable custom,’ that requires three months probationary test of compatibility before the full consummation of unity.”

“You should be aware of a distinction that it would be impossible for us to reconcile in your marriage adoption,” replied the Dosch. “You are strangers to our system of education, so that we are obliged to accept an alternative for your tests; as you must realize that the quarantine of a lifetime would not render you compatible according to our acceptation. But nominally all have complied with the probationary requirements; even M. Hollydorf, as Correliana proxied her twin sister. Still our chief dependence is in the incomparable beauty and goodness of the bride, which will render disagreement impossible. But I perceive that you have still another indigestible example that you would have reconciled. We have claimed that our ‘system’ of education renders the unity of affection between the marriage affiants indivisible; yet in seeming contradiction, your thoughts refer to the second marriage of the pr?tor with Correliana’s mother. We could have explained to you this apparent discrepancy, but for our wish that you might discover from the promptings of your own perception the admissibility of an association designed for mutual solace and companionship in bodily representation. The pr?tor Adinope when 427premonized of death’s approach, preferred the tribune Adestus, who had lost his wife, to the pr?torship, as the chosen companion of his wife, under the temporal privilege of correlative correspondence in the body. With the dying pr?tor’s sanction, Adestus assumed the charge of the household and pr?torial advisorship while the husband yet lived. You have in thought questioned this as an impeachment of the unity we profess in the assimilative fulfillment of our first affection. But I can assure you there is neither divorce or abatement in the troth unity of the first allegiance. In fact, they become more perfectly wedded in thought with those who have preceded them to the current realms of immortality; and in vicarious communion, commend without stint or prevarication the ever present manifestations they enjoy with their beatific spouses, and longings for the speedy consummation of a disembodied reunion. If Heraclea could furnish wives for Giga representatives, as well endowed with reason and as free from prejudicial taint as you are, the labor of educational induction in its inceptive stage would soon be accomplished. For in wifely Heraclean example, the joyous brightness would be reflected with such purity that it would irresistibly attract assimilative reciprocation, in thought, from all within reach of its influence, causing vanity, with its promptings for adornment, to become an exile beyond the reach of material redemption. With the current of your women’s affections once emancipated from the shallows of personal ornamentation, the clear depth of the stream would purify itself from the undertow of man’s grosser instincts, casting the refuse of precedental habits and customs back upon themselves, and the cycle shores of the past, with their memorial odors of instinctive corruption.”

Mr. Welson. “As you have answered these problems, which opposed themselves to our understandings, 428as stumbling blocks preventing our full appreciation of your wisdom’s infallibility, in a manner so practically agreeable, will you apprise me of the method you propose for reducing the appetites and passions of Giga humanity to an initial accord with the Heraclean standard? This request I proffer under the privilege conferred by your maxim, ‘that we should never cavil or criticise without being practically able to amend.’”

Dosch. “Although our maxim in application to your race lacks, or has hitherto lacked, the secondary power of example required for practical efficiency, we will answer your inquiry by holding your example as our prospective means of introduction. As an initiatory step for reciprocal purification, in prefatory advisement for the introduction of our protective system of education, and its inauguration of self-control and legislation, we shall auramentally propose an international dietary congress, for the studied adaptation of food in quality and quantity, for the healthy requirements of the body. With this as a basis for thought direction, we shall propose a method for the inductive substitution of a common language, free from sectional prejudices, by the introduction of international schools, kindred to our own, which in hostage reciprocation will eradicate the seeds of instinctive jealousy. Husband and wife are to be held as a unity for representative expression in congress; with the special proviso that the voice of the man shall alone bespeak the unity of intention in public assembly. Under the ruling of the dietary congress, stomach codes could be established for the mouth rejection of all indigestible and incompatible compounds, in solid or liquid form. This would emancipate the stomach from the arbitrary tyranny of individual hodge-podgery, relieving the body and brain from the incubus imposed by the unreason of ages. The prestige of a single generation’s restful rendering 429of these intuitive examples of reason would result in the utter abolishment of such songs as the ‘Watch on the Rhine,’ so characteristic in guttural expression of the indigestible philosophy of a German diet, and the more musical, battle-inspiring Marsellaise, instinct with the lighter French national régime, suited to the Zouave accompaniment of ‘Leap on, leap on!’ while in substitution there would arise blendings of song, and salutations replete with joyful gladness in the new-fledged accents of affectionate reciprocations. This innovation would effectually liberate the German language from the bondage of nose and stomach, and the French from the frothy sibilations of vanity, causing them to harmonize in peaceful goodwill, with contributions from every tongue, until special idiomatism would become involved in the sympathy of universal accord.”

The discourse of the Dosch was here interrupted by the voices of Lovieta and Lavoca, calling for Don Guillermo, who gave an answering invitation for them to come in and see where he lived. This brought them to his knees in full chorus for the rehearsal of the marvelous impressions they had received. But in the rapid scan their eyes gave to the alcoved apartment they caught a view of the Dosch and Doschessa, with other Manatitlans reflected in the field of the table tympano-microscope, which hushed their voiced exuberance into regardful silence. The Dosch, after watching for a few moments their curious awe, reminded Mr. Welson that his wife was specially anxious for a personal introduction to his children in trust. This given, the Doschessa soon won their confidence, and imparted to the eager germ of Giga curiosity some of the winning traits of affectionate reciprocation encouraged in the Manatitlan schools for the enlightenment of thought perception. Her success was soon evident from the gathering mists that sparkled in rayed mementos of 430affection from their eyelashes to be resolved into tears, as an accompaniment to the plaintive vocals, “mamma, papa.” As the dew of inborn memories yielded to soothing direction, natural affection expanded, until it included, with the “extreme unction” of goodness, the infantile query of possibility for the redemption of Padre Molinero from self. In questioning expression, from the impressions of memory, they asked with a toddling perception of cause and effect, if it would not change him if he ate and drank less, so that his mouth would not make a noise so porcuno? Then, as if in thought consultation tracing the effect of renovation, they asked if a priest could be made as loving and respectable as Mr. Welson and Captain Greenwood by removing his hat, gown, and fat?

The Dosch laughingly replied, that if he and his kind would adopt the first restrictions mentioned, it would certainly indicate a desire to become respectable in self-estimation, and show a disposition to merit the confidence of others.

When well ingratiated in their affection, the Doschessa asked by what token they wished to be made sensible of her watchful care? This seemed to puzzle their ingenuity for the devisement of a tangible method of communication. But Lavoca, after demure consideration, said, that she thought it would be easy to kiss and embrace, if she could manage to continue as large as she then appeared.

The Dosch then explained to their ready comprehension, that their reflection in the field of the microscope was like the vanity of personal adornment shadowed in a mirror, which when removed left nothing but its vague impression for the delusive gratification of self. But the Doschessa said, if they wished to retain a lasting impression of her as she then appeared, they must keep themselves free from passion by bestowing their thoughts upon others; 431then she would be ever present with them to be kissed and embraced in thought, which was a reality that with goodness would last forever. They promised that they would always try to be good, but hoped if they sometimes forgot, she and the teachers would forgive, and let them try again. “Because,” Lavoca urged, “our people have not been good like yours, and we haven’t learned how to be always the same.” She assured them, that with all their disadvantages, if they tried to make their associates and teachers happy, they would forget their own selfishness, and feel that the merited affection of others would always make them joyous with gladness. Perceiving that they were still anxious in thought for an intuitive token of her affection conveyed in the language of a kiss, she proposed to comply with their wish, but cautioned them to be gentle in their reciprocation when they felt her pressure upon their lips. First to Lovieta, and then with an ear premonition to the more impetuous Lavoca, she imparted the loving thrill that ever attends the reciprocal blending of instinctive sense with the animus of goodness. Both were exultant in declaring that her kiss, although exceedingly small and tiny in its touch, was larger in making them feel more happy everywhere than any they had ever felt of their own kind, and were certain they should know whenever they were kissed by a Manatitlan. After this happy introduction of the novecetas to the Manatitlans, the Dosch and Doschessa accepted Mr. Welson’s invitation, and occupied their accustomed seats on the tragus of his ear; and then with the escort of Cleorita, Oviata, Lovieta, and Lavoca, started in search of the newly unionized, who were found enjoying the cool shade of the tamarisks on the terraced descent from the summit to the basin of the falls.

The Dosch, while the presence of Mr. Welson’s party was yet undiscovered, called his attention to 432the unity of expression exhibited by their faces as they gazed in thoughtfully silent meditation upon the fantastic sprays of falling water, whose misty vapor, bearing perennial freshness in dispersion to air and vegetation, represented in similitude their own thoughtful desires for the extension of their glad happiness to others. Mr. Welson’s face became subject to regretful shadows, as he passed in review the instinctive follies recalled to his memory in contrast by the constantly recurring variations in manifestation of the happy influence transmitted from hereditary self legislation. In thought he expressed thankful praise that his life had been spared to witness scenes which in truthful representation realized more of bliss than had ever entered into his most sanguine conceptions. In thoughtful admiration of the unionized beatitude expressed in the silent flow of current reciprocations, stimulated by the stentorian promptings of the Dosch in the lulls of the wind waft, he resolved to avail himself, without delay, of an example so pregnant with current joy. With lingering desire he motioned away his escort, then withdrawing himself without disturbing the mystic harmony of the wafting ingraft of affection, he sought within himself for an assurance of hopes that had surprised him while visiting the school for nynetas.

At the descending junction of the avenue with those of the basin and incrematium he met the pr?tor and his wife, who were accustomed on the occasion of a marriage to visit its sweet scented groves for communion with their current selves in purification from the body’s probation. They were quick to detect in the subdued but hopefully eloquent expression of Mr. Welson’s face, an undefined longing, and were not surprised when he unburthened to them his desire for their censorial consultation, and judgment after an explanatory intercession with the object of his premised thoughtful affection. With warm commendations 433in support of the wisdom of his choice, from her special adaptability, they immediately entered upon the eliminary negotiations required for a verdict of relief; the result of which will be detailed in a subsequent chapter.