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    Utopia Novels repository

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Liza Daly

Mizora

A
Prophecy

Mary E. Bradley Lane

1889

Public Domain

EPUB version of this book: mizora-a-prophecy.epub

The full title is: Mizora: A Prophecy: A Mss. Found Among
        the Private Papers of Princess Vera Zarovitch: Being a True and
        Faithful Account of her Journey to the Interior of the Earth,
        with a Careful Description of the Country and its Inhabitants,
        their Customs, Manners, and Government. It was first
        serialized in the Cincinnati Commercial newspaper in 1880.
        Little is known about the author.

Content warning: The society that the author describes is
        enthusiastically eugenicist.

Mizora

A PROPHECY.

A
        mss. found among the private papers of the Princess Vera
        Zarovitch

Being a true and faithful account of her Journey to the
        Interior of the Earth, with a careful description of the Country
        and its Inhabitants, their Customs, Manners and Government.

WRITTEN BY HERSELF.

Preface

The narrative of Vera Zarovitch, published in the
        Cincinnati Commercial in 1880 and 1881, attracted a
        great deal of attention. It commanded a wide circle of readers,
        and there was much more said about it than is usual when works
        of fiction run through a newspaper in weekly installments. Quite
        a number of persons who are unaccustomed to bestowing
        consideration upon works of fiction spoke of it, and grew
        greatly interested in it.

I received many messages about it, and letters of inquiry,
        and some ladies and gentlemen desired to know the particulars
        about the production of the story in book form; and were
        inquisitive about it and the author who kept herself in
        concealment so closely that even her husband did not know that
        she was the writer who was making this stir in our limited
        literary world.

I was myself so much interested in it that it occurred to me
        to make the suggestion that the story ought to have an extensive
        sale in book form, and to write to a publisher; but the lady who
        wrote the work seemed herself a shade indifferent on the
        subject, and it passed out of my hands and out of my mind.

It is safe to say that it made an impression that was
        remarkable, and with a larger audience I do not doubt that it
        would make its mark as an original production wrought out with
        thoughtful care and literary skill, and take high rank.

Yours very truly,

Murat Halstead.

Nov. 14th, 1889.

Part First.

Chapter I.

Having little knowledge of rhetorical art, and possessing but
        a limited imagination, it is only a strong sense of the duty I
        owe to Science and the progressive minds of the age, that
        induces me to come before the public in the character of an
        author. True, I have only a simple narration of facts to deal
        with, and am, therefore, not expected to present artistic
        effects, and poetical imagery, nor any of those flights of
        imagination that are the trial and test of genius.

Yet my task is not a light one. I may fail to satisfy my own
        mind that the true merits of the wonderful and mysterious people
        I discovered, have been justly described. I may fail to interest
        the public; which is the one difficulty most likely to occur,
        and most to be regretted—not for my own sake, but theirs. It is
        so hard to get human nature out of the ruts it has moved in for
        ages. To tear away their present faith, is like undermining
        their existence. Yet others who come after me will be more
        aggressive than I. I have this consolation: whatever reception
        may be given my narrative by the public, I know that it has been
        written solely for its good. That wonderful civilization I met
        with in Mizora, I may not be able to more than faintly shadow
        forth here, yet from it, the present age may form some idea of
        that grand, that ideal life that is possible for our remote
        posterity. Again and again has religious enthusiasm pictured a
        life to be eliminated from the grossness and imperfections of
        our material existence. The Spirit—the Mind—that mental gift, by
        or through which we think, reason, and suffer, is by one tragic
        and awful struggle to free itself from temporal blemishes and
        difficulties, and become spiritual and perfect. Yet, who,
        sweeping the limitless fields of space with a telescope,
        glancing at myriads of worlds that a lifetime could not count,
        or gazing through a microscope at a tiny world in a drop of
        water, has dreamed that patient Science and practice could
        evolve for the living human race, the ideal life of exalted
        knowledge: the life that I found in Mizora; that Science had
        made real and practicable. The duty that I owe to truth compels
        me to acknowledge that I have not been solicited to write this
        narrative by my friends; nor has it been the pastime of my
        leisure hours; nor written to amuse an invalid; nor, in fact,
        for any of those reasons which have prompted so many men and
        women to write a book. It is, on the contrary, the result of
        hours of laborious work, undertaken for the sole purpose of
        benefiting Science and giving encouragement to those progressive
        minds who have already added their mite of knowledge to the
        coming future of the race. “We owe a duty to posterity,” says
        Junius in his famous letter to the king. A declaration that
        ought to be a motto for every schoolroom, and graven above every
        legislative hall in the world. It should be taught to the child
        as soon as reason has begun to dawn, and be its guide until age
        has become its master.

It is my desire not to make this story a personal matter; and
        for that unavoidable prominence which is given one’s own
        identity in relating personal experiences, an indulgence is
        craved from whomsoever may peruse these pages.

In order to explain how and why I came to venture upon a
        journey no other of my sex has ever attempted, I am compelled to
        make a slight mention of my family and nationality.

I am a Russian: born to a family of nobility, wealth, and
        political power. Had the natural expectations for my birth and
        condition been fulfilled, I should have lived, loved, married
        and died a Russian aristocrat, and been unknown to the next
        generation—and this narrative would not have been written.

There are some people who seem to have been born for the sole
        purpose of becoming the playthings of Fate—who are tossed from
        one condition of life to another without wish or will of their
        own. Of this class I am an illustration. Had I started out with
        a resolve to discover the North Pole, I should never have
        succeeded. But all my hopes, affections, thoughts, and desires
        were centered in another direction, hence—but my narrative will
        explain the rest.

The tongue of woman has long been celebrated as an unruly
        member, and perhaps, in some of the domestic affairs of life, it
        has been unnecessarily active; yet no one who gives this
        narrative a perusal, can justly deny that it was the primal
        cause of the grandest discovery of the age.

I was educated in Paris, where my vacations were frequently
        spent with an American family who resided there, and with whom
        my father had formed an intimate friendship. Their house, being
        in a fashionable quarter of the city and patriotically
        hospitable, was the frequent resort of many of their countrymen.
        I unconsciously acquired a knowledge and admiration for their
        form of government, and some revolutionary opinions in regard to
        my own.

Had I been guided by policy, I should have kept the latter a
        secret, but on returning home, at the expiration of my school
        days, I imprudently gave expression to them in connection with
        some of the political movements of the Russian Government—and
        secured its suspicion at once, which, like the virus of some
        fatal disease, once in the system, would lose its vitality only
        with my destruction.

While at school, I had become attached to a young and lovely
        Polish orphan, whose father had been killed at the battle of
        Grochow when she was an infant in her mother’s arms. My love for
        my friend, and sympathy for her oppressed people, finally drew
        me into serious trouble and caused my exile from my native
        land.

I married at the age of twenty the son of my father’s dearest
        friend. Alexis and I were truly attached to each other, and when
        I gave to my infant the name of my father and witnessed his
        pride and delight, I thought to my cup of earthly happiness, not
        one more drop could be added.

A desire to feel the cheering air of a milder climate induced
        me to pay my Polish friend a visit. During my sojourn with her
        occurred the anniversary of the tragedy of Grochow, when,
        according to custom, all who had lost friends in the two
        dreadful battles that had been fought there, met to offer
        prayers for their souls. At her request, I accompanied my friend
        to witness the ceremonies. To me, a silent and sympathizing
        spectator, they were impressive and solemn in the extreme. Not
        less than thirty thousand people were there, weeping and praying
        on ground hallowed by patriot blood. After the prayers were
        said, the voice of the multitude rose in a mournful and pathetic
        chant. It was rudely broken by the appearance of the Russian
        soldiers.

A scene ensued which memory refuses to forget, and justice
        forbids me to deny. I saw my friend, with the song of sorrow
        still trembling on her innocent lips, fall bleeding, dying from
        the bayonet thrust of a Russian soldier. I clasped the lifeless
        body in my arms, and in my grief and excitement, poured forth
        upbraidings against the government of my country which it would
        never forgive nor condone. I was arrested, tried, and condemned
        to the mines of Siberia for life.

My father’s ancient and princely lineage, my husband’s rank,
        the wealth of both families, all were unavailing in procuring a
        commutation of my sentence to some less severe punishment.
        Through bribery, however, the co-operation of one of my jailors
        was secured, and I escaped in disguise to the frontier.

It was my husband’s desire that I proceed immediately to
        France, where he would soon join me. But we were compelled to
        accept whatever means chance offered for my escape, and a
        whaling vessel bound for the Northern Seas was the only thing I
        could secure passage upon with safety. The captain promised to
        transfer me to the first southward bound vessel we should
        meet.

But none came. The slow, monotonous days found me gliding
        farther and farther from home and love. In the seclusion of my
        little cabin, my fate was more endurable than the horrors of
        Siberia could have been, but it was inexpressibly lonesome. On
        shipboard I sustained the character of a youth, exiled for a
        political offense, and of a delicate constitution.

It is not necessary to the interest of this narrative to
        enter into the details of shipwreck and disaster, which befel us
        in the Northern Seas. Our vessel was caught between ice floes,
        and we were compelled to abandon her. The small boats were
        converted into sleds, but in such shape as would make it easy to
        re-convert them into boats again, should it ever become
        necessary. We took our march for the nearest Esquimaux
        settlement, where we were kindly received and tendered the
        hospitality of their miserable huts. The captain, who had been
        ill for some time, grew rapidly worse, and in a few days
        expired. As soon as the approach of death became apparent, he
        called the crew about him, and requested them to make their way
        south as soon as possible, and to do all in their power for my
        health and comfort. He had, he said, been guaranteed a sum of
        money for my safe conduct to France, sufficient to place his
        family in independent circumstances, and he desired that his
        crew should do all in their power to secure it for them.

The next morning I awoke to find myself deserted, the crew
        having decamped with nearly everything brought from the
        ship.

Being blessed with strong nerves, I stared my situation
        bravely in the face, and resolved to make the best of it. I
        believed it could be only a matter of time when some European or
        American whaling vessel should rescue me: and I had the
        resolution to endure, while hope fed the flame.

I at once proceeded to inure myself to the life of the
        Esquimaux. I habited myself in a suit of reindeer fur, and ate,
        with compulsory appetite, the raw flesh and fat that form their
        principal food. Acclimated by birth to the coldest region of the
        temperate zone, and naturally of a hardy constitution, I found
        it not so difficult to endure the rigors of the Arctic
        temperature as I had supposed.

I soon discovered the necessity of being an assistance to my
        new friends in procuring food, as their hospitality depends
        largely upon the state of their larder. A compass and a small
        trunk of instruments belonging to the Captain had been either
        over-looked or rejected by the crew in their flight. I secured
        the esteem of the Esquimaux by using the compass to conduct a
        hunting party in the right direction when a sudden snow-storm
        had obscured the landmarks by which they guide their course. I
        cheerfully assumed a share of their hardships, for with these
        poor children of the North life is a continual struggle with
        cold and starvation. The long, rough journeys which we
        frequently took over ice and ridges of snow in quest of animal
        food, I found monotonously destitute of everything I had
        experienced in former traveling, except fatigue. The wail of the
        winds, and the desolate landscape of ice and snow, never varied.
        The coruscations of the Aurora Borealis sometimes lighted up the
        dreary waste around us, and the myriad eyes of the firmament
        shone out with a brighter lustre, as twilight shrank before the
        gloom of the long Arctic night.

A description of the winter I spent with the Esquimaux can be
        of little interest to the readers of this narrative. Language
        cannot convey to those who have dwelt always in comfort the
        feeling of isolation, the struggle with despair, that was
        constantly mine. We were often confined to our ice huts for days
        while the blinding fury of the wind driven snow without made the
        earth look like chaos. Sometimes I crept to the narrow entrance
        and looked toward the South with a feeling of homesickness too
        intense to describe. Away, over leagues of perilous travel, lay
        everything that was dear or congenial; and how many dreary
        months, perhaps years, must pass before I could obtain release
        from associations more dreadful than solitude. It required all
        the courage I could command to endure it.

The whale-fishing opens about the first week in August, and
        continues throughout September. As it drew near, the settlement
        prepared to move farther north, to a locality where they claimed
        whales could be found in abundance. I cheerfully assisted in the
        preparations, for to meet some whaling vessel was my only hope
        of rescue from surroundings that made existence a living
        death.

The dogs were harnessed to sleds heavily laden with the
        equipments of an Esquimaux hut. The woman, as well as the men,
        were burdened with immense packs; and our journey begun. We
        halted only to rest and sleep. A few hours work furnished us a
        new house out of the ever present ice. We feasted on raw
        meat—sometimes a freshly killed deer; after which our journey
        was resumed.

As near as I could determine, it was close to the 85° north
        latitude, where we halted on the shore of an open sea. Wild
        ducks and game were abundant, also fish of an excellent quality.
        Here, for the first time in many months, I felt the kindly
        greeting of a mild breeze as it hailed me from the bosom of the
        water. Vegetation was not profuse nor brilliant, but to my long
        famished eyes, its dingy hue was delightfully refreshing.

Across this sea I instantly felt a strong desire to sail. I
        believed it must contain an island of richer vegetation than the
        shore we occupied. But no one encouraged me or would agree to be
        my companion. On the contrary, they intimated that I should
        never return. I believed that they were trying to frighten me
        into remaining with them, and declared my intention to go alone.
        Perhaps I might meet in that milder climate some of my own race.
        My friend smiled, and pointing to the South, said, as he
        designated an imaginary boundary:

“Across that no white man’s foot has ever
        stepped.”

So I was alone. My resolution, however, was not shaken. A
        boat was constructed, and bidding adieu to my humble companions,
        I launched into an unknown sea.

Chapter II.

On and on, and on I rowed until the shore and my late
        companions were lost in the gloomy distance. On and on, and
        still on, until fatigued almost to exhaustion; and still, no
        land. A feeling of uncontrollable lonesomeness took possession
        of me. Silence reigned supreme. No sound greeted me save the
        swirl of the gently undulating waters against the boat, and the
        melancholy dip of the oars. Overhead, the familiar eyes of night
        were all that pierced the gloom that seemed to hedge me in. My
        feeling of distress increased when I discovered that my boat had
        struck a current and was beyond my control. Visions of a
        cataract and inevitable death instantly shot across my mind.
        Made passive by intense despair, I laid down in the bottom of
        the boat, to let myself drift into whatever fate was awaiting
        me.

I must have lain there many hours before I realized that I
        was traveling in a circle. The velocity of the current had
        increased, but not sufficiently to insure immediately
        destruction. Hope began to revive, and I sat up and looked about
        me with renewed courage. Directly before me rose a column of
        mist, so thin that I could see through it, and of the most
        delicate tint of green. As I gazed, it spread into a curtain
        that appeared to be suspended in mid-air, and began to sway
        gently back and forth, as if impelled by a slight breeze, while
        sparks of fire, like countless swarms of fire-flies, darted
        through it and blazed out into a thousand brilliant hues and
        flakes of color that chased one another across and danced
        merrily up and down with bewildering swiftness. Suddenly it drew
        together in a single fold, a rope of yellow mist, then instantly
        shook itself out again as a curtain of rainbows fringed with
        flame. Myriads of tassels, composed of threads of fire, began to
        dart hither and thither through it, while the rainbow stripes
        deepened in hue until they looked like gorgeous ribbons glowing
        with intensest radiance, yet softened by that delicate misty
        appearance which is a special quality of all atmospheric color,
        and which no pencil can paint, nor the most eloquent tongue
        adequately describe.

The swaying motion continued. Sometimes the curtain
        approached near enough, apparently, to flaunt its fiery fringe
        almost within my grasp. It hung one instant in all its marvelous
        splendor of colors, then suddenly rushed into a compact mass,
        and shot across the zenith, an arc of crimson fire that lit up
        the gloomy waters with a weird, unearthly glare. It faded
        quickly, and appeared to settle upon the water again in a
        circular wall of amber mist, round which the current was
        hurrying me with rapidly increasing speed. I saw, with alarm,
        that the circles were narrowing A whirlpool was my instant
        conjecture, and I laid myself down in the boat, again expecting
        every moment to be swept into a seething abyss of waters. The
        spray dashed into my face as the boat plunged forward with
        frightful swiftness. A semi-stupor, born of exhaustion and
        terror, seized me in its merciful embrace.

It must have been many hours that I lay thus. I have a dim
        recollection of my boat going on and on, its speed gradually
        decreasing, until I was amazed to perceive that it had ceased
        its onward motion and was gently rocking on quiet waters. I
        opened my eyes. A rosy light, like the first blush of a new day,
        permeated the atmosphere. I sat up and looked about me. A
        circular wall of pale amber mist rose behind me; the shores of a
        new and beautiful country stretched before. Toward them, I
        guided my boat with reviving hope and strength.

I entered a broad river, whose current was from the sea, and
        let myself drift along its banks in bewildered delight. The sky
        appeared bluer, and the air balmier than even that of Italy’s
        favored clime. The turf that covered the banks was smooth and
        fine, like a carpet of rich green velvet. The fragrance of
        tempting fruit was wafted by the zephyrs from numerous orchards.
        Birds of bright plumage flitted among the branches, anon
        breaking forth into wild and exultant melody, as if they
        rejoiced to be in so favored a clime.

And truly it seemed a land of enchantment. The atmosphere had
        a peculiar transparency, seemingly to bring out clearly objects
        at a great distance, yet veiling the far horizon in a haze of
        gold and purple. Overhead, clouds of the most gorgeous hues,
        like precious gems converted into vapor, floated in a sky of the
        serenest azure. The languorous atmosphere, the beauty of the
        heavens, the inviting shores, produced in me a feeling of
        contentment not easily described. To add to my senses another
        enjoyment, my ears were greeted with sounds of sweet music, in
        which I detected the mingling of human voices.

I wondered if I had really drifted into an enchanted country,
        such as I had read about in the fairy books of my childhood.

The music grew louder, yet wondrously sweet, and a large
        pleasure boat, shaped like a fish, glided into view. Its scales
        glittered like gems as it moved gracefully and noiselessly
        through the water. Its occupants were all young girls of the
        highest type of blonde beauty. It was their soft voices,
        accompanied by some peculiar stringed instruments they carried,
        that had produced the music I had heard. They appeared to regard
        me with curiosity, not unmixed with distrust, for their boat
        swept aside to give me a wide berth.

I uncovered my head, shook down my long black hair, and
        falling upon my knees, lifted my hands in supplication. My plea
        was apparently understood, for turning their boat around, they
        motioned me to follow them. This I did with difficulty, for I
        was weak, and their boat moved with a swiftness and ease that
        astonished me. What surprised me most was its lack of noise.

As I watched its beautiful occupants dressed in rich
        garments, adorned with rare and costly gems, and noted the
        noiseless, gliding swiftness of their boat, an uncomfortable
        feeling of mystery began to invade my mind, as though I really
        had chanced upon enchanted territory.

As we glided along, I began to be impressed by the weird
        stillness. No sound greeted me from the ripening orchards, save
        the carol of birds; from the fields came no note of harvest
        labor. No animals were visible, nor sound of any. No hum of
        life. All nature lay asleep in voluptuous beauty, veiled in a
        glorious atmosphere. Everything wore a dreamy look. The breeze
        had a loving, lingering touch, not unlike to the Indian Summer
        of North America. But no Indian Summer ever knew that dark green
        verdure, like the first robe of spring. Wherever the eye turned
        it met something charming in cloud, or sky, or water, or
        vegetation. Everything had felt the magical touch of beauty.

On the right, the horizon was bounded by a chain of
        mountains, that plainly showed their bases above the glowing
        orchards and verdant landscapes. It impressed me as peculiar,
        that everything appeared to rise as it gained in distance. At
        last the pleasure boat halted at a flight of marble steps that
        touched the water. Ascending these, I gained an eminence where a
        scene of surpassing beauty and grandeur lay spread before me.
        Far, far as the eye could follow it, stretched the stately
        splendor of a mighty city. But all the buildings were detached
        and surrounded by lawns and shade trees, their white marble and
        gray granite walls gleaming through the green foliage.

Upon the lawn, directly before us, a number of most beautiful
        girls had disposed themselves at various occupations. Some were
        reading, some sketching, and some at various kinds of
        needlework. I noticed that they were all blondes. I could not
        determine whether their language possessed a peculiarly soft
        accent, or whether it was an unusual melody of voice that made
        their conversation as musical to the ear as the love notes of
        some amorous wood bird to its mate.

A large building of white marble crowned a slight eminence
        behind them. Its porticos were supported upon the hands of
        colossal statues of women, carved out of white marble with
        exquisite art and beauty. Shade trees of a feathery foliage,
        like plumes of finest moss, guarded the entrance and afforded
        homes for brilliant-plumaged birds that flew about the porticos
        and alighted on the hands and shoulders of the ladies without
        fear. Some of the trees had a smooth, straight trunk and flat
        top, bearing a striking resemblance to a Chinese umbrella. On
        either side of the marble-paved entrance were huge fountains
        that threw upward a column of water a hundred feet in height,
        which, dissolving into spray, fell into immense basins of
        clearest crystal. Below the rim of these basins, but covered
        with the crystal, as with a delicate film of ice, was a wreath
        of blood red roses, that looked as though they had just been
        plucked from the stems and placed there for a temporary
        ornament. I afterward learned that it was the work of an artist,
        and durable as granite.

I supposed I had arrived at a female seminary, as not a man,
        or the suggestion of one, was to be seen. If it were a seminary,
        it was for the wealth of the land, as house, grounds,
        adornments, and the ladies’ attire were rich and elegant.

I stood apart from the groups of beautiful creatures like the
        genus of another race, enveloped in garments of fur that had
        seen much service. I presented a marked contrast. The evident
        culture, refinement, and gentleness of the ladies, banished any
        fear I might have entertained as to the treatment I should
        receive. But a singular silence that pervaded everything
        impressed me painfully. I stood upon the uplifted verge of an
        immense city, but from its broad streets came no sound of
        traffic, no rattle of wheels, no hum of life. Its marble homes
        of opulence shone white and grand through mossy foliage; from
        innumerable parks the fountains sparkled and statues gleamed
        like rare gems upon a costly robe; but over all a silence, as of
        death, reigned unbroken. The awe and the mystery of it pressed
        heavily upon my spirit, but I could not refuse to obey when a
        lady stepped out of the group, that had doubtless been
        discussing me, and motioned me to follow her.

She led me through the main entrance into a lofty hall that
        extended through the entire building, and consisted of a number
        of grand arches representing scenes in high relief of the finest
        sculpture. We entered a magnificent salon, where a large
        assembly of ladies regarded me with unmistakable astonishment.
        Every one of them was a blonde. I was presented to one, whom I
        instantly took to be the Lady Superior of the College, for I had
        now settled it in my mind that I was in a female seminary,
        albeit one of unheard of luxury in its appointments.

The lady had a remarkable majesty of demeanor, and a noble
        countenance. Her hair was white with age, but over her features,
        the rosy bloom of youth still lingered, as if loth to depart.
        She looked at me kindly and critically, but not with as much
        surprise as the others had evinced. I may here remark that I am
        a brunette. My guide, having apparently received some
        instruction in regard to me, led me upstairs into a private
        apartment. She placed before me a complete outfit of female
        wearing apparel, and informed me by signs that I was to put it
        on. She then retired. The apartment was sumptuously furnished in
        two colors—amber and lazulite. A bath-room adjoining had a
        beautiful porcelain tank with scented water, that produced a
        delightful feeling of exhilaration.

Having donned my new attire, I descended the stairs and met
        my guide, who conducted me into a spacious dining-room. The
        walls were adorned with paintings, principally of fruit and
        flowers. A large and superb picture of a sylvan dell in the side
        of a rock, was one exception. Its deep, cool shadows, and the
        pellucid water, which a wandering sunbeam accidentally revealed,
        were strikingly realistic. Nearly all of the pictures were upon
        panels of crystal that were set in the wall. The light shining
        through them gave them an exceedingly natural effect. One
        picture that I especially admired, was of a grape vine twining
        around the body and trunk of an old tree. It was inside of the
        crystal panel, and looked so natural that I imagined I could see
        its leaves and tendrils sway in the wind. The occupants of the
        dining-room were all ladies, and again I noted the fact that
        they were all blondes: beautiful, graceful, courteous, and with
        voices softer and sweeter than the strains of an eolian
        harp.

The table, in its arrangement and decoration, was the most
        beautiful one I had ever seen. The white linen cloth resembled
        brocaded satin. The knives and forks were gold, with handles of
        solid amber. The dishes were of the finest porcelain. Some of
        them, particularly the fruit stands, looked as though composed
        of hoar frost. Many of the fruit stands were of gold filigree
        work. They attracted my notice at once, not so much on account
        of the exquisite workmanship and unique design of the dishes, as
        the wonderful fruit they contained. One stand, that resembled a
        huge African lily in design, contained several varieties of
        plums, as large as hen’s eggs, and transparent. They were
        yellow, blue and red. The centre of the table was occupied by a
        fruit stand of larger size than the others. It looked like a
        boat of sea foam fringed with gold moss. Over its outer edge
        hung clusters of grapes of a rich wine color, and clear as
        amethysts. The second row looked like globes of honey, the next
        were of a pale, rose color, and the top of the pyramid was
        composed of white ones, the color and transparency of dew.

The fruit looked so beautiful. I thought it would be a
        sacrilege to destroy the charm it had for the eye; but when I
        saw it removed by pink tipped fingers, whose beauty no art could
        represent, and saw it disappear within such tempting lips. I
        thought the feaster worthy of the feast. Fruit appeared to be
        the principal part of their diet, and was served in its natural
        state. I was, however, supplied with something that resembled
        beefsteak of a very fine quality. I afterward learned that it
        was chemically prepared meat. At the close of the meal, a cup
        was handed me that looked like the half of a soap bubble with
        all its iridescent beauty sparkling and glancing in the light.
        It contained a beverage that resembled chocolate, but whose
        flavor could not have been surpassed by the fabled nectar of the
        gods.

Chapter III.

I have been thus explicit in detailing the circumstances of
        my entrance into the land of Mizora, or, in other words, the
        interior of the earth, lest some incredulous person might doubt
        the veracity of this narrative.

It does seem a little astonishing that a woman should have
        fallen by accident, and without intention or desire, upon a
        discovery that explorers and scientists had for years searched
        for in vain. But such was the fact, and, in generosity, I have
        endeavored to make my accident as serviceable to the world in
        general, and Science in particular, as I could, by taking
        observations of the country, its climate and products, and
        especially its people.

I met with the greatest difficulty in acquiring their
        language. Accustomed to the harsh dialect of the North, my voice
        was almost intractable in obtaining their melodious
        accentuation. It was, therefore, many months before I mastered
        the difficulty sufficiently to converse without embarrassment,
        or to make myself clearly understood. The construction of their
        language was simple and easily understood, and in a short time I
        was able to read it with ease, and to listen to it with
        enjoyment. Yet, before this was accomplished, I had mingled
        among them for months, listening to a musical jargon of
        conversation, that I could neither participate in, nor
        understand. All that I could therefore discover about them
        during this time, was by observation. This soon taught me that I
        was not in a seminary—in our acceptance of the term—but in a
        College of Experimental Science. The ladies—girls I had supposed
        them to be—were, in fact, women and mothers, and had reached an
        age that with us would be associated with decrepitude, wrinkles
        and imbecility. They were all practical chemists, and their work
        was the preparation of food from the elements. No wonder that
        they possessed the suppleness and bloom of eternal youth, when
        the earthy matter and impurities that are ever present in our
        food, were unknown to theirs.

I also discovered that they obtained rain artificially when
        needed, by discharging vast quantities of electricity in the
        air. I discovered that they kept no cattle, nor animals of any
        kind for food or labor. I observed a universal practice of
        outdoor exercising; the aim seeming to be to develop the
        greatest capacity of lung or muscle. It was astonishing the
        amount of air a Mizora lady could draw into her lungs. They
        called it their brain stimulant, and said that their faculties
        were more active after such exercise. In my country, a cup of
        strong coffee, or some other agreeable beverage, is usually
        taken into the stomach to invigorate or excite the mind.

One thing I remarked as unusual among a people of such
        cultured taste, and that was the size of the ladies’ waists. Of
        all that I measured not one was less than thirty inches in
        circumference, and it was rare to meet with one that small. At
        first I thought a waist that tapered from the arm pits would be
        an added beauty, if only these ladies would be taught how to
        acquire it. But I lived long enough among them to look upon a
        tapering waist as a disgusting deformity. They considered a
        large waist a mark of beauty, as it gave a greater capacity of
        lung power; and they laid the greatest stress upon the size and
        health of the lungs. One little lady, not above five feet in
        height, I saw draw into her lungs two hundred and twenty-five
        cubic inches of air, and smile proudly when she accomplished it.
        I measured five feet and five inches in height, and with the
        greatest effort I could not make my lungs receive more than two
        hundred cubic inches of air. In my own country I had been called
        an unusually robust girl, and knew, by comparison, that I had a
        much larger and fuller chest than the average among women.

I noticed with greater surprise than anything else had
        excited in me, the marked absence of men. I wandered about the
        magnificent building without hindrance or surveillance. There
        was not a lock or bolt on any door in it. I frequented a vast
        gallery filled with paintings and statues of women, noble
        looking, beautiful women, but still—nothing but women. The fact
        that they were all blondes, singular as it might appear, did not
        so much impress me. Strangers came and went, but among the
        multitude of faces I met, I never saw a man’s.

In my own country I had been accustomed to regard man as a
        vital necessity. He occupied all governmental offices, and was
        the arbitrator of domestic life. It seemed, therefore,
        impossible to me for a country or government to survive without
        his assistance and advice. Besides, it was a country over which
        the heart of any man must yearn, however insensible he might be
        to beauty or female loveliness. Wealth was everywhere and
        abundant. The climate as delightful as the most fastidious could
        desire. The products of the orchards and gardens surpassed
        description. Bread came from the laboratory, and not from the
        soil by the sweat of the brow. Toil was unknown; the toil that
        we know, menial, degrading and harassing. Science had been the
        magician that had done away all that. Science, so formidable and
        austere to our untutored minds, had been gracious to these fair
        beings and opened the door to nature’s most occult secrets. The
        beauty of those women it is not in my power to describe. The
        Greeks, in their highest art, never rivalled it, for here was a
        beauty of mind that no art can represent. They enhanced their
        physical charms with attractive costumes, often of extreme
        elegance. They wore gems that flashed a fortune as they passed.
        The rarest was of a pale rose color, translucent as the clearest
        water, and of a brilliancy exceeding the finest diamond. Their
        voices, in song, could only be equaled by a celestial choir. No
        dryad queen ever floated through the leafy aisles of her forest
        with more grace than they displayed in every movement. And all
        this was for feminine eyes alone—and they of the most enchanting
        loveliness.

Among all the women that I met during my stay in
        Mizora—comprising a period of fifteen years—I saw not one homely
        face or ungraceful form. In my own land the voice of flattery
        had whispered in my ear praises of face and figure, but I felt
        ill-formed and uncouth beside the perfect symmetry and grace of
        these lovely beings. Their chief beauty appeared in a mobility
        of expression. It was the divine fire of Thought that illumined
        every feature, which, while gazing upon the Aphrodite of
        Praxitiles, we must think was all that the matchless marble
        lacked. Emotion passed over their features like ripples over a
        stream. Their eyes were limpid wells of loveliness, where every
        impulse of their natures were betrayed without reserve.

“It would be a paradise for man.”

I made this observation to myself, and as secretly would I
        propound the question:

“Why is he not here in lordly possession?”

In my world man was regarded, or he had made himself
        regarded, as a superior being. He had constituted himself the
        Government, the Law, Judge, Jury and Executioner. He doled out
        reward or punishment as his conscience or judgment dictated. He
        was active and belligerent always in obtaining and keeping every
        good thing for himself. He was indispensable. Yet here was a
        nation of fair, exceedingly fair women doing without him, and
        practising the arts and sciences far beyond the imagined pale of
        human knowledge and skill.

Of their progress in science I will give some accounts
        hereafter.

It is impossible to describe the feeling that took possession
        of me as months rolled by, and I saw the active employments of a
        prosperous people move smoothly and quietly along in the absence
        of masculine intelligence and wisdom. Cut off from all inquiry
        by my ignorance of their language, the singular absence of the
        male sex began to prey upon my imagination as a mystery. The
        more so after visiting a town at some distance, composed
        exclusively of schools and colleges for the youth of the
        country. Here I saw hundreds of children—and all of them
        were girls. Is it to be wondered at that the first inquiry
        I made, was:

“Where are the men?”

Chapter IV.

To facilitate my progress in the language of Mizora I was
        sent to their National College. It was the greatest favor they
        could have conferred upon me, as it opened to me a wide field of
        knowledge. Their educational system was a peculiar one, and, as
        it was the chief interest of the country. I shall describe it
        before proceeding farther with this narrative.

All institutions for instruction were public, as were, also,
        the books and other accessories. The State was the beneficent
        mother who furnished everything, and required of her children
        only their time and application. Each pupil was compelled to
        attain a certain degree of excellence that I thought
        unreasonably high, after which she selected the science or
        vocation she felt most competent to master, and to that she then
        devoted herself.

The salaries of teachers were larger than those of any other
        public position. The Principal of the National College had an
        income that exceeded any royal one I had ever heard of; but, as
        education was the paramount interest of Mizora, I was not
        surprised at it. Their desire was to secure the finest talent
        for educational purposes, and as the highest honors and
        emoluments belonged to such a position, it could not be
        otherwise. To be a teacher in Mizora was to be a person of
        consequence. They were its aristocracy.

Every State had a free college provided for out of the State
        funds. In these colleges every department of Science, Art, or
        Mechanics was furnished with all the facilities for thorough
        instruction. All the expenses of a pupil, including board,
        clothing, and the necessary traveling fares, were defrayed by
        the State. I may here remark that all railroads are owned and
        controlled by the General Government. The rates of
        transportation were fixed by law, and were uniform throughout
        the country.

The National College which I entered belonged to the General
        Government. Here was taught the highest attainments in the arts
        and sciences, and all industries practised in Mizora. It
        contained the very cream of learning. There the scientist, the
        philosopher and inventor found the means and appliances for
        study and investigation. There the artist and sculptor had their
        finest work, and often their studios. The principals and
        subordinate teachers and assistants were elected by popular
        vote. The State Colleges were free to those of another State who
        might desire to enter them, for Mizora was like one vast family.
        It was regarded as the duty of every citizen to lend all the aid
        and encouragement in her power to further the enlightenment of
        others, wisely knowing the benefits of such would accrue to her
        own and the general good. The National College was open to all
        applicants, irrespective of age, the only requirements being a
        previous training to enter upon so high a plane of mental
        culture. Every allurement was held out to the people to come and
        drink at the public fountain where the cup was inviting and the
        waters sweet. “For,” said one of the leading instructors to me,
        “education is the foundation of our moral elevation, our
        government, our happiness. Let us relax our efforts, or curtail
        the means and inducements to become educated, and we relax into
        ignorance, and end in demoralization. We know the value of free
        education. It is frequently the case that the greatest minds are
        of slow development, and manifest in the primary schools no
        marked ability. They often leave the schools unnoticed; and when
        time has awakened them to their mental needs, all they have to
        do is to apply to the college, pass an examination, and be
        admitted. If not prepared to enter the college, they could again
        attend the common schools. We realize in its broadest sense the
        ennobling influence of universal education. The higher the
        culture of a people, the more secure is their government and
        happiness. A prosperous people is always an educated one; and
        the freer the education, the wealthier they become.”

The Preceptress of the National College was the leading
        scientist of the country. Her position was more exalted than any
        that wealth could have given her. In fact, while wealth had
        acknowledged advantages, it held a subordinate place in the
        estimation of the people. I never heard the expression “very
        wealthy,” used as a recommendation of a person. It was always:
        “She is a fine scholar, or mechanic, or artist, or
        musician. She excels in landscape gardening, or
        domestic work. She is a first-class chemist.” But never
        “She is rich.”

The idea of a Government assuming the responsibility of
        education, like a parent securing the interest of its children,
        was all so new to me; and yet, I confessed to myself, the system
        might prove beneficial to other countries than Mizora. In that
        world, from whence I had so mysteriously emigrated, education
        was the privilege only of the rich. And in no country, however
        enlightened, was there a system of education that would reach
        all. Charitable institutions were restricted, and benefited only
        a few. My heart beat with enthusiasm when I thought of the
        mission before me. And then I reflected that the philosophers of
        my world were but as children in progress compared to these.
        Still traveling in grooves that had been worn and fixed for
        posterity by bygone ages of ignorance and narrow-mindedness, it
        would require courage and resolution, and more eloquence than I
        possessed, to persuade them out of these trodden paths. To be
        considered the privileged class was an active characteristic of
        human nature. Wealth, and the powerful grip upon the people
        which the organizations of society and governments gave, made it
        hereditary. Yet in this country, nothing was hereditary but the
        prosperity and happiness of the whole people.

It was not a surprise to me that astronomy was an unknown
        science in Mizora, as neither sun, moon, nor stars were visible
        there. “The moon’s pale beams” never afford material for a blank
        line in poetry; neither do scientific discussions rage on the
        formation of Saturn’s rings, or the spots on the sun. They knew
        they occupied a hollow sphere, bounded North and South by
        impassible oceans. Light was a property of the atmosphere. A
        circle of burning mist shot forth long streamers of light from
        the North, and a similar phenomena occurred in the South.

The recitation of my geography lesson would have astonished a
        pupil from the outer world. They taught that a powerful current
        of electricity existed in the upper regions of the atmosphere.
        It was the origin of their atmospheric heat and light, and their
        change of seasons. The latter appeared to me to coincide with
        those of the Arctic zone, in one particular. The light of the
        sun during the Arctic summer is reflected by the atmosphere, and
        produces that mellow, golden, rapturous light that hangs like a
        veil of enchantment over the land of Mizora for six months in
        the year. It was followed by six months of the shifting
        iridescence of the Aurora Borealis.

As the display of the Aurora Borealis originated, and was
        most brilliant at what appeared to me to be the terminus of the
        pole, I believed it was caused by the meeting at that point of
        the two great electric currents of the earth, the one on its
        surface, and the one known to the inhabitants of Mizora. The
        heat produced by the meeting of two such powerful currents of
        electricity is, undoubtedly, the cause of the open Polar Sea. As
        the point of meeting is below the vision of the inhabitants of
        the Arctic regions, they see only the reflection of the Aurora.
        Its gorgeous, brilliant, indescribable splendor is known only to
        the inhabitants of Mizora.

At the National College, where it is taught as a regular
        science, I witnessed the chemical production of bread and a
        preparation resembling meat. Agriculture in this wonderful land,
        was a lost art. No one that I questioned had any knowledge of
        it. It had vanished in the dim past of their barbarism. With the
        exception of vegetables and fruit, which were raised in luscious
        perfection, their food came from the elements. A famine among
        such enlightened people was impossible, and scarcity was
        unknown. Food for the body and food for the mind were without
        price. It was owing to this that poverty was unknown to them, as
        well as disease. The absolute purity of all that they ate
        preserved an activity of vital power long exceeding our span of
        life. The length of their year, measured by the two seasons, was
        the same as ours, but the women who had marked a hundred of them
        in their lifetime, looked younger and fresher, and were more
        supple of limb than myself, yet I had barely passed my
        twenty-second year.

I wrote out a careful description of the processes by which
        they converted food out of the valueless elements—valueless
        because of their abundance—and put it carefully away for use in
        my own country. There drouth, or excessive rainfalls, produced
        scarcity, and sometimes famine. The struggle of the poor was for
        food, to the exclusion of all other interests. Many of them knew
        not what proper and health-giving nourishment was. But here in
        Mizora, the daintiest morsels came from the chemists laboratory,
        cheap as the earth under her feet.

I now began to enjoy the advantages of conversation, which
        added greatly to my happiness and acquirements. I formed an
        intimate companionship with the daughter of the Preceptress of
        the National College, and to her was addressed the questions I
        asked about things that impressed me. She was one of the most
        beautiful beings that it had been my lot to behold. Her eyes
        were dark, almost the purplish blue of a pansy, and her hair had
        a darker tinge than is common in Mizora, as if it had stolen the
        golden edge of a ripe chestnut. Her beauty was a constant charm
        to me.

The National College contained a large and well filled
        gallery. Its pictures and statuary were varied, not confined to
        historical portraits and busts as was the one at the College of
        Experimental Science. Yet it possessed a number of portraits of
        women exclusively of the blonde type. Many of them were ideal in
        loveliness. This gallery also contained the masterpieces of
        their most celebrated sculptors. They were all studies of the
        female form. I am a connoisseur in art, and nothing that I had
        ever seen before could compare with these matchless marbles,
        bewitching in every delicate contour, alluring in softness, but
        grand and majestic in pose and expression.

But I haunted this gallery for other reasons than its
        artistic attractions. I was searching for the portrait of a man,
        or something suggesting his presence. I searched in vain. Many
        of the paintings were on a peculiar transparent substance that
        gave to the subject a startlingly vivid effect. I afterward
        learned that they were imperishable, the material being a
        translucent adamant of their own manufacture. After a picture
        was painted upon it, another piece of adamant was cemented over
        it.

Each day, as my acquaintance with the peculiar institutions
        and character of the inhabitants of Mizora increased, my
        perplexity and a certain air of mystery about them increased
        with it. It was impossible for me not to feel for them a high
        degree of respect, admiration, and affection. They were ever
        gentle, tender, and kind to solicitude. To accuse them of
        mystery were a paradox; and yet they were a mystery. In
        conversation, manners and habits, they were frank to
        singularity. It was just as common an occurrence for a poem to
        be read and commented on by its author, as to hear it done by
        another. I have heard a poetess call attention to the beauties
        of her own production, and receive praise or adverse criticism
        with the same charming urbanity.

Ambition of the most intense earnestness was a natural
        characteristic, but was guided by a stern and inflexible
        justice. Envy and malice were unknown to them. It was,
        doubtless, owing to their elevated moral character that courts
        and legal proceedings had become unnecessary. If a discussion
        arose between parties involving a question of law, they repaired
        to the Public Library, where the statute books were kept, and
        looked up the matter themselves, and settled it as the law
        directed. Should they fail to interpret the law alike, a third
        party was selected as referee, but accepted no pay.

Indolence was as much a disgrace to them as is the lack of
        virtue to the women of my country, hence every citizen, no
        matter how wealthy, had some regular trade, business or
        profession. I found those occupations we are accustomed to see
        accepted by the people of inferior birth and breeding, were
        there filled by women of the highest social rank, refined in
        manner and frequently of notable intellectual acquirements. It
        grew, or was the result of the custom of selecting whatever
        vocation they felt themselves competent to most worthily fill,
        and as no social favor or ignominy rested on any kind of labor,
        the whole community of Mizora was one immense family of sisters
        who knew no distinction of birth or position among
        themselves.

There were no paupers and no charities, either public or
        private, to be found in the country. The absence of poverty such
        as I knew existed in all civilized nations upon the face of the
        earth, was largely owing to the cheapness of food. But there was
        one other consideration that bore vitally upon it. The dignity
        and necessity of labor was early and diligently impressed upon
        the mind. The Preceptress said to me:

“Mizora is a land of industry. Nature has taught us the duty
        of work. Had some of us been born with minds fully matured, or
        did knowledge come to some as old age comes to all, we might
        think that a portion was intended to live without effort. But we
        are all born equal, and labor is assigned to all; and the one
        who seeks labor is wiser than the one who lets labor seek
        her.”

Citizens, I learned, were not restrained from accumulating
        vast wealth had they the desire and ability to do so, but custom
        imposed upon them the most honorable processes. If a citizen
        should be found guilty of questionable business transactions,
        she suffered banishment to a lonely island and the confiscation
        of her entire estate, both hereditary and acquired. The property
        confiscated went to the public schools in the town or city where
        she resided; but never was permitted to augment salaries. I
        discovered this in the statute books, but not in the memory of
        any one living had it been found necessary to inflict such a
        punishment.

“Our laws,” said Wauna, “are simply established legal advice.
        No law can be so constructed as to fit every case so exactly
        that a criminal mind could not warp it into a dishonest use. But
        in a country like ours, where civilization has reached that
        state of enlightenment that needs no laws, we are simply guided
        by custom.”

The love of splendor and ornament was a pronounced
        characteristic of these strange people. But where gorgeous
        colors were used, they were always of rich quality. The humblest
        homes were exquisitely ornamented, and often displayed a luxury
        that, with us, would have been considered an evidence of
        wealth.

They took the greatest delight in their beauty, and were
        exceedingly careful of it. A lovely face and delicate
        complexion, they averred, added to one’s refinement. The art of
        applying an artificial bloom and fairness to the skin, which I
        had often seen practiced in my own country, appeared to be
        unknown to them. But everything savoring of deception was
        universally condemned. They made no concealment of the practice
        they resorted to for preserving their complexions, and so
        universal and effectual were they, that women who, I was
        informed, had passed the age allotted to the grandmothers in my
        country, had the smooth brow and pink bloom of cheek that
        belongs to a more youthful period of life. There was, however, a
        distinction between youth and old age. The hair was permitted to
        whiten, but the delicate complexion of old age, with its
        exquisite coloring, excited in my mind as much admiration as
        astonishment.

I cannot explain why I hesitated to press my first inquiry as
        to where the men were. I had put the question to Wauna one day,
        but she professed never to have heard of such beings. It
        silenced me—for a time.

“Perhaps it is some extinct animal,” she added, naively. “We
        have so many new things to study and investigate, that we pay
        but little attention to ancient history.”

I bided my time and put the query in another form.

“Where is your other parent?”

She regarded me with innocent surprise. “You talk strangely.
        I have but one parent. How could I have any more?”

“You ought to have two.”

She laughed merrily. “You have a queer way of jesting. I have
        but one mother, one adorable mother. How could I have two?” and
        she laughed again.

I saw that there was some mystery I could not unravel at
        present, and fearing to involve myself in some trouble,
        refrained from further questioning on the subject. I
        nevertheless kept a close observance of all that passed, and
        seized every opportunity to investigate a mystery that began to
        harass me with its strangeness.

Soon after my conversation with Wauna, I attended an
        entertainment at which a great number of guests were present. It
        was a literary festival and, after the intellectual delicacies
        were disposed of, a banquet followed of more than royal
        munificence. Toasts were drank, succeeded by music and dancing
        and all the gayeties of a festive occasion, yet none but the
        fairest of fair women graced the scene. Is it strange,
        therefore, that I should have regarded with increasing
        astonishment and uneasiness a country in all respects alluring
        to the desires of man—yet found him not there in lordly
        possession?

Beauty and intellect, wealth and industry, splendor and
        careful economy, natures lofty and generous, gentle and
        loving—why has not Man claimed this for himself?

Chapter V.

The Preceptress of the National College appointed her
        daughter Wanna as a guide and instructor to me. I formed a deep
        and strong attachment for her, which, it pains me to remember,
        was the cause of her unhappy fate. In stature she was above the
        medium height, with a form of the fairest earthly loveliness and
        exquisite grace. Her eyes were so deep a blue, that at first I
        mistook them for brown. Her hair was the color of a ripe
        chestnut frosted with gold, and in length and abundance would
        cover her like a garment. She was vivacious and fond of athletic
        sports. Her strength amazed me. Those beautiful hands, with
        their tapering fingers, had a grip like a vise. They had
        discovered, in this wonderful land, that a body possessing
        perfectly developed muscles must, by the laws of nature, be
        symmetrical and graceful. They rode a great deal on small,
        two-wheeled vehicles, which they propelled themselves. They gave
        me one on which I accompanied Wauna to all of the places of
        interest in the Capital city and vicinity.

I must mention that Wauna’s voice was exceedingly musical,
        even in that land of sweet voices, but she did not excel as a
        singer.

The infant schools interested me more than all the
        magnificence and grandeur of the college buildings. The quaint
        courtesy, gentle manners and affectionate demeanor of the little
        ones toward one another, was a surprise to me. I had visited
        infant schools of my own and other countries, where I had
        witnessed the display of human nature, unrestrained by mature
        discretion and policy. Fights, quarrels, kicks, screams, the
        unlawful seizure of toys and trinkets, and other misdemeanors,
        were generally the principal exhibits. But here it was all
        different. I thought, as I looked at them, that should a
        philanthropist from the outside world have chanced unknowingly
        upon the playground of a Mizora infant school, he would have
        believed himself in a company of little angels.

At first, a kindness so universal impressed me as studied; a
        species of refined courtesy in which the children were drilled.
        But time and observation proved to me that it was the natural
        impulse of the heart, an inherited trait of moral culture. In
        my world, kindness and affection were family
        possessions, extended occasionally to acquaintances. Beyond this
        was courtesy only for the great busy bustling mass of humanity
        called—“the world.”

It must not be understood that there was no variety of
        character in Mizora. Just as marked a difference was to be found
        there as elsewhere; but it was elevated and ennobled. Its evil
        tendencies had been eliminated. There were many causes that had
        made this possible. The first, and probably the most
        influential, was the extreme cheapness of living. Food and fuel
        were items of so small consequence, that poverty had become
        unknown. Added to this, and to me by far the most vital reason,
        was their system of free education. In contemplating the state
        of enlightenment to which Mizora had attained, I became an
        enthusiast upon the subject of education, and resolved, should I
        ever again reach the upper world, to devote all my energies and
        ability to convincing the governments of its importance. I
        believe it is the duty of every government to make its schools
        and colleges, and everything appertaining to education—FREE. To
        be always starved for knowledge is a more pitiful craving than
        to hunger for bread. One dwarfs the body; the other the
        mind.

The utmost care was bestowed upon the training and education
        of the children. There was nothing that I met with in that
        beautiful and happy country I longed more to bring with me to
        the inhabitants of my world, than their manner of rearing
        children. The most scrupulous attention was paid to their diet
        and exercise, both mental and physical. The result was plump
        limbs, healthy, happy faces and joyous spirits. In all the
        fifteen years that I spent in Mizora, I never saw a tear of
        sorrow fall from children’s eyes. Admirable sanitary regulations
        exist in all the cities and villages of the land, which insures
        them pure air. I may state here that every private-house looks
        as carefully to the condition of its atmosphere, as we do to the
        material neatness of ours.

The only intense feeling that I could discover among these
        people was the love between parent and child. I visited the
        theater where the tragedy of the play was the destruction of a
        daughter by shipwreck in view of the distracted mother. The
        scenery was managed with wonderful realism. The thunder of the
        surf as it beat upon the shore, the frightful carnival of wind
        and waves that no human power could still, and the agony of the
        mother watching the vessel break to pieces upon the rock and her
        child sink into the boiling water to rise no more, was thrilling
        beyond my power to describe. I lost control of my feelings. The
        audience wept and applauded; and when the curtain fell, I could
        scarcely believe it had only been a play. The love of Mizora
        women for their children is strong and deep. They consider the
        care of them a sacred duty, fraught with the noblest results of
        life. A daughter of scholarly attainments and noble character is
        a credit to her mother. That selfish mother who looks upon her
        children as so many afflictions is unknown to Mizora. If a
        mother should ever feel her children as burdens upon her, she
        would never give it expression, as any dereliction of duty would
        be severely rebuked by the whole community, if not punished by
        banishment. Corporal punishment was unknown.

I received an invitation from a lady prominent in literature
        and science to make her a visit. I accepted with gratification,
        as it would afford me the opportunity I coveted to become
        acquainted with the domestic life of Mizora, and perhaps
        penetrate its greatest mystery, for I must confess that the
        singular dearth of anything and everything resembling Man, never
        ceased to prey upon my curiosity.

The lady was the editor and proprietor of the largest and
        most widely known scientific and literary magazine in the
        country. She was the mother of eight children, and possessed one
        of the largest fortunes and most magnificent residences in the
        country.

The house stood on an elevation, and was a magnificent
        structure of grey granite, with polished cornices. The porch
        floors were of clouded marble. The pillars supporting its roof
        were round shafts of the same material, with vines of ivy, grape
        and rose winding about them, carved and colored into perfect
        representations of the natural shrubs.

The drawing-room, which was vast and imposing in size and
        appearance, had a floor of pure white marble. The mantels and
        window-sills were of white onyx, with delicate vinings of pink
        and green. The floor was strewn with richly colored mats and
        rugs. Luxurious sofas and chairs comprised the only furniture.
        Each corner contained a piece of fine statuary. From the centre
        of the ceiling depended a large gold basin of beautiful design
        and workmanship, in which played a miniature fountain of
        perfumed water that filled the air with a delicate fragrance.
        The walls were divided into panels of polished and unpolished
        granite. On the unpolished panels hung paintings of scenery. The
        dull, gray color of the walls brought out in sharp and tasteful
        relief the few costly and elegant adornments of the room: a
        placid landscape with mountains dimly outlining the distance. A
        water scene with a boat idly drifting, occupied by a solitary
        figure watching the play of variegated lights upon the tranquil
        waters. Then came a wild and rugged mountain scene with
        precipices and a foaming torrent. Then a concert of birds
        amusingly treated.

The onyx marble mantel-piece contained but a single
        ornament—an orchestra. A coral vase contained a large and
        perfect tiger lily, made of gold. Each stamen supported a tiny
        figure carved out of ivory, holding a musical instrument. When
        they played, each figure appeared instinct with life, like the
        mythical fairies of my childhood; and the music was so sweet,
        yet faint, that I readily imagined the charmed ring and tiny
        dancers keeping time to its rhythm.

The drawing-room presented a vista of arches draped in
        curtains of a rare texture, though I afterward learned they were
        spun glass. The one that draped the entrance to the conservatory
        looked like sea foam with the faint blush of day shining through
        it. The conservatory was in the shape of a half sphere, and
        entirely of glass. From its dome, more than a hundred feet above
        our heads, hung a globe of white fire that gave forth a soft
        clear light. Terminating, as it did, the long vista of arches
        with their transparent hangings of cobweb texture, it presented
        a picture of magnificence and beauty indescribably.

The other apartments displayed the same taste and luxury. The
        sitting-room contained an instrument resembling a grand
        piano.

The grounds surrounding this elegant home were adorned with
        natural and artificial beauties, Grottoes, fountains, lakes,
        cascades, terraces of flowers, statuary, arbors and foliage in
        endless variety, that rendered it a miniature paradise. In these
        grounds, darting in and out among the avenues, playing
        hide-and-seek behind the statuary, or otherwise amusing
        themselves, I met eight lovely children, ranging from infancy to
        young maidenhood. The glowing cheeks and eyes, and supple limbs
        spoke of perfect health and happiness. When they saw their
        mother coming, they ran to meet her, the oldest carrying the
        two-year old baby. The stately woman greeted each with a loving
        kiss. She showed in loving glance and action how dear they all
        were to her. For the time being she unbent, and became a child
        herself in the interest she took in their prattle and mirth. A
        true mother and happy children.

I discovered that each department of this handsome home was
        under the care of a professional artist. I remarked to my
        hostess that I had supposed her home was the expression of her
        own taste.

“So it is,” she replied; “but it requires an equally well
        educated taste to carry out my designs. The arrangement and
        ornamentation of my grounds were suggested by me, and planned
        and executed by my landscape artist.”

After supper we repaired to the general sitting-room. The
        eldest daughter had been deeply absorbed in a book before we
        came in. She closed and left it upon a table. I watched for an
        opportunity to carelessly pick it up and examine it. It was a
        novel I felt sure, for she appeared to resign it reluctantly out
        of courtesy to her guest. I might, from it, gather some clue to
        the mystery of the male sex. I took up the book and opened it.
        It was The Conservation of Force and The Phenomena of Nature. I
        laid it down with a sigh of discomfiture.

The next evening, my hostess gave a small entertainment, and
        what was my amazement, not to say offense, to perceive the cook,
        the chamber-maid, and in fact all the servants in the
        establishment, enter and join in the conversation and amusement.
        The cook was asked to sing, for, with the exception of
        myself—and I tried to conceal it—no one appeared to take umbrage
        at her presence. She sat down to the piano and sang a pretty
        ballad in a charming manner. Her voice was cultivated and
        musical, as are all the voices in Mizora, but it was lacking in
        the qualities that make a great singer, yet it had a plaintive
        sweetness that was very attractive.

I was dumbfounded at her presumption. In my country such a
        thing is unknown as a servant entertaining guests in such a
        capacity, and especially among people of my rank and position in
        the world.

I repelled some advances she made me with a hauteur and
        coldness that it mortified me afterward to remember. Instead of
        being my inferior, I was her’s, and she knew it; but
        neither by look, tone nor action did she betray her
        consciousness of it. I had to acknowledge that her hands were
        more delicately modeled than mine, and her bearing had a dignity
        and elegance that might have been envied by the most
        aristocratic dame of my own land. Knowing that the Mizora people
        were peculiar in their social ideas, I essayed to repress my
        indignation at the time, but later I unburdened myself to Wauna
        who, with her usual sweetness and gentleness, explained to me
        that her occupation was a mere matter of choice with her.

“She is one of the most distinguished chemists of this
        nation. She solved the problem of making bread out of limestone
        of a much finer quality than had been in use before.”

“Don’t tell me that you gave me a stone when I asked for
        bread!” I exclaimed.

“We have not done that,” replied Wauna; “but we have given
        you what you took for bread, but which is manufactured out of
        limestone and the refuse of the marble quarries.”

I looked at her in such inane astonishment that she hastened
        to add:

“I will take you to one of the large factories some day. They
        are always in the mountains where the stone is abundant. You can
        there see loaves by the thousands packed in great glass tanks
        for shipment to the different markets. And they do not cost the
        manufacturer above one centime per hundred.”

“And what royalty does the discoverer get for this wonder of
        chemistry?”

“None. Whenever anything of that kind is discovered in our
        country, it is purchased outright by the government, and then
        made public for the benefit of all. The competition among
        manufacturers consists in the care and exactness with which they
        combine the necessary elements. There is quite a difference in
        the taste and quality of our bread as it comes from different
        factories.”

“Why doesn’t such a talented person quit working in another
        woman’s kitchen and keep herself like a lady?” I inquired, all
        the prejudice of indolent wealth against labor coming up in my
        thoughts.

“She has a taste for that kind of work,” replied Wauna,
        “instead of for making dresses, or carving gems, or painting.
        She often says she could not make a straight line if she tried,
        yet she can put together with such nicety and chemical skill the
        elements that form an omelette or a custard, that she has become
        famous. She teaches all who desire to learn, but none seem to
        equal her. She was born with a genius for cooking and nothing
        else. Haven’t you seen her with a long glass tube testing the
        vessels of vegetables and fruit that were cooking?”

“Yes,” I answered. “It was from that that I supposed her
        occupation menial.”

“Visitors from other cities,” continued Wauna, “nearly always
        inquire for her first.”

Perceiving the mistake that I had made, I ventured an apology
        for my behavior toward her, and Wauna replied, with a frankness
        that nearly crushed me:

“We all noticed it, but do not fear a retaliation,” she added
        sweetly. “We know that you are from a civilization that we look
        back upon as one of barbarism.”

I acknowledged that if any superciliousness existed in Mizora
        while I was there, I must have had it.

The guests departed without refreshments having been served.
        I explained the custom of entertainment in my country, which
        elicited expressions of astonishment. It would be insulting to
        offer refreshments of any kind to a guest between the regular
        hours for dining, as it would imply a desire on your part to
        impair their health. Such was the explanation of what in my
        country would be deemed a gross neglect of duty. Their custom
        was probably the result of two causes: an enlightened knowledge
        of the laws of health, and the extreme cheapness of all luxuries
        of the table which the skill of the chemist had made available
        to every class of people in the land.

The word “servant” did not exist in the language of Mizora;
        neither had they an equivalent for it in the sense in which we
        understand and use the word. I could not tell a servant—for I
        must use the word to be understood—from a professor in the
        National College. They were all highly-educated, refined,
        lady-like and lovely. Their occupations were always matters of
        choice, for, as there was nothing in them to detract from their
        social position, they selected the one they knew they had the
        ability to fill. Hence those positions we are
        accustomed to regard as menial, were there filled by ladies of
        the highest culture and refinement; consequently the domestic
        duties of a Mizora household moved to their accomplishment with
        the ease and regularity of fine machinery.

It was long before I could comprehend the dignity they
        attached to the humblest vocations. They had one proverb that
        embraced it all: “Labor is the necessity of life.” I studied
        this peculiar phase of Mizora life, and at last comprehended
        that in this very law of social equality lay the foundation of
        their superiority. Their admirable system of adapting the mind
        to the vocation in which it was most capable of excelling, and
        endowing that with dignity and respect, and, at the same time,
        compelling the highest mental culture possible, had produced a
        nation in the enjoyment of universal refinement, and a higher
        order of intelligence than any yet known to the outside
        world.

The standard of an ordinary education was to me astonishingly
        high. The reason for it was easily understood when informed that
        the only aristocracy of the country was that of intellect.
        Scholars, artists, scientists, literateurs, all those excelling
        in intellectual gifts or attainments, were alone regarded as
        superiors by the masses.

In all the houses that I had visited I had never seen a
        portrait hung in a room thrown open to visitors. On inquiry, I
        was informed that it was a lack of taste to make a portrait
        conspicuous.

“You meet faces at all times,” said my informant, “but you
        cannot at all times have a variety of scenery before you. How
        monotonous it would be with a drawing-room full of women, and
        the walls filled with their painted representatives. We never do
        it.”

“Then where do you keep your family portraits?”

“Ours is in a gallery upstairs.”

I requested to be shown this, and was conducted to a very
        long apartment on the third floor, devoted exclusively to relics
        and portraits of family ancestry. There were over three thousand
        portraits of blond women, which my hostess’ daughter informed me
        represented her grandmothers for ages back. Not one word did she
        say about her grandfathers.

I may mention here that no word existed in their dictionaries
        that was equivalent to the word “man.” I had made myself
        acquainted with this fact as soon as I had acquired sufficient
        knowledge of their language. My astonishment at it cannot be
        described. It was a mystery that became more and more
        perplexing. Never in the closest intimacy that I could secure
        could I obtain the slightest clue, the least suggestion relating
        to the presence of man. My friend’s infant, scarcely two years
        old, prattled of everything but a father.

I cannot explain a certain impressive dignity about the women
        of Mizora that, in spite of their amiability and winning
        gentleness, forbade a close questioning into private affairs. My
        hostess never spoke of her business. It would have been a breach
        of etiquette to have questioned her about it. I could not bring
        myself to intrude the question of the marked absence of men,
        when not the slightest allusion was ever made to them by any
        citizen.

So time passed on, confirming my high opinion of them, and
        yet I knew and felt and believed that some strange and
        incomprehensible mystery surrounded them, and when I had
        abandoned all hope of a solution to it, it solved itself in the
        most unexpected and yet natural manner, and I was more
        astonished at the solution than I was at the mystery.

Chapter VI.

Their domestic life was so harmonious and perfect that it was
        a perpetual pleasure to contemplate.

Human nature finds its sweetest pleasure, its happiest
        content, within its own home circle; and in Mizora I found no
        exception to the rule. The arrangement and adornment of every
        house in Mizora were evidently for the comfort and happiness of
        its inmates. To purchase anything for merely outside show, or to
        excite the envy or jealousy of a neighbor, was never thought of
        by an inhabitant of Mizora.

The houses that were built to rent excited my admiration
        quite as much as did the private residences. They all seemed to
        have been designed with two special objects in view—beauty and
        comfort. Houses built to rent in large cities were always in the
        form of a hollow square, inclosing a commodious and handsomely
        decorated park. The back was adorned with an upper and lower
        piazza opening upon the park. The suites of rooms were so
        arranged as to exclusively separate their occupants from all
        others. The park was undivided. The center was occupied by a
        fountain large enough to shoot its spray as high as the
        uppermost piazza. The park was furnished with rustic seats and
        shade trees, frequently of immense size, branched above its
        smooth walks and promenades, where baby wagons, velocipedes and
        hobby horses on wheels could have uninterrupted sport.

Suburban residences, designed for rent, were on a similar but
        more amplified plan. The houses were detached, but the grounds
        were in common. Many private residences were also constructed on
        the same plan. Five or six acres would be purchased by a dozen
        families who were not rich enough to own large places
        separately. A separate residence would be built for each family,
        but the ground would be laid off and ornamented like a private
        park. Each of the dozen families would thus have a beautiful
        view and the privilege of the whole ground. In this way,
        cascades, fountains, rustic arbors, rockeries, aquariums, tiny
        lakes, and every variety of landscape ornamenting, could be
        supplied at a comparatively small cost to each family.

Should any one wish to sell, they disposed of their house and
        one-twelfth of the undivided ground, and a certain per cent. of
        the value of its ornaments. The established custom was never to
        remove or alter property thus purchased without the consent of
        the other shareholders. Where a people had been educated to
        regard justice and conscience as their law, such an arrangement
        could be beneficial to an entire city.

Financial ability does not belong to every one, and this plan
        of uniting small capitals gave opportunity to the less wealthy
        classes to enjoy all the luxuries that belong to the rich. In
        fact some of the handsomest parks I saw in Mizora were owned and
        kept up in this manner. Sometimes as many as twenty families
        united in the purchase of an estate, and constructed artificial
        lakes large enough to sail upon. Artificial cascades and
        fountains of wonderful size and beauty were common ornaments in
        all the private and public parks of the city. I noticed in all
        the cities that I visited the beauty and charm of the public
        parks, which were found in all sections.

The walks were smoothly paved and shaded by trees of enormous
        size. They were always frequented by children, who could romp
        and play in these sylvan retreats of beauty in perfect
        security.

The high state of culture arrived at by the Mizora people
        rendered a luxurious style of living a necessity to all. Many
        things that I had been brought up to regard as the exclusive
        privileges of the rich, were here the common pleasure of every
        one. There was no distinction of classes; no genteel-poverty
        people, who denied themselves necessities that they might appear
        to have luxuries. There was not a home in Mizora that I
        entered—and I had access to many—that did not give the
        impression of wealth in all its appointments.

I asked the Preceptress to explain to me how I might carry
        back to the people of my country this social happiness, this
        equality of physical comfort and luxury; and she answered me
        with emphasis:

“Educate them. Convince the rich that by educating the poor,
        they are providing for their own safety. They will have fewer
        prisons to build, fewer courts to sustain. Educated Labor will
        work out its own salvation against Capital. Let the children of
        toil start in life with exactly the same educational advantages
        that are enjoyed by the rich. Give them the same physical and
        moral training, and let the rich pay for it by taxes.”

I shook my head “They will never submit to it,” was my
        reluctant admission.

“Appeal to their selfishness,” urged the Preceptress “Get
        them to open their college doors and ask all to come and be
        taught without money and without price. The power of capital is
        great, but stinted and ignorant toil will rise against its
        oppression, and innocence and guilt will alike suffer from its
        fury. Have you never known such an occurrence?”

“Not in my day or country,” I answered “But the city in which
        I was educated has such a history. Its gutters flowed with human
        blood, the blood of its nobles.”

She inclined her head significantly. “It will be repeated,”
        she said sadly, “unless you educate them. Give their bright and
        active minds the power of knowledge. They will use it wisely,
        for their own and their country’s welfare.”

I doubted my ability to do this, to contend against rooted
        and inherited prejudice, but I resolved to try. I did not need
        to be told that the rich and powerful had a monopoly of
        intellect: Nature was not partial to them, for the children of
        the poor, I well knew, were often handsomer and more
        intellectual than the offspring of wealth and aristocratic
        birth.

I have before spoken of the positions occupied by those who
        performed what I had been bred to regard as menial work. At
        first, the mere fact of the person who presided over the kitchen
        being presented to me as an equal, was outraging to all my
        hereditary dignity and pride of birth. No one could be more
        pronounced in a consciousness of inherited nobility than I. I
        had been taught from infancy to regard myself as a superior
        being, merely because the accident of birth had made me so, and
        the arrogance with which I had treated some of my less favored
        schoolmates reverted to me with mortifying regret, when, having
        asked Wauna to point out to me the nobly born, she looked at me
        with her sweet expression of candor and innocence and said:

“We have no nobility of birth. As I once before told you,
        intellect is our only standard of excellence. It alone occupies
        an exalted place and receives the homage of our people.”

In a subsequent conversation with her mother, the
        Preceptress, she said:

“In remote ages, great honor and deference was paid to all
        who were born of rulers, and the designation ‘noble blood,’ was
        applied to them. At one time in the history of our country they
        could commit any outrage upon society or morals without fear of
        punishment, simply because they belonged to the aristocracy.
        Even a heinous murder would be unnoticed if perpetrated by one
        of them. Nature alone did not favor them Imbecile and immoral
        minds fell to the lot of the aristocrat as often as to the lowly
        born. Nature’s laws are inflexible and swerve not for any human
        wish. They outraged them by the admixture of kindred blood, and
        degeneracy was often the result. A people should always have for
        their chief ruler the highest and noblest intellect among them,
        but in those dark ages they were too often compelled to submit
        to the lowest, simply because it had been born to the
        position. But,” she added, with a sweet smile, “that
        time lies many centuries behind us, and I sometimes think we had
        better forget it entirely.”

My first meeting with the domestics of my friend’s house
        impressed me with their high mental culture, refinement and
        elegance. Certainly no “grande dame” of my own country but would
        have been proud of their beauty and graceful dignity.

Prejudice, however deeply ingrained, could not resist the
        custom of a whole country, and especially such a one as Mizora,
        so I soon found myself on a familiar footing with my friend’s
        “artist”—for the name by which they were designated as a class
        had very nearly the same meaning.

Cooking was an art, and one which the people of Mizora had
        cultivated to the highest excellence. It is not strange, when
        their enlightenment is understood, that they should attach as
        much honor to it as the people of my country do to sculpture,
        painting and literature. The Preceptress told me that such would
        be the case with my people when education became universal and
        the poor could start in life with the same intellectual culture
        as the rich. The chemistry of food and its importance in
        preserving a youthful vigor and preventing disease, would then
        be understood and appreciated by all classes, and would receive
        the deference it deserved.

“You will never realize,” said the Preceptress earnestly,
        “the incalculable benefit that will accrue to your people from
        educating your poor. Urge that Government to try it for just
        twenty years, long enough for a generation to be born and
        mature. The bright and eager intellects of poverty will turn to
        Chemistry to solve the problems of cheap Light, cheap Fuel and
        cheap Food. When you can clothe yourselves from the fibre of the
        trees, and warm and light your dwellings from the water of your
        rivers, and eat of the stones of the earth, Poverty and Disease
        will be as unknown to your people as it is to mine.”

“If I should preach that to them, they would call me a
        maniac.”

“None but the ignorant will do so. From your description of
        the great thinkers of your country, I am inclined to believe
        there are minds among you advanced enough to believe in it.”

I remembered how steamboats and railroads and telegraphy had
        been opposed and ridiculed until proven practicable, and I took
        courage and resolved to follow the advice of my wise
        counselor.

I had long felt a curiosity to behold the inner workings of a
        domestic’s life, and one day ventured to ask my friend’s
        permission to enter her kitchen. Surprise was manifested at such
        a request, when I began to apologize and explain. But my hostess
        smiled and said:

“My kitchen is at all times as free to my guests as my
        drawing room.”

Every kitchen in Mizora is on the same plan and conducted the
        same way. To describe one, therefore, is to describe all. I
        undertook to explain that in my country, good breeding forbade a
        guest entering the host’s kitchen, and frequently its
        appearance, and that of the cook’s, would not conduce to gastric
        enjoyment of the edibles prepared in it.

My first visit happened to be on scrubbing day, and I was
        greatly amused to see a little machine, with brushes and sponges
        attached, going over the floor at a swift rate, scouring and
        sponging dry as it went. Two vessels, one containing soap suds
        and the other clear water, were connected by small feed pipes
        with the brushes. As soon as the drying sponge became saturated,
        it was lifted by an ingenious yet simple contrivance into a
        vessel and pressed dry, and was again dropped to the floor.

I inquired how it was turned to reverse its progress so as to
        clean the whole floor, and was told to watch when it struck the
        wall. I did so, and saw that the jar not only reversed the
        machine, but caused it to spring to the right about two feet,
        which was its width, and again begin work on a new line, to be
        again reversed in the same manner when it struck the opposite
        wall. Carpeted floors were swept by a similar contrivance.

No wonder the “artists” of the kitchen had such a dainty
        appearance. They dipped their pretty hands in perfumed water and
        dried them on the finest and whitest damask, while machinery did
        the coarse work.

Mizora, I discovered, was a land of brain workers. In every
        vocation of life machinery was called upon to perform the
        arduous physical labor. The whole domestic department was a
        marvel of ingenious mechanical contrivances. Dishwashing,
        scouring and cleaning of every description were done by
        machinery.

The Preceptress told me that it was the result of
        enlightenment, and it would become the custom in my country to
        make machinery perform the laborious work when they learned the
        value of universal and advanced knowledge.

I observed that the most exact care was given to the
        preparation of food. Every cook was required to be a chemist of
        the highest excellence; another thing that struck me as
        radically different from the custom in vogue in my country.

Everything was cooked by hot air and under cover, so that no
        odor was perceptible in the room. Ventilating pipes conveyed the
        steam from cooking food out of doors. Vegetables and fruits
        appeared to acquire a richer flavor when thus cooked. The
        seasoning was done by exact weight and measure, and there was no
        stirring or tasting. A glass tube, on the principle of a
        thermometer, determined when each article was done. The
        perfection which they had attained as culinary chemists was a
        source of much gratification to me, both in the taste of food so
        delicious and palatable, and in its wholesome effect on my
        constitution. As to its deliciousness, a meal prepared by a
        Mizora cook could rival the fabled feasts of the gods. Its
        beneficial effects upon me were manifested in a healthier tone
        of body and an an increase of animal spirits, a pleasurable
        feeling of content and amiability.

The Preceptress told me that the first step toward the
        eradication of disease was in the scientific preparation of
        food, and the establishment of schools where cooking was taught
        as an art to all who applied, and without charge. Placed upon a
        scientific basis it became respectable.

“To eliminate from our food the deleterious earthy matter is
        our constant aim. To that alone do we owe immunity from old age
        far in advance of that period of life when your people become
        decrepit and senile. The human body is like a lamp-wick, which
        filters the oil while it furnishes light. In time the wick
        becomes clogged and useless and is thrown away. If the oil could
        be made perfectly pure, the wick would not fill up.”

She gave this homely explanation with a smile and the air of
        a grown person trying to convey to the immature mind of a child
        an explanation of some of Nature’s phenomena.

I reflected upon their social condition and arrived at the
        conviction that there is no occupation in life but what has its
        usefulness and necessity, and, when united to culture and
        refinement, its dignity. A tree has a million leaves, yet each
        individual leaf, insignificant as it may appear, has its special
        share of work to perform in helping the tree to live and perfect
        its fruit. So should every citizen of a government contribute to
        its vitality and receive a share of its benefits.

“Will the time ever come,” I asked myself, “when my own
        country will see this and rise to a social, if not intellectual
        equality.” And the admonition of the Preceptress would recur to
        my mind:

“Educate them. Educate them, and enlightenment will solve for
        them every problem in Sociology.”

My observations in Mizora led me to believe that while Nature
        will permit and encourage the outgrowth of equality in
        refinement, she gives birth to a more decided prominence in the
        leadership of intellect.

The lady who conducted me through the culinary department,
        and pointed out the machinery and explained its use and
        convenience, had the same grace and dignity of manner as the
        hostess displayed when exhibiting to me the rare plants in her
        conservatory.

The laundry was a separate business. No one unconnected with
        it as a profession had anything to do with its duties. I visited
        several of the large city laundries and was informed that all
        were conducted alike. Steam was employed in the cleaning
        process, and the drying was done by hot air impregnated with
        ozone. This removed from white fabrics every vestige of
        discoloration or stain. I saw twelve dozen fine damask
        table-cloths cleaned, dried and ironed in thirty minutes. All
        done by machinery. They emerged from the rollers that ironed
        them looking like new pieces of goods, so pure was their color,
        and so glossy their finish.

I inquired the price for doing them up, and was told a cent a
        piece. Twelve cents per dozen was the established price for
        doing up clothes. Table-cloths and similar articles were ironed
        between rollers constructed to admit their full width. Other
        articles of more complicated make, were ironed by machines
        constructed to suit them. Some articles were dressed by having
        hot air forced rapidly through them. Lace curtains, shawls,
        veils, spreads, tidies and all similar articles, were by this
        process made to look like new, and at a cost that I thought
        ought certainly to reduce the establishment to beggary or
        insolvency. But here chemistry again was the magician that had
        made such cheap labor profitable. And such advanced knowledge of
        chemistry was the result of universal education.

Ladies sent their finest laces to be renewed without fear of
        having them reduced to shreds. In doing up the frailest laces,
        nothing but hot air impregnated with ozone was employed. These
        were consecutively forced through the fabric after it was
        carefully stretched. Nothing was ever lost or torn, so
        methodical was the management of the work.

I asked why cooking was not established as the laundry was,
        as a distinct public business, and was told that it had been
        tried a number of times, but had always been found
        impracticable. One kind of work in a laundry would suit
        everyone, but one course of cooking could not. Tastes and
        appetites differed greatly. What was palatable to one would be
        disliked by another, and to prepare food for a large number of
        customers, without knowing or being able to know exactly what
        the demand would be, had always resulted in large waste, and as
        the people of Mizora were the most rigid and exacting
        economists, it was not to be wondered at that they had selected
        the most economical plan. Every private cook could determine
        accurately the amount of food required for the household she
        prepared it for, and knowing their tastes she could cater to all
        without waste.

“We, as yet,” said my distinguished instructor, “derive all
        our fruit and vegetables from the soil. We have orchards and
        vineyards and gardens which we carefully tend, and which our
        knowledge of chemistry enables us to keep in health and
        productiveness. But there is always more or less earthy matter
        in all food derived from cultivating the soil, and the
        laboratories are now striving to produce artificial fruit and
        vegetables that will satisfy the palate and be free from
        deleterious matter.”

Chapter VII.

One of the most curious and pleasing sights in Mizora was the
        flower gardens and conservatories. Roses of all sizes and colors
        and shades of color were there. Some two feet across were placed
        by the side of others not exceeding the fourth of an inch in
        order to display the disparity in size.

To enter into a minute description of all the discoveries
        made by the Mizora people in fruit and floriculture, would be
        too tedious; suffice to say they had laid their hands upon the
        beautiful and compelled nature to reveal to them the secret of
        its formation. The number of petals, their color, shape and
        size, were produced as desired. The only thing they could
        neither create nor destroy was its perfume. I questioned the
        Preceptress as to the possibility of its ever being discovered?
        She replied:

“It is the one secret of the rose that Nature refuses to
        reveal. I do not believe we shall ever possess the power to
        increase or diminish the odor of a flower. I believe that Nature
        will always reserve to herself the secret of its creation. The
        success that we enjoy in the wonderful cultivation of our fruits
        and flowers was one of our earliest scientific conquests.”

I learned that their orchards never failed to yield a
        bounteous harvest. They had many fruits that were new to me, and
        some that were new and greatly improved species of kinds that I
        had already seen and eaten in my own or other countries. Nothing
        that they cultivated was ever without its own peculiar beauty as
        well as usefulness. Their orchards, when the fruit was ripe,
        presented a picture of unique charm. Their trees were always
        trained into graceful shapes, and when the ripe fruit gleamed
        through the dark green foliage, every tree looked like a huge
        bouquet. A cherry tree that I much admired, and the fruit of
        which I found surpassingly delicious, I must allow myself to
        describe. The cherries were not surprisingly large, but were of
        the colors and transparency of honey. They were seedless, the
        tree having to be propagated from slips. When the fruit was ripe
        the tree looked like a huge ball of pale amber gems hiding in
        the shadows of dark pointed leaves.

Their grape arbors were delightful pictures in their season
        of maturity. Some vines had clusters of fruit three feet long;
        but these I was told were only to show what they could
        do in grape culture. The usual and marketable size of a bunch
        was from one to two pounds weight. The fruit was always perfect
        that was offered for sale.

Science had provided the fruit growers of Mizora with
        permanent protections from all kinds of blight or decay.

When I considered the wholesomeness of all kinds of food
        prepared for the inhabitants of this favored land. I began to
        think they might owe a goodly portion of their exceptional
        health to it, and a large share of their national amiability to
        their physical comfort. I made some such observation to the
        Preceptress, and she admitted its correctness.

“The first step that my people made toward the eradication of
        disease was in the preparation of healthy food; not for the
        rich, who could obtain it themselves, but for the whole
        nation.”

I asked for further information and she added:

“Science discovered that mysterious and complicated diseases
        often had their origin in adulterated food. People suffered and
        died, ignorant of what produced their disease. The law, in the
        first place, rigidly enforced the marketing of clean and perfect
        fruit, and a wholesome quality of all other provisions. This was
        at first difficult to do, as in those ancient days, (I refer to
        a very remote period of our history) in order to make usurious
        profit, dealers adulterated all kinds of food; often with
        poisonous substances. When every state took charge of its
        markets and provided free schools for cooking, progress took a
        rapid advance. Do you wonder at it? Reflect then. How could I
        force my mind into complete absorption of some new combination
        of chemicals, while the gastric juice in my stomach was battling
        with sour or adulterated food? Nature would compel me to pay
        some attention to the discomfort of my digestive organs, and it
        might happen at a time when I was on the verge of a revelation
        in science, which might be lost. You may think it an
        insignificant matter to speak of in connection with the grand
        enlightenment that we possess; but Nature herself is a mass of
        little things. Our bodies, strong and supple as they are, are
        nothing but a union of tiny cells. It is by the investigation of
        little things that we have reached the great ones.”

I felt a keen desire to know more about their progress toward
        universal health, feeling assured that the history of the
        extirpation of disease must be curious and instructive. I had
        been previously made acquainted with the fact that disease was
        really unknown to them, save in its historical existence. To
        cull this isolated history from their vast libraries of past
        events, would require a great deal of patient and laborious
        research, and the necessary reading of a great deal of matter
        that I could not be interested in, and that could not beside be
        of any real value to me, so I requested the Preceptress to give
        me an epitomized history of it in her own language, merely
        relating such facts as might be useful to me, and that I could
        comprehend, for I may as well bring forward the fact that, in
        comparison to theirs, my mind was as a savages would be to our
        civilization.

Their brain was of a finer intellectual fiber. It possessed a
        wider, grander, more majestic receptivity. They absorbed ideas
        that passed over me like a cloud. Their imaginations were
        etherealized. They reached into what appeared to be materialless
        space, and brought from it substances I had never heard of
        before, and by processes I could not comprehend. They divided
        matter into new elements and utilized them. They disintegrated
        matter, added to it new properties and produced a different
        material. I saw the effects and uses of their chemistry, but
        that was all.

There are minds belonging to my own age, as there have been
        to all ages, that are intellectually in advance of it. They live
        in a mental and prophetic world of their own, and leave behind
        them discoveries, inventions and teachings that benefit and
        ennoble the generations to come. Could such a mind have chanced
        upon Mizora, as I chanced upon it, it might have consorted with
        its intellect, and brought from the companionship ideas that I
        could not receive, and sciences that I can find no words in my
        language to represent. The impression that my own country might
        make upon a savage, may describe my relation to Mizora. What
        could an uncivilized mind say of our railroads, or magnificent
        cathedrals, our palaces, our splendor, our wealth, our works of
        art. They would be as difficult of representation as were the
        lofty aims, the unselfishness in living, the perfect love, honor
        and intellectual grandeur, and the universal comfort and luxury
        found in Mizora, were to me. To them the cultivation of the mind
        was an imperative duty, that neither age nor condition retarded.
        To do good, to be approved by their own conscience, was their
        constant pleasure.

Chapter VIII.

It was during my visit at my friend’s house that I first
        witnessed the peculiar manner in which the markets in Mizora are
        conducted. Everything, as usual, was fastidiously neat and
        clean. The fruit and vegetables were fresh and perfect. I
        examined quantities of them to satisfy myself, and not a blemish
        or imperfection could be found on any. None but buyers were
        attending market. Baskets of fruit, bunches of vegetables and,
        in fact, everything exhibited for sale, had the quality and the
        price labeled upon it. Small wicker baskets were near to receive
        the change. When a buyer had selected what suited her, she
        dropped the label and the change in the basket. I saw one basket
        filled with gold and silver coin, yet not one would be missing
        when the owner came to count up the sales. Sometimes a purchaser
        was obliged to change a large piece of money, but it was always
        done accurately.

There was one singular trait these people possessed that, in
        conjunction with their other characteristics, may seem
        unnatural: they would give and exact the last centime (a quarter
        of a cent) in a trade. I noticed this peculiarity so frequently
        that I inquired the reason for it, and when I had studied it
        over I decided that, like all the other rules that these
        admirable people had established, it was wise. Said my
        friend:

“We set a just value on everything we prepare for sale.
        Anything above or below that, would be unjust to buyer or
        seller.”

The varieties of apples, pears, peaches and other fruits had
        their names attached, with the quality, sweet, sour, or slightly
        acid. In no instance was it found to be incorrectly stated. I
        came to one stall that contained nothing but glass jars of
        butter and cream. The butter was a rich buff color, like very
        fine qualities I had seen in my own country. The cream, an
        article I am fond of drinking, looked so tempting I longed to
        purchase a glass for that purpose. The lady whom I accompanied
        (my hostess’ cook) informed me that it was artificially
        prepared. The butter and cheese were chemical productions.
        Different laboratories produced articles of varying flavor,
        according to the chemist’s skill. Although their construction
        was no secret, yet some laboratories enjoyed special reputation
        for their butter and cheese owing to the accuracy with which
        their elements were combined.

She gave me quite a history about artificial food, also how
        they kept fruits and vegetables in their natural state for years
        without decaying or losing their flavor, so that when eaten they
        were nearly as fine as when freshly gathered. After hearing that
        the cream was manufactured, I resolved to taste it. Dropping my
        coin into the basket, I took up a glass and drank it. A look of
        disgust crossed the countenance of my companion.

“Do you not drink this?” I asked in surprise, as I set down
        the empty vessel. “It is truly delicious.”

“At regular meal times we all use it, and sometimes drink it
        in preference to other beverages—but never in public. You will
        never see a citizen of Mizora eating in public. Look all over
        this market and you will not discover one person, either adult
        or child, eating or drinking, unless it be water.”

I could not; and I felt keenly mortified at my mistake. Yet
        in my own country and others that, according to our standard,
        are highly civilized, a beverage is made from the juice of the
        corn that is not only drank in public places, but its effects,
        which are always unbecoming, are exhibited also, and frequently
        without reproof. However, I said nothing to my companion about
        this beverage. It bears no comparison in color or taste to that
        made in Mizora. I could not have distinguished the latter from
        the finest dairy cream.

The next place of interest that I visited were their
        mercantile bazars or stores. Here I found things looking quite
        familiar. The goods were piled upon shelves behind counters, and
        numerous clerks were in attendance. It was the regular day for
        shopping among the Mizora ladies, and the merchants had made a
        display of their prettiest and richest goods. I noticed the
        ladies were as elegantly dressed as if for a reception, and
        learned that it was the custom. They would meet a great many
        friends and acquaintances, and dressed to honor the
        occasion.

It was my first shopping experience in Mizora, and I quite
        mortified myself by removing my glove and rubbing and examining
        closely the goods I thought of purchasing. I entirely ignored
        the sweet voice of the clerk that was gently informing me that
        it was “pure linen” or “pure wool,” so habituated had I become
        in my own country to being my own judge of the quality of the
        goods I was purchasing, regardless always of the seller’s
        recommendation of it. I found it difficult, especially in such
        circumstances, to always remember their strict adherence to
        honesty and fair dealing. I felt rebuked when I looked around
        and saw the actions of the other ladies in buying.

In manufactured goods, as in all other things, not the
        slightest cheatery is to be found. Woolen and cotton mixtures
        were never sold for pure wool. Nobody seemed to have heard of
        the art of glossing muslin cuffs and collars and selling them
        for pure linen.

Fearing that I had wounded the feelings of the lady in
        attendance upon me, I hastened to apologize by explaining the
        peculiar methods of trade that were practiced in my own country.
        They were immediately pronounced barbarous.

I noticed that ladies in shopping examined colors and effects
        of trimmings or combinations, but never examined the quality.
        Whatever the attendant said about that was received as
        a fact.

The reason for the absence of attendants in the markets and
        the presence of them in mercantile houses was apparent at once.
        The market articles were brought fresh every day, while goods
        were stored.

Their business houses and their manner of shopping were
        unlike anything I had ever met with before. The houses were all
        built in a hollow square, enclosing a garden with a fountain in
        the center. These were invariably roofed over with glass, as was
        the entire building. In winter the garden was as warm as the
        interior of the store. It was adorned with flowers and shrubs. I
        often saw ladies and children promenading in these pretty
        inclosures, or sitting on their rustic sofas conversing, while
        their friends were shopping in the store. The arrangement gave
        perfect light and comfort to both clerks and customers, and the
        display of rich and handsome fabrics was enhanced by the bit of
        scenery beyond. In summer the water for the fountain was
        artificially cooled.

Every clerk was provided with a chair suspended by pulleys
        from strong iron rods fastened above. They could be raised or
        lowered at will; and when not occupied, could be drawn up out of
        the way. After the goods were purchased, they were placed in a
        machine that wrapped and tied them ready for delivery.

A dining-room was always a part of every store. I desired to
        be shown this, and found it as tasteful and elegant in its
        appointments as a private one would be. Silver and china and
        fine damask made it inviting to the eye, and I had no doubt the
        cooking corresponded as well with the taste.

The streets of Mizora were all paved, even the roads through
        the villages were furnished an artificial cover, durable, smooth
        and elastic. For this purpose a variety of materials were used.
        Some had artificial stone, in the manufacture of which Mizora
        could surpass nature’s production. Artificial wood they also
        made and used for pavements, as well as cement made of fine
        sand. The latter was the least durable, but possessed
        considerable elasticity and made a very fine driving park. They
        were experimenting when I came away on sanded glass for road
        beds. The difficulty was to overcome its susceptibility to
        attrition. After business hours every street was swept by a
        machine. The streets and sidewalks, in dry weather, were as free
        from soil as the floor of a private-house would be.

Animals and domestic fowls had long been extinct in Mizora.
        This was one cause of the weird silence that so impressed me on
        my first view of their capital city. Invention had superceded
        the usefulness of animals in all departments: in the field and
        the chemistry of food. Artificial power was utilized for all
        vehicles.

The vehicle most popular with the Mizora ladies for shopping
        and culling purposes, was a very low carriage, sometimes with
        two seats, sometimes with one. They were upholstered with the
        richest fabrics, were exceedingly light and graceful in shape,
        and not above three feet from the ground. They were strong and
        durable, though frequently not exceeding fifty pounds in weight.
        The wheel was the curious and ingenious part of the structure,
        for in its peculiar construction lay the delight of its motion.
        The spokes were flat bands of steel, curved outward to the tire.
        The carriage had no spring other than these spokes, yet it moved
        like a boat gliding down stream with the current. I was
        fortunate enough to preserve a drawing of this wheel, which I
        hope some day to introduce in my own land. The carriages were
        propelled by compressed air or electricity; and sometimes with a
        mechanism that was simply pressed with the foot. I liked the
        compressed air best. It was most easily managed by me. The
        Mizora ladies preferred electricity, of which I was always
        afraid. They were experimenting with a new propelling power
        during my stay that was to be acted upon by light, but it had
        not come into general use, although I saw some vehicles that
        were propelled by it. They moved with incredible speed, so rapid
        indeed, that the upper part of the carriage had to be
        constructed of glass, and securely closed while in motion, to
        protect the occupant. It was destined, I heard some of their
        scientists say, to become universal, as it was the most
        economical power yet discovered. They patiently tried to explain
        it to me, but my faculties were not receptive to such advanced
        philosophy, and I had to abandon the hope of ever introducing it
        into my own country.

There was another article manufactured in Mizora that excited
        my wonder and admiration. It was elastic glass. I have
        frequently mentioned the unique uses that they made of it, and I
        must now explain why. They had discovered a process to render it
        as pliable as rubber. It was more useful than rubber could be,
        for it was almost indestructible. It had superceded iron in many
        ways. All cooking utensils were made of it. It entered largely
        into the construction and decoration of houses. All cisterns and
        cellars had an inner lining of it. All underground pipes were
        made of it, and many things that are the necessities and
        luxuries of life.

They spun it into threads as fine and delicate as a spider’s
        gossamer, and wove it into a network of clear or variegated
        colors that dazzled the eye to behold. Innumerable were the
        lovely fabrics made of it. The frailest lace, in the most
        intricate and aerial patterns, that had the advantage of never
        soiling, never tearing, and never wearing out. Curtains for
        drawing-room arches were frequently made of it. Some of them
        looked like woven dew drops.

One set of curtains that I greatly admired, and was a long
        time ignorant of what they were made of, were so unique, I must
        do myself the pleasure to describe them. They hung across the
        arch that led to the glass conservatory attached to my friend’s
        handsome dwelling. Three very thin sheets of glass were woven
        separately and then joined at the edges so ingeniously as to
        defy detection. The inside curtain was one solid color: crimson.
        Over this was a curtain of snow flakes, delicate as those aerial
        nothings of the sky, and more durable than any fabric known.
        Hung across the arched entrance to a conservatory, with a great
        globe of white fire shining through it, it was lovely as the
        blush of Aphrodite when she rose from the sea, veiled in its
        fleecy foam.

They also possessed the art of making glass highly
        refractive. Their table-ware surpassed in beauty all that I had
        ever previously seen. I saw tea cups as frail looking as soap
        bubbles, possessing the delicate iridescence of opals. Many
        other exquisite designs were the product of its flexibility and
        transparency. The first article that attracted my attention was
        the dress of an actress on the stage. It was lace, made of
        gossamer threads of amber in the design of lilies and leaves,
        and was worn over black velvet.

The wonderful water scene that I beheld at the theatre was
        produced by waves made of glass and edged with foam, a milky
        glass spun into tiny bubbles. They were agitated by machinery
        that caused them to roll with a terribly natural look. The
        blinding flashes of lightning had been the display of genuine
        electricity.

Nothing in the way of artistic effect could call forth
        admiration or favorable comment unless it was so exact an
        imitation of nature as to not be distinguished from the real
        without the closest scrutiny. In private life no one assumed a
        part. All the acting I ever saw in Mizora was done upon the
        stage.

I could not appreciate their mental pleasures, any more than
        a savage could delight in a nocturne of Chopin. Yet one was the
        intellectual ecstasy of a sublime intelligence, and the other
        the harmonious rapture of a divinely melodious soul. I must here
        mention that the processes of chemical experiment in Mizora
        differed materially from those I had known. I had once seen and
        tasted a preparation called artificial cream that had been
        prepared by a friend of my fathers, an eminent English chemist.
        It was simply a combination of the known properties of cream
        united in the presence of gentle heat. But in Mizora they took
        certain chemicals and converted them into milk, and cream, and
        cheese, and butter, and every variety of meat, in a vessel that
        admitted neither air nor light. They claimed that the elements
        of air and light exercised a material influence upon the
        chemical production of foods, that they could not be made
        successfully by artificial processes when exposed to those two
        agents. Their earliest efforts had been unsuccessful of exact
        imitation, and a perfect result had only been obtained by
        closely counterfeiting the processes of nature.

The cream prepared artificially that I had tasted in London,
        was the same color and consistency as natural cream, but it
        lacked its relish. The cream manufactured in Mizora was a
        perfect imitation of the finest dairy product.

It was the same with meats; they combined the elements, and
        the article produced possessed no detrimental flavor. It was a
        more economical way of obtaining meat than by fattening
        animals.

They were equally fortunate in the manufacture of clothing.
        Every mountain was a cultivated forest, from which they obtained
        every variety of fabric; silks, satins, velvets, laces, woolen
        goods, and the richest articles of beauty and luxury, in which
        to array themselves, were put upon the market at a trifling
        cost, compared to what they were manufactured at in my own
        country. Pallid and haggard women and children, working
        incessantly for a pittance that barely sustained existence, was
        the ultimatum that the search after the cause of cheap prices
        arrived at in my world, but here it traveled from one bevy of
        beautiful workwoman to another until it ended at the Laboratory
        where Science sat throned, the grand, majestic, humane Queen of
        this thrice happy land.

Chapter IX.

Whenever I inquired:

“From whence comes the heat that is so evenly distributed
        throughout the dwellings and public buildings of Mizora?” they
        invariably pointed to the river. I asked in astonishment:

“From water comes fire?”

And they answered: “Yes.”

I had long before this time discovered that Mizora was a
        nation of very wonderful people, individually and collectively;
        and as every revelation of their genius occurred, I would feel
        as though I could not be surprised at any marvelous thing that
        they should claim to do, but I was really not prepared to
        believe that they could set the river on fire. Yet I found that
        such was, scientifically, the fact. It was one of their most
        curious and, at the same time, useful appliances of a
        philosophical discovery.

They separated water into its two gases, and then, with their
        ingenious chemical skill, converted it into an economical
        fuel.

Their coal mines had long been exhausted, as had many other
        of nature’s resources for producing artificial heat. The dense
        population made it impracticable to cultivate forests for fuel.
        Its rapid increase demanded of Science the discovery of a fuel
        that could be consumed without loss to them, both in the matter
        consumed and in the expense of procuring it. Nothing seemed to
        answer their purpose so admirably as water. Water, when
        decomposed, becomes gas. Convert the gas into heat and it
        becomes water again. A very great heat produces only a small
        quantity of water: hence the extreme utility of water as a heat
        producing agent.

The heating factories were all detached buildings, and
        generally, if at all practicable, situated near a river, or
        other body of water. Every precaution against accident was
        stringently observed.

There were several processes for decomposing the water
        explained to me, but the one preferred, and almost universally
        used by the people of Mizora, was electricity. The gases formed
        at the opposite poles of the electrical current, were received
        in large glass reservoirs, especially constructed for them.

In preparing the heat that gave such a delightful temperature
        to the dwellings and public buildings of their vast cities,
        glass was always the material used in the construction of
        vessels and pipes. Glass pipes conveyed the separate gases of
        hydrogen and oxygen into an apartment especially prepared for
        the purpose, and united them upon ignited carbon. The heat
        produced was intense beyond description, and in the hands of
        less experienced and capable chemists, would have proved
        destructful to life and property. The hardest rock would melt in
        its embrace; yet, in the hands of these wonderful students of
        Nature, it was under perfect control and had been converted into
        one of the most healthful and agreeable agents of comfort and
        usefulness known. It was regulated with the same ease and
        convenience with which we increase or diminish the flames of a
        gas jet. It was conducted, by means of glass pipes, to every
        dwelling in the city. One factory supplied sufficient heat for
        over half a million inhabitants.

I thought I was not so far behind Mizora in a knowledge of
        heating with hot air; yet, when I saw the practical application
        of their method, I could see no resemblance to that in use in my
        own world. In winter, every house in Mizora had an atmosphere
        throughout as balmy as the breath of the young summer.
        Country-houses and farm dwellings were all supplied with the
        same kind of heat.

In point of economy it could not be surpassed. A city
        residence, containing twenty rooms of liberal size and an
        immense conservatory, was heated entire, at a cost of four
        hundred centimes a year. One dollar per annum for fuel.

There was neither smoke, nor soot, nor dust. Instead of
        entering a room through a register, as I had always seen heated
        air supplied, it came through numerous small apertures in the
        walls of a room quite close to the floor, thus rendering its
        supply imperceptible, and making a draft of cold air
        impossible.

The extreme cheapness of artificial heat made a conservatory
        a necessary luxury of every dwelling. The same pipes that
        supplied the dwelling rooms with warmth, supplied the hot-house
        also, but it was conveyed to the plants by a very different
        process.

They used electricity in their hot-houses to perfect their
        fruit, but in what way I could not comprehend; neither could I
        understand their method of supplying plants and fruits with
        carbonic acid gas. They manufactured it and turned it into their
        hot-houses during sleeping hours. No one was permitted to enter
        until the carbon had been absorbed. They had an instrument
        resembling a thermometer which gave the exact condition of the
        atmosphere. They were used in every house, as well as in the
        conservatories. The people of Mizora were constantly
        experimenting with those two chemical agents, electricity and
        carbonic acid gas, in their conservatories. They confidently
        believed that with their service, they could yet produce fruit
        from their hot-houses, that would equal in all respects the
        season grown article.

They produced very fine hot-house fruit. It was more luscious
        than any artificially ripened fruit that I had ever tasted in my
        own country, yet it by no means compared with their season grown
        fruit. Their preserved fruit I thought much more natural in
        flavor than their hot-house fruit.

Many of their private greenhouses were on a grand scale and
        contained fruit as well as flowers. A family that could not have
        a hot-house for fresh vegetables, with a few fruit trees in it,
        would be poor indeed. Where a number of families had united in
        purchasing extensive grounds, very fine conservatories were
        erected, their expense being divided among the property holders,
        and their luxuries enjoyed in common.

So methodical were all the business plans of the Mizora
        people, and so strictly just were they in the observance of all
        business and social duties that no ill-feeling or jealousy could
        arise from a combination of capital in private luxuries. Such
        combinations were formed and carried out upon strictly business
        principles.

If the admirable economy with which every species of work was
        carried on in Mizora could be thoroughly comprehended, the
        universality of luxuries need not be wondered at. They were
        drilled in economy from a very early period. It was taught them
        as a virtue.

Machinery, with them, had become the slave of invention. I
        lived long enough in Mizora to comprehend that the absence of
        pauperism, genteel and otherwise, was largely due to the
        ingenious application of machinery to all kinds of physical
        labor. When the cost of producing luxuries decreases, the value
        of the luxuries produced must decrease with it. The result is
        they are within reach of the narrowest incomes. A life
        surrounded by refinement must absorb some of it.

I had a conversation with the Preceptress upon this subject,
        and she said:

“Some natures are so undecided in character that they become
        only what their surroundings make them. Others only partially
        absorb tastes and sentiments that form the influence about them.
        They maintain a decided individuality; yet they are most always
        noticeably marked with the general character of their
        surroundings. It is very, very seldom that a nature is fixed
        from infancy in one channel.”

I told her that I knew of a people whose minds from infancy
        to mature age, never left the grooves they were born in. They
        belonged to every nationality, and had palaces built for them,
        and attendants with cultivated intelligences employed to wait
        upon them.

“Are their minds of such vast importance to their nation? You
        have never before alluded to intellect so elevated as to command
        such royal homage.” My friend spoke with awakened interest.

“They are of no importance at all,” I answered, humiliated at
        having alluded to them. “Some of them have not sufficient
        intelligence to even feed themselves.”

“And what are they?” she inquired anxiously.

“They are idiots; human vegetables.”

“And you build palaces for them, and hire servants to feed
        and tend them, while the bright, ambitious children of the poor
        among you, struggle and suffer for mental advancement. How
        deplorably short-sighted are the wise ones of your world. Truly
        it were better in your country to be born an idiot than a poor
        genius.” She sighed and looked grave.

“What should we do with them?” I inquired.

“What do you do with the useless weeds in your garden,” she
        asked significantly. “Do you carefully tend them, while drouth
        and frost and lack of nourishment cause your choice plants to
        wither and die?”

“We are far behind you,” I answered humbly. “But barbarous as
        you think we are, no epithet could be too scathing, too
        comprehensive of all that was vicious and inhuman, to apply to a
        person who should dare to assail the expense of those
        institutions, or suggest that they be converted to the
        cultivation of intellect that could be improved.”

My friend looked thoughtful for a long time, then she resumed
        her discourse at the point where I had so unfortunately
        interrupted it.

“No people,” she said, “can rise to universal culture as long
        as they depend upon hand labor to produce any of the necessities
        of life. The absence of a demand for hand labor gives rise to an
        increasing demand for brain labor, and the natural and
        inevitable result is an increased mental activity. The discovery
        of a fuel that is furnished at so small a cost and with really
        no labor but what machinery performs, marks one grand era in our
        mental progress.”

In mentioning the numerous uses made of glass in Mizora, I
        must not forget to give some notice to their water supply in
        large cities. Owing to their cleanly advantages, the filtering
        and storing of rain-water in glass-lined cisterns supplied many
        family uses. But drinking water was brought to their large
        cities in a form that did not greatly differ from those I was
        already familiar with, excepting in cleanliness. Their
        reservoirs were dug in the ground and lined with glass, and a
        perfectly fitting cover placed on the top. They were constructed
        so that the water that passed through the glass feed pipes to
        the city should have a uniform temperature, that of ordinary
        spring water. The water in the covered reservoirs was always
        filtered and tested before passing into the distributing
        pipes.

No citizen of Mizora ever hied to the country for pure water
        and fresh air. Science supplied both in a densely populated
        city.

Chapter X.

When a question as to the existence of social distinctions
        would be asked the citizens of Mizora, the invariable answer
        would be—there were none; yet a long and intimate acquaintance
        with them assured me that there were. They had an aristocracy;
        but of so peculiar and amiable a kind that it deserves a special
        mention. It took a long time for me to comprehend the exact
        condition of their society in this respect. That there were
        really no dividing lines between the person who superintended
        the kitchen and the one who paid her for it, in a social point
        of view, I could plainly see; yet there were distinctions; and
        rather sharply defined ones too.

In order to explain more lucidly the peculiar social life of
        Mizora, I will ask you to remember some Charity Fair you have
        attended, perhaps participated in, and which had been gotten up
        and managed by women of the highest social rank. If in a country
        where titles and social positions were hereditary, it then
        represented the highest aristocracy of blood. Grand dames there
        departed from the routine of their daily lives and assumed the
        lowlier occupations of others. They stood behind counters, in
        booths, and sold fancy articles, or dispensed ices and lemonade,
        or waited upon customers at the refreshment tables; bringing in
        trays of eatables, gathering up and removing empty dishes;
        performing labor that, under the ordinary circumstances of life,
        they would not perform in their own homes, and for their own
        kindred. It was all done with the same conscious dignity and
        ease that characterized the statelier duties of their every day
        life. One fact was apparent to all: they were gentlewomen still.
        The refinement of their home education, and the charm of
        nourished beauty were, perhaps, more prominent in contrast with
        their assumed avocation.

The Charity Fair, with its clerks and waiter girls and flower
        sellers called from the highest society, was a miniature picture
        of the actual every-day social life of Mizora. The one who
        ordered a dinner at their finest hotel, had it served to her by
        one who occupied the same social standing. Yet there
        was a difference; but it was the difference of
        mind.

The student in Sociology discovers that in all grades of
        society, congenial natures gravitate to a center. A
        differentiation of the highest mental quality was the result of
        this law in Mizora, and its co-ordinate part, their
        aristocracy.

The social organism did not need legislation to increase its
        benefits; it turned to Science, and, through Science, to Nature.
        The Laboratory of the Chemist was the focus that drew the
        attention of all minds. Mizora might be called a great school of
        Nature, whose pupils studied her every phase, and pried into her
        secrets with persistent activity, and obeyed her instructions as
        an imperative duty. They observed Nature to be an economist, and
        practiced economy with scrupulous exactness.

They had observed that in all grades of animal life, from the
        lowest form to the highest, wherever sociality had produced
        unity a leader was evolved, a superiority that differed in power
        according to the grade of development. In the earlier histories,
        the leaders were chosen for their prowess in arms. Great
        warriors became rulers, and soldiers were the aristocracy of the
        land. As civilization progressed and learning became more widely
        disseminated, the military retired before the more intellectual
        aristocracy of statemanship. Politics was the grand entrance to
        social eminence.

“But,” said my friend, “we have arrived at a higher,
        nobler, grander age. The military and political supremacies
        lived out their usefulness and decayed. A new era arrived. The
        differentia of mind evolved an aristocracy.”

Science has long been recognized as the greatest benefactor
        of our race. Its investigators and teachers are our only
        acknowledged superiors and leaders.

Generally the grandest intellects and those which retain
        their creative power the longest, are of exceptionally slow
        development. Precocity is short lived, and brilliant rather than
        strong. This I knew to be true of my own race.

In Mizora, a mind that developed late lost none of the
        opportunities that belong exclusively to the young of my own and
        other countries of the outer world. Their free schools and
        colleges were always open: always free. For this reason, it was
        no unusual thing for a person in Mizora to begin life at the
        very lowest grade and rise to its supreme height. Whenever the
        desire awakened, there was a helping hand extended on every
        side.

The distinction between the aristocracy and the lower class,
        or the great intellects and the less, was similar to the
        relative positions of teacher and pupil. I recognized in this
        social condition the great media of their marvelous approach to
        perfection. This aristocracy was never arrogant, never
        supercilious, never aggressive. It was what the philosophers of
        our world are: tolerant, humane, sublime.

In all communities of civilized nations marked musical talent
        will form social relations distinct from, but not superior to,
        other social relations. The leader of a musical club might also
        be the leader of another club devoted to exclusive literary
        pursuits; and both clubs possess equal social respect. Those who
        possess musical predilections, seek musical associations; those
        who are purely literary, seek their congenials. This is true of
        all other mental endowments or tastes; that which predominates
        will seek its affinity; be it in science, literature, politics,
        music, painting, or sculpture. Social organizations naturally
        grow out of other business pursuits and vocations of all grades
        and kinds. The society of Mizora was divided only by such
        distinctions. The scientific mind had precedence of all others.
        In the social world, they found more congenial pleasure in one
        another, and they mingled more frequently among themselves.
        Other professions and vocations followed their example for the
        same reason. Yet neither was barred by social caste from seeking
        society where she would. If the artisan sought social
        intercourse with a philosopher, she was expected to have
        prepared herself by mental training to be congenial. When a
        citizen of Mizora became ambitious to rise, she did not have to
        struggle with every species of opposition, and contend against
        rebuff and repulse. Correct language, refined tastes, dignified
        and graceful manners were the common acquirements of all. Mental
        culture of so high an order—I marveled that a lifetime should be
        long enough to acquire it in—was universal.

Under such conditions social barriers could not be
        impregnable. In a world divided by poverty and opulence into all
        their intermediate grades, wealth must inevitably be
        pre-eminent. It represents refined and luxurious environments,
        and, if mind be there, intellectual pre-eminence also. Where
        wealth alone governs society it has its prerogatives.

The wealth that affords the most luxurious entertainments
        must be the wealth that rules. Its privilege—its duty rather—is
        to ignore all applicants to fraternization that cannot return
        what it receives. Where mind is the sole aristocracy it makes
        demands as rigid, though different, and mind was the aristocracy
        of Mizora. With them education is never at an end. I spoke of
        having graduated at a renowned school for young ladies, and when
        I explained that to graduate meant to finish one’s education, it
        elicited a peal of silvery mirth.

“We never graduate,” said Wauna. “There is my
        mamma’s mother, two centuries old, and still studying. I paid
        her a visit the other day and she took me into her laboratory.
        She is a manufacturer of lenses, and has been experimenting on
        microscopes. She has one now that possesses a truly wonderful
        power. The leaf of a pear tree, that she had allowed to become
        mouldy, was under the lens, and she told me to look.

“A panorama of life and activity spread out before me in such
        magnitude that I can only compare it to the feeling one must
        possess who could be suspended in air and look down upon our
        world for a cycle of time.

“Immense plains were visible with animals grazing upon them,
        that fought with and devoured one another. They perished and
        sank away and immense forests sprang up like magic. They were
        inhabited by insects and tiny creatures resembling birds. A sigh
        of air moved the leaf and a tiny drop of water, scarcely
        discernible to the naked eye rolled over the forests and plains,
        and before it passed to the other side of the leaf a great lake
        covered the spot. My great-great-grandmother has an acute
        conductor of sound that she has invented, so exquisite in
        mechanism as to reveal the voice of the tiniest insect. She put
        it to my ear, and the bellowing of the animals in battle, the
        chirp of the insects and the voices of the feathered mites could
        be clearly heard, but attenuated like the delicate note of two
        threads of spun glass clashed together.”

“And what good,” I asked, “can all this knowledge do you?
        Your great-great-grandmother has condensed the learning of two
        centuries to evolve this one discovery. Is it not so?”

“Yes,” replied Wauna, and her look and tone were both solemn.
        “You ask me what good it can do? Reflect! If the history of a
        single leaf is so vast and yet ephemeral, what may not be the
        history of a single world? What, after all, are we when such an
        infinitesimal space can contain such wonderful transactions in a
        second of time.”

I shuddered at the thought she raised in my mind. But
        inherited beliefs are not easily dissipated, so I only sought to
        change the subject.

“But what is the use of studying all the time. There
        should be some period in your lives when you should be permitted
        to rest from your labors. It is truly irksome to me to see
        everybody still eager to learn more. The artist of the kitchen
        was up to the National College yesterday attending a lecture on
        chemistry. The artist who arranges my rooms is up there to-day
        listening to one on air. I can not understand why, having
        learned to make beds and cook to perfection, they should not be
        content with their knowledge and their work.”

“If you were one of us you would know,” said Wauna. “It is a
        duty with us to constantly seek improvement. The culinary artist
        at the house where you are visiting, is a very fine chemist. She
        has a predilection for analyzing the construction of food. She
        may some day discover how to produce vegetables from
        the elements.

“The artist who arranges your room is attending a lecture on
        air because her vocation calls for an accurate knowledge of it.
        She attends to the atmosphere in the whole house, and sees that
        it is in perfect health sustaining condition. Your hostess has a
        particular fondness for flowers and decorates all her rooms with
        them. All plants are not harmless occupants of livingrooms. Some
        give forth exhalations that are really noxious. That artist has
        so accurate a knowledge of air that she can keep the atmosphere
        of your home in a condition of perfect purity; yet she knows
        that her education is not finished. She is constantly studying
        and advancing. The time may come when she, too, will add a grand
        discovery to science.

“Had my ancestors thought as you do, and rested on an
        inferior education, I should not represent the advanced stage of
        development that I do. As it is, when my mind reaches the age of
        my mother’s, it will have a larger comprehensiveness than hers.
        She already discerns it. My children will have intellects of a
        finer grade than mine. This is our system of mind culture. The
        intellect is of slower development than the body, and takes
        longer to decay. The gradations of advancement from one
        intellectual basis to another, in a social body, requires
        centuries to mark a distinct change in the earlier ages of
        civilization, but we have now arrived at a stage when
        advancement is clearly perceptible between one generation and
        the next.”

Wauna’s mother added:

“Universal education is the great destroyer of castes. It is
        the conqueror of poverty and the foundation of patriotism. It
        purifies and strengthens national, as well as individual
        character. In the earlier history of our race, there were social
        conditions that rendered many lives wretched, and that the law
        would not and, in the then state of civilization, could not
        reach. They were termed “domestic miseries,” and disappeared
        only under the influence of our higher intellectual development.
        The nation that is wise will educate its children.”

“Alas! alas!” was my own silent thought. “When will my
        country rise to so grand an idea. When will wealth open the
        doors of colleges, academies, and schools, and make the Fountain
        of Knowledge as free as the God-given water we drink.”

And there rose a vision in my mind—one of those day dreams
        when fancy upon the wing takes some definite course—and I saw in
        my own land a Temple of Learning rise, grand in proportion,
        complete in detail, with a broad gateway, over whose wide-open
        majestic portal was the significant inscription: “Enter who will: no warder stands watch at the
        gate.”

Chapter XI.

The Government of Mizora not being of primary importance in
        the estimation of the people, I have not made more than a mere
        mention of it heretofore. In this respect I have conformed to
        the generally expressed taste of the Mizora people. In my own
        country the government and the aristocracy were identical. The
        government offices and emoluments were the highest pinnacles of
        ambition.

I mentioned the disparity of opinion between Mizora and all
        other countries I had known in regard to this. I could not
        understand why politics in Mizora should be of so small
        importance. The answer was, that among an educated and highly
        enlightened people, the government will take care of itself.
        Having been perfected by wise experience, the people allow it to
        glide along in the grooves that time has made for it.

In form, the government of Mizora was a Federal Republic. The
        term of office in no department exceeded the limit of five
        years. The Presidential term of office was for five years.

They had one peculiar—exceedingly peculiar—law in regard to
        politics. No candidate could come before the public seeking
        office before having a certificate from the State College to
        which she belonged, stating her examination and qualifications
        to fill such an office.

Just like examining for school-teachers, I thought. And why
        not? Making laws for a State is of far more importance than
        making them for a few dozen scholars. I remembered to have heard
        some of my American acquaintances say that in their country it
        was not always qualifications that get a candidate into office.
        Some of the ways were devious and not suitable for publicity.
        Offices were frequently filled by incompetent men. There had
        been congressmen and other offices of higher and more
        responsible duties, filled by persons who could not correctly
        frame a sentence in their native language, who could not spell
        the simplest words as they were spelled in the dictionary,
        unless it were an accident.

To seek the office of President, or any other position under
        the General Government, required an examination and certificate
        from the National College. The examinations were always public,
        and conducted in such a manner that imposture was impossible.
        Constituents could attend if they chose, and decide upon the
        qualifications of a favorite candidate. In all the public
        schools, politics—to a certain extent—formed part of the general
        education of every child. Beyond that, any one having a
        predilection for politics could find in the State Colleges and
        National Colleges the most liberal advantages for acquiring a
        knowledge of political economy, political arithmetic, and the
        science of government.

Political campaigns, (if such a term could be applicable to
        the politics of Mizora) were of the mildest possible character.
        The papers published the names of the candidates and their
        examinations in full. The people read and decided upon their
        choice, and, when the time came, voted. And that was the extent
        of the campaign enthusiasm.

I must mention that the examinations on the science of
        government were not conducted as are ordinary examinations in
        any given study that consists of questions and answers. That was
        the preliminary part. There followed a thorough, practical test
        of their ability to discharge the duties of office with wisdom.
        No matter which side the sympathies or affections might be
        enlisted upon, the stern decree of justice was what the Mizorean
        abided by. From earliest infancy their minds were trained in
        that doctrine. In the discharge of all public duties especially,
        it seemed to be the paramount consideration. Certainly no
        government machinery ever could move with more ease, or give
        greater satisfaction to the people, than that of Mizora.

They never appeared to be excited or uneasy about the result
        of the elections. I never heard an animated political argument,
        such as I used to read about in America. I asked a politician
        one day what she thought of the probable success of the opposite
        party. She replied that it would not make any difference to the
        country as both candidates were perfectly competent to fill the
        office.

“Do you never make disparaging statements about the opposing
        candidate?” was my inquiry.

“How could we?” she asked in surprise, “when there are none
        to make.”

“You might assume a few for the time being; just to make her
        lose votes.”

“That would be a crime worthy of barbarians.”

“Do you never have any party issues?”

“No. There is never anything to make an issue of. We all work
        for the good of the people, and the whole people. There is no
        greed of glory or gain; no personal ambition to gratify. Were I
        to use any artifice to secure office or popularity, I should be
        instantly deprived of public esteem and notice. I do my duty
        conscientiously; that is the aim of public life. I work
        for the public good and my popularity comes as it is earned and
        deserved. I have no fear of being slighted or underrated. Every
        politician feels and acts the same way.”

“Have politicians ever bought votes with money, or offered
        bribes by promising positions that it would be in their official
        power to grant when elected?”

“Never! There is not a citizen of Mizora who would not scorn
        an office obtained in such a way. The profession of politics,
        while not to be compared in importance with the sciences, is yet
        not devoid of dignity. It is not necessary to make new laws.
        They were perfected long ago, and what has been proven good we
        have no desire to change. We manage the government according to
        a conscientious interpretation of the law. We have repealed laws
        that were in force when our Republic was young, and dropped them
        from the statute books. They were laws unworthy of our
        civilization. We have laws for the protection of property and to
        regulate public morals, and while our civilization is in a state
        of advancement that does not require them, yet we think it
        wisdom to let them remain. The people know that we have such
        laws and live up to them without surveillance. They would abide
        by the principles of justice set forth in them just as
        scrupulously if we should repeal them.

“You spoke of bribes. In remote ages, when our country was
        emerging from a state of semi-barbarism, such things were in
        common practice. Political chicanery was a name given to various
        underhand and dishonest maneuvers to gain office and public
        power. It was frequently the case that the most responsible
        positions in the Government would be occupied by the basest
        characters, who used their power only for fraud to enrich
        themselves and their friends by robbing the people. They
        deceived the masses by preaching purity. They were never
        punished. If they were accused and brought to trial, the wealth
        they had stolen from the government purchased their acquittal,
        and then they posed as martyrs. The form of government was then,
        as now, a Federal Republic, but the people had very little to do
        with it. They were merely the tools of unscrupulous politicians.
        In those days a sensitively honest person would not accept
        office, because the name politician was a synonym for flexible
        principles. It was derogatory to one’s character to seek
        office.”

“Was dishonesty more prominent in one party than another?” I
        asked, thinking how very Americanish this history sounded.

“We, who look back upon the conditions of those times and
        view it with dispassionate judgment, can perceive corruption in
        both political parties. The real welfare of the country was the
        last thing considered by a professional politician. There was
        always something that was to benefit the people brought forward
        as a party issue, and used as a means of working up the
        enthusiasm or fears of the people, and usually dropped after the
        election.

“The candidate for election in those days might be guilty of
        heinous crimes, yet the party covered them all, and over that
        covering the partisan newspaper spread every virtue in the
        calendar. A stranger to the country and its customs reading one
        of their partisan newspapers during a political campaign, might
        conclude that the party it advocated was composed of
        only the virtues of the country, and their leader an epitome of
        the supremest excellence.

“Reading in the same paper a description of the opposing
        party, the stranger might think it composed of only the degraded
        and disreputable portion of the nation, and its leader the scum
        of all its depravity. If curiosity should induce a perusal of
        some partisan paper of the other party, the same thing could be
        read in its columns, with a change of names. It would be the
        opposite party that was getting represented in the most
        despicable character, and their leader was the only one
        who possessed enough honesty and talent to keep the country from
        going to wreck. The other party leader was the one who was
        guilty of all the crimes in the calendar. A vast number of
        people were ignorant enough to cling blindly to one party and to
        believe every word published by its partisan papers. This
        superstitious party faith was what the unscrupulous politicians
        handled dexterously for their own selfish ends. It was not until
        education became universal, and a higher culture was forced upon
        the majority—the working classes—that politics began to purify
        itself, and put on the dignity of real virtue, and receive the
        respect that belongs to genuine justice.

“The people became disgusted with defamatory political
        literature, and the honorable members of both parties abjured it
        altogether. In such a government as this, two great parties
        could not exist, where one was altogether bad and the other
        altogether good. It became apparent to the people that there was
        good in both parties, and they began to elect it irrespective of
        party prejudice. Politicians began to work for their country
        instead of themselves and their party, and politics took the
        noble position that the rights of humanity designed it for. I
        have been giving you quite a history of our ancient politics.
        Our present condition is far different. As the people became
        enlightened to a higher degree, the government became more
        compact. It might now be compared to a large family. There are
        one hundred States in the Union. There was a time when every
        State made its own laws for its own domestic government. One
        code of laws is now enforced in every State. In going from one
        State to another citizens now suffer no inconvenience from a
        confusion of laws. Every State owes allegiance to the General
        Government. No State or number of States could set up an
        independent government without obtaining the consent and legal
        dissolution from the General Government. But such a thing will
        never be thought of. We have prospered as a great united Nation.
        Our union has been our strength, our prosperity.”

I visited with Wauna a number of the States’ Capitals. In
        architecture the Mizora people display an excellent taste. Their
        public buildings might all be called works of art. Their
        government buildings, especially, were on a scale of magnificent
        splendor. The hollow square seemed to be a favorite form. One
        very beautiful capitol building was of crystal glass, with
        facing and cornices of marble onyx. It looked more like a
        gigantic gem than anything I could compare it to, especially
        when lighted up by great globes of white fire suspended from
        every ceiling.

Upon my entrance into Mizora, I was led into the belief that
        I had arrived at a female seminary, because the dining and
        sleeping accommodations for the stateswoman were all in the
        Capitol building. I observed that the State Capitols were
        similarly accommodated. In Mizora the home is the heart of all
        joy, and wherever a Mizora woman goes, she endeavors to surround
        herself with its comforts and pleasures. That was the reason
        that the splendid Capitol building had its home-like
        appointments, was a Nation of women exclusively—at least as far
        as I had as yet been able to discover.

Another reason for the homes of all officials of the
        Government being within the public buildings, was because all
        the personal expenses, excepting clothing, were paid by the
        Government. The salaries of Government positions were not large,
        compared with those of the sciences; but as their social and
        political dues were paid out of the public treasury, the
        salaries might be considered as net profit. This custom had
        originated many centuries in the past. In those early days, when
        a penurious character became an incumbent of public office, the
        social obligations belonging to it were often but niggardly
        requited. Sometimes business embarrassments and real necessity
        demanded economy; so, at last, the Government assumed all the
        expenses contingent upon every office, from the highest to the
        lowest. By this means the occupant of a Government office was
        freed from every care but those of state.

The number and style of all social entertainments that were
        obligatory of the occupant of a public office, were regulated by
        law. As the people of Mizora believed in enjoyment, the
        entertainments provided by the Government as the necessary
        social dues of its officers, were not few, nor scantily
        furnished.

Chapter XII.

The artificial light in Mizora puzzled me longest to
        understand. When I first noticed it, it appeared to me to have
        no apparent source. At the touch of a delicate hand, it blazed
        forth like a star in the center of the ceiling. It diffused a
        soft and pleasing brilliancy that lent a charm to everything it
        revealed. It was a dreamy daylight, and was produced by
        electricity.

In large halls, like a theatre or opera house, the light fell
        in a soft and penetrating radiance from the center of the dome.
        Its source was not visible to either audience or actresses, and,
        in consequence, occasioned no discomfort to the eyes. The light
        that illuminated the stage was similarly arranged. The
        footlights were not visible. They were in the rear of the stage.
        The light came upward like the rays of the setting sun,
        revealing the setting of the stage with vivid distinctness. I
        can best describe the effect of this singular arrangement by
        calling attention to the appearance of the sun when declining
        behind a small elevation. How sharply every object is outlined
        before it? How soft and delicate is the light in which
        everything is bathed? Every cloud that floats has all of its
        fleecy loveliness limned with a radiant clearness.

I was very desirous to know how this singular effect was
        produced, and at my request was taken to the stage. An opening
        in the back part of it was covered with pink colored glass.
        Powerful electric lights from below the stage were reflected
        through this glass upon it. The glass was highly refractive and
        so perfectly translucent, I at first thought there was none
        there, and when I stood upon its edge, and looked down into a
        fiery gulf below, I instinctively thought of the “Lost People,”
        who are said to wander amid torturing yet unconsumable flames.
        But, happily, the ones I gazed upon were harmless ones.

The street lights of Mizora were at a considerable elevation
        from the ground. They were in, or over, the center of the
        street, and of such diffuse brilliancy as to render the city
        almost as light as day. They were in the form of immense globes
        of soft, white fire, and during the six months that answered to
        the Mizora night, were kept constantly burning. It was during
        this period that the Aurora Borealis shone with such marvelous
        brilliancy.

Generally, its display was heralded by an arc of delicate
        green-tinted light, that spanned the heavens. The green tint
        deepened into emerald, assuming a delicate rose hue as it faded
        upward into rays that diverged from the top until the whole
        resembled a gigantic crown. Every ray became a panorama of
        gorgeous colors, resembling tiny sparks, moving hither and
        thither with inconceivable swiftness. Sometimes a veil of mist
        of delicate green hue depended from the base of the crown, and
        swayed gently back and forth. As soon as the swaying motion
        commenced, the most gorgeous colors were revealed. Myriads of
        sparks, no larger than snow-flakes, swarmed across the delicate
        green curtain in every conceivable color and shade, but always
        of that vapory, vivid softness that is indescribable. The
        dancing colors resembled gems encased in a film of mist.

One display that I witnessed I shall attempt to describe. The
        arc of delicate green appeared first, and shot upward diverging
        rays of all the warm, rich hues of red. They formed a vast
        crown, outlined with a delicate halo of fire. A veil of misty
        green fluttered down from its base, and, instantly, tiny crowns,
        composed of every brilliant color, with a tracery of fire
        defining every separate one, began to chase one another back and
        forth with bewildering rapidity. As the veil swayed to and fro,
        it seemed to shake the crowns into skeins of fire, each thread
        strung with countless minute globes of every conceivable color
        and hue. Those fiery threads, aerial as thistle down, wove
        themselves in and out in a tangled mass of gorgeous beauty.
        Suddenly the beads of color fell in a shower of gems, topaz and
        emerald, ruby and sapphire, amethyst and pearly crystals of dew.
        I looked upward, where the rays of variegated colors were
        sweeping the zenith, and high above the first crown was a second
        more vivid still. Myriads of rainbows, the colors broad and
        intense, fluttered from its base, the whole outlined by a halo
        of fire. It rolled together in a huge scroll, and, in an
        instant, fell apart a shower of flakes, minute as snow, but of
        all the gorgeous, dazzling hues of earth and sky combined. They
        disappeared in the mystery of space to instantly form into a
        fluttering, waving banner of delicate green mist and—vanish;
        only to repeat itself.

The display of the Aurora Borealis was always an exhibition
        of astonishing rapidity of motion of intense colors. The most
        glorious sunset—where the vapory billows of the sky have caught
        the bloom of the dying Autumn—cannot rival it. All the precious
        gems of earth appear to have dissolved into mist, to join in a
        wild and aerial dance. The people of Mizora attributed it
        entirely to electricity.

Although the sun never rose or set in Mizora, yet for six
        months in a year, that country had the heart of a voluptuous
        summer. It beat with a strong, warm pulse of life through all
        nature. The orchards budded and bloomed, and mellowed into
        perfect fruition their luscious globes. The fields laughed in
        the warm, rich light, and smiled on the harvest. I could feel my
        own blood bound as with a new lease of life at the first breath
        of spring.

The winters of Mizora had clouds and rain and sleet and snow,
        and sometimes, especially near the circular sea, the fury of an
        Arctic snow storm; but so well prepared were they that it became
        an amusement. Looking into the chaos of snow flakes, driven
        hither and thither by fierce winds, the pedestrians in the
        street presented no painful contrast to the luxury of your own
        room, with its balmy breath and cheerful flowers. You saw none
        but what were thoroughly clad, and you knew that they were
        hurrying to homes that were bright and attractive, if not as
        elegant as yours; where loving welcomes were sure to greet them
        and happiness would sit with them at the feast; for the heart
        that is pure has always a kingly guest for its company.

A wonderful discovery that the people of Mizora had made was
        the power to annihilate space as an impediment to conversation.
        They claimed that the atmosphere had regular currents of
        electricity that were accurately known to them. They talked to
        them by means of simply constructed instruments, and the voice
        would be as audible and as easily recognized at three thousand
        miles distant as at only three feet. Stations were built similar
        to our telegraph offices, but on high elevations. I understood
        that they could not be used upon the surface. Every private and
        public house, however, had communication with the general
        office, and could converse with friends at a distance whenever
        desirable. Public speakers made constant use of it, but in
        connection with another extraordinary apparatus which I regret
        my inability to perfectly describe.

I saw it first from the dress circle of a theater. It
        occupied the whole rear of the stage, and from where I sat,
        looked like a solid wall of polished metal. But it had a
        wonderful function, for immediately in front of it, moving,
        speaking and gesturing, was the figure of a popular public
        lecturer, so life-like in appearance that I could scarcely be
        convinced that it was only a reflection. Yet such it was, and
        the original was addressing an audience in person more than a
        thousand miles distant.

It was no common thing for a lecturer to address a dozen or
        more audiences at the same time, scattered over an area of
        thousands of miles, and every one listening to and observing
        what appeared to be the real speaker. In fact, public speakers
        in Mizora never traveled on pure professional business. It was
        not necessary. They prepared a room in their own dwelling with
        the needful apparatus, and at the time specified delivered a
        lecture in twenty different cities.

I was so interested in this very remarkable invention that I
        made vigorous mental exertions to comprehend it sufficiently to
        explain its mechanism and philosophical principles
        intelligently; but I can only say that it was one of the wonders
        those people produced with electricity. The mechanism was
        simple, but the science of its construction and workings I could
        not comprehend. The grasp of my mind was not broad enough. The
        instrument that transmitted the voice was entirely separate.

I must not neglect to mention that all kinds of public
        entertainments, such as operas, concerts and dramas, could be
        and were repeated to audiences at a distance from where the real
        transaction was taking place. I attended a number of operas that
        were only the reflex of others that were being presented to
        audiences far distant.

These repetitions were always marvels of accuracy of
        vividness.

Small reflecting apparatus were to be found in every dwelling
        and business house. It is hardly necessary to state that
        letter-writing was an unknown accomplishment in Mizora. The
        person who desired to converse with another, no matter how far
        distant, placed herself in communication with her two
        instruments and signaled. Her friend appeared upon the polished
        metal surface like the figure in a mirror, and spoke to her
        audibly, and looked at her with all the naturalness of
        reality.

I have frequently witnessed such interviews between Wauna and
        her mother, when we were visiting distant cities. It was
        certainly a more satisfactory way of communicating than by
        letter. The small apparatus used by private families and
        business houses were not like those used in public halls and
        theaters. In the former, the reflection was exactly similar to
        the image of a mirror; in the latter, the figure was projected
        upon the stage. It required more complicated machinery to
        produce, and was not practicable for small families or business
        houses. I now learned that on my arrival in Mizora I had been
        taken to one of the largest apparatus and put in communication
        with it. I was informed by Wauna that I had been exhibited to
        every college and school in the country by reflex
        representation. She said that she and her mother had seen me
        distinctly and heard my voice. The latter had been so
        uncongenial in accent and tone that she had hesitated about
        becoming my instructor on that account. It was my evident
        appreciation of my deficiencies as compared to them that had
        enlisted her sympathy.

Now, in my own country, my voice had attracted attention by
        its smoothness and modulation, and I was greatly surprised to
        hear Wauna speak of its unmusical tone as really annoying. But
        then in Mizora there are no voices but what are sweet enough to
        charm the birds.

In the journeys that Wauna and I took during the college
        vacation, we were constantly meeting strangers, but they never
        appeared the least surprised at my dark hair and eyes, which
        were such a contrast to all the other hair and eyes to be met
        with in Mizora, that I greatly wondered at it until I learned of
        the power of the reflector. I requested permission to examine
        one of the large ones used in a theater, and it was granted me.
        Wauna accompanied me and signaled to a friend of hers. As if by
        magic a form appeared and moved across the stage. It bowed to
        me, smiled and motioned with its hand, to all appearances a
        material body. I asked Wauna to approach it, which she did, and
        passed her hand through it. There was nothing that resisted her
        touch, yet I plainly saw the figure, and recognized it as the
        perfect representation of a friend of Wauna’s, an actress
        residing in a distant city. When I ascended the stage, the
        figure vanished, and I understood that it could be visible only
        at a certain distance from the reflector.

In traveling great distances, or even short ones where great
        speed was desired, the Mizoraens used air ships; but only for
        the transportation of passengers and the very lightest of
        freight. Heavy articles could not be as conveniently carried by
        them as by railroads. Their railroads were constructed and
        conducted on a system so perfect that accidents were never
        known. Every engineer had an electric signal attached to the
        engine, that could signal a train three miles distant.

The motive power for nearly all engines was compressed air.
        Electricity, which was recognized by Mizora scientists as a
        force of great intensity, was rarely used as a propelling power
        on railroads. Its use was attended by possible danger, but
        compressed air was not. Electricity produced the heat that
        supplied the air ships and railroads with that very necessary
        comfort. In case there should be an accident, as a collision, or
        thrown from the track, heat could not be a source of danger when
        furnished by electricity. But I never heard of a railroad
        accident during the whole fifteen years that I spent in
        Mizora.

Air-ships, however, were not exempt from danger, although the
        precautions against it were ingenious and carefully observed.
        The Mizora people could tell the approach of a storm, and the
        exact time it would arrive. They had signal stations established
        for the purpose, all over the country.

But, though they were skilled mechanics, and far in advance
        of my own world, and the limits of my comprehension in their
        scientific discoveries and appliances, they had not yet
        discovered the means of subduing the elements, or driving
        unharmed through their fury. When nature became convulsed with
        passion, they guarded themselves against it, but did not
        endeavor to thwart it.

Their air-ships were covered, and furnished with luxurious
        seats. The whole upper part of the car was composed of very thin
        glass. They traveled with, to me, astonishing rapidity. Towns
        and cities flew away beneath us like birds upon the wing. I grew
        frightened and apprehensive, but Wauna chatted away with her
        friends with the most charming unconcern.

I was looking down, when I perceived, by the increasing size
        of objects below, that we were descending. The conductor entered
        almost immediately, and announced that we were going down to
        escape an approaching storm. A signal had been received and the
        ship was at once lowered.

I felt intensely relieved to step again on solid earth, and
        hoped I might escape another trial of the upper regions. But
        after waiting until the storm was over we again entered the
        ship. I was ashamed to refuse when everyone else showed no
        fear.

In waiting for the storm to pass we were delayed so long that
        our journey could have been performed almost as speedily by
        rail. I wondered why they had not invented some means by which
        they could drive through a tempest in perfect safety. As usual,
        I addressed my inquiries to Wauna. She answered:

“So frail a thing as an air-ship must necessarily be, when
        compared with the strength of a storm, is like a leaf in the
        wind. We have not yet discovered, and we have but little
        expectation of discovering, any means by which we can defy the
        storms that rage in the upper deeps.

“The electricity that we use for heat is also a source of
        danger during a storm. Our policy is to evade a peril we cannot
        control or destroy. Hence, when we receive a signal that a storm
        is approaching we get out of its way. Our railroad carriages,
        having no danger to fear from them, ride right through the
        storm.”

The people of Mizora, I perceived, possessed a remarkable
        acuteness of vision. They could see the odor emanating from
        flowers and fruit. They described it to me as resembling
        attenuated mist. They also named other colors in the solar
        spectrum than those known to me. When I first heard them speak
        of them, I thought it a freak of the imagination; but I
        afterward noticed artists, and persons who had a special taste
        for colors, always detected them with greater readiness. The
        presence of these new colors were apparent to all with whom I
        spoke upon the subject. When I mentioned my own inability to
        discern them, Wauna said that it was owning to my inferior
        mental development.

“A child,” she said, “if you will observe, is first attracted
        by red, the most glaring color known. The untutored mind will
        invariably select the gaudiest colors for personal adornment. It
        is the gentle, refined taste of civilization that chooses the
        softened hues and colors.”

“But you, as a nation, are remarkable for rich warm colors in
        your houses and often in your dress,” I said.

“But they are never glaring,” she replied. “If you will
        notice, the most intense colors are always so arranged as to
        present a halo, instead of sharply defined brilliancy. If a
        gorgeous color is worn as a dress, it will be covered with filmy
        lace. You have spoken of the splendor of the Aurora Borealis. It
        is nature’s most gorgeous robe, and intense as the primal colors
        are, they are never glaring. They glow in a film of vapor. We
        have made them our study. Art, with us, has never attempted to
        supercede nature.”

The sense of smell was also exceedingly sensitive with the
        Mizora people. They detected odors so refined that I was not
        aware of them. I have often seen a chemist take a bottle of
        perfumery and name its ingredients from the sense of smell only.
        No one appeared surprised at the bluntness of my senses. When I
        spoke of this Wauna tried to explain it.

“We are a more delicately organized race of beings than you
        are. Our intellects, and even sense that we possess, is of a
        higher and finer development. We have some senses that you do
        not possess, and are unable to comprehend their exquisite
        delicacy. One of them I shall endeavor to explain to you by
        describing it as impression. We possess it in a highly refined
        state, both mentally and physically. Our sensitiveness to
        changes of temperature, I have noticed, is more marked than
        yours. It is acute with all of my people. For this reason,
        although we are free from disease, our bodies could not sustain,
        as readily as yours could, a sudden and severe shock to their
        normal temperature, such as a marked change in the atmosphere
        would occasion. We are, therefore, extremely careful to be
        always appropriately clothed. That is a physical impression. It
        is possessed by you also, but more obtusely.

“Our sensitiveness to mental pleasure and pain you would
        pronounce morbid on account of its intensity. The happiness we
        enjoy in the society of those who are congenial, or near and
        dear to us through family ties, is inconceivable to you. The
        touch of my mother’s hand carries a thrill of rapture with
        it.

“We feel, intuitively, the happiness or disappointment of
        those we are with. Our own hopes impress us with their
        fulfillment or frustration, before we know what will actually
        occur. This feeling is entirely mental, but it is evidence of a
        highly refined mentality. We could not be happy unless
        surrounded, as we are, by cultivated and elegant pleasures. They
        are real necessities to us.

“Our appreciation of music, I notice, has a more exquisite
        delicacy than yours. You desire music, but it is the simpler
        operas that delight you most. Those fine and delicate harmonies
        that we so intensely enjoy, you appear incapable of
        appreciating.”

I have previously spoken of their elegance in dress, and
        their fondness for luxury and magnificence. On occasions of
        great ceremony their dresses were furnished with very long
        trains. The only prominent difference that I saw in their state
        dresses, and the rare and costly ones I had seen in my own and
        other countries, was in the waist. As the women of Mizora
        admired a large waist, their dresses were generally loose and
        flowing. Ingenuity, however, had fashioned them into graceful
        and becoming outlines. On occasions of great state and
        publicity, comfortably fitting girdles confined the dress at the
        waist.

I attended the Inaugural of a Professor of Natural History in
        the National College. The one who had succeeded to this honor
        was widely celebrated for her erudition. It was known that the
        ceremony would be a grand affair, and thousands attended it.

I there witnessed another of these marvelous achievements in
        science that were constantly surprising me in Mizora. The
        inauguration took place in a large hall, the largest I had ever
        seen. It would accommodate two hundred thousand people, and was
        filled to repletion. I was seated far back in the audience, and
        being a little short-sighted anyway, I expected to be
        disappointed both in seeing and hearing the ceremonies. What was
        my astonishment then, when they began, to discover that I could
        see distinctly every object upon the stage, and hear with
        perfect accuracy every word that was uttered.

Upon expressing myself to Wauna as being greatly pleased that
        my eyesight and hearing had improved so wonderfully and
        unexpectedly, she laughed merrily, and asked me if I had noticed
        a curious looking band of polished steel that curved outward
        from the proscenium, and encircled its entire front? I had
        noticed it, but supposed it to be connected with some different
        arrangement they might have made concerning the footlights.
        Wauna informed me that I owed my improved hearing to that.

“But my eyesight,” I asked, “how do you account for its
        unusual penetrativeness?”

“Have you ever noticed some seasons of the year display a
        noticeably marked transparency of the atmosphere that revealed
        objects at great distances with unusual clearness? Well, we
        possess a knowledge of air that enables us to qualify it with
        that peculiar magnifying condition. On occasions like this we
        make use of it. This hall was built after the discovery, and was
        specially prepared for its use. It is seldom employed in smaller
        halls.”

Just then a little flutter of interest upon the stage
        attracted my attention, and I saw the candidate for the
        professorship entering, accompanied by the Faculty of the
        National College.

She wore a sea-green velvet robe with a voluminous train. The
        bottom of the dress was adorned with a wreath or band of water
        lilies, embroidered in seed pearls. A white lace overdress of
        filmiest texture fell over the velvet, almost touching the
        wreath of lilies, and looked as though it was made of sea foam.
        A girdle of large pink pearls confined the robe at the waist.
        Natural flowers were on her bosom and in her hair.

The stage was superbly decorated with flowers and shells. A
        large chair, constructed of beautiful shells and cushioned with
        green velvet, rested upon a dais of coral. It was the chair of
        honor. Behind it was a curtain of sea-moss. I afterward learned
        that the moss was attached to a film of glass too delicate to
        detect without handling.

In the midst of these charming surroundings stood the
        applicant for honor. Her deep blue eyes glowed with the joy of
        triumph. On the delicate cheek and lip burned the carmine hue of
        perfect health. The golden hair even seemed to have caught a
        brighter lustre in its coiled masses. The uplifted hand and arm
        no marble goddess could have matched, for this had the color and
        charm of life. As she stood revealed by the strong light that
        fell around her, every feature ennobled with the glory of
        intellect, she appeared to me a creature of unearthly
        loveliness, as something divine.

I spoke to Wauna of the rare beauty and elegance of her
        dress.

“She looks like a fabled Naiad just risen from the deep,” was
        my criticism on her.

“Her dress,” answered Wauna, “is intended to be emblematical
        of Nature. The sea-green robe, the water lilies of pearls, the
        foamy lace are all from Nature’s Cradle of Life.”

“How poetical!” I exclaimed.

But then Mizora is full of that charming skill that blends
        into perfect harmony the beautiful and useful in life.

Chapter XIII.

On my return to college, after the close of vacation, I
        devoted myself exclusively to history. It began with their first
        President; and from the evidence of history itself, I knew that
        the Nation was enjoying a high state of culture when its history
        began.

No record of a more primitive race was to be found in all the
        Library, assiduously as I searched for it. I read with absorbing
        interest their progress toward perfect enlightenment, their
        laborious searchings into science that had resulted in such
        marvelous achievements. But earnestly as I sought for it, and
        anxiously as I longed for it, I found and heard no mention of a
        race of men. From the most intimate intercourse with the people
        of Mizora, I could discover no attempt at concealment in
        anything, yet the inquiry would crowd itself upon me.
        “Where are the men?” And as constantly would I be forced to the
        conclusion that Mizora was either a land of mystery beyond the
        scope of the wildest and weirdest fancy, or else they were
        utterly oblivious of such a race. And the last conclusion was
        most improbable of all.

Man, in my country, was a necessity of government, law, and
        protection. His importance, (as I viewed it from inherited
        ideas) was incalculable. It could not be possible that
        he had no existence in a country so eminently adapted to his
        desires and ability.

The expression, “domestic misery,” that the Preceptress made
        use of one day in conversation with me, haunted my imagination
        with a persistent suspicion of mystery. It had a familiar sound
        to me. It intimated knowledge of a world I knew so
        well; where ill-nature, malice, spite, envy, deceit, falsehood
        and dishonesty, made life a continual anxiety.

Locks, bolts and bars shut out the thief who coveted your
        jewels; but no bolts nor bars, however ingeniously constructed
        or strongly made, could keep out the thief who coveted your
        character. One little word from a pretended friend might
        consummate the sorrow of your whole life, and be witnessed by
        the perpetrator without a pang—nay, even with exultation.

There were other miseries I thought of that were common in my
        country. There were those we love. Some who are woven into our
        lives and affections by the kinship of blood; who grow up weak
        and vacillating, and are won away, sometimes through vice, to
        estrangement. Our hearts ache not the less painfully that they
        have ceased to be worthy of a throb; or that they have been weak
        enough to become estranged, to benefit some selfish alien.

There were other sorrows in that world that I had come from,
        that brought anguish alike to the innocent and the guilty. It
        was the sorrow of premature death. Diseases of all kinds made
        lives wretched; or tore them asunder with death. How many hearts
        have ached with cankering pain to see those who are vitally
        dear, wasting away slowly, but surely, with unrelievable
        suffering; and to know that life but prolongs their misery, and
        death relieves it only with inconsolable grief for the
        living.

Who has looked into a pair of youthful eyes, so lovely that
        imagination could not invent for them another charm, and saw the
        misty film of death gather over them, while your heart ached
        with regret as bitter as it was unavailing. The soft snows of
        winter have fallen—a veil of purity—over the new made graves of
        innocence and youth, and its wild winds have been the saddest
        requiem. The dews of summer have wept with your tears, and its
        zephyrs have sighed over the mouldering loveliness of youth.

I had known no skill in my world that could snatch from death
        its unlawful prey of youth. But here, in this land so eminently
        blessed, no one regarded death as a dreaded invader of their
        household.

“We cannot die until we get old,” said Wauna,
        naively.

And looking upon their bounding animal spirits, their strong
        supple frames, and the rich, red blood of perfect health,
        mantling their cheeks with its unsurpassable bloom, one would
        think that disease must have strong grasp indeed that could
        destroy them.

But these were not all the sorrows that my own country knew.
        Crimes, with which we had no personal connection, shocked us
        with their horrible details. They crept, like noxious vapors,
        into the moral atmosphere of the pure and good; tainting the
        weak, and annoying the strong.

There were other sorrows in my country that were more
        deplorable still. It was the fate of those who sought to relieve
        the sufferings of the many by an enforced government reform.
        Misguided, imprudent and fanatical they might be, but their aim
        at least was noble. The wrongs and sufferings of the helpless
        and oppressed had goaded them to action for their relief.

But, alas! The pale and haggard faces of thousands of those
        patriot souls faded and wasted in torturing slowness in dungeons
        of rayless gloom. Or their emaciated and rheumatic frames toiled
        in speechless agony amid the horrors of Siberia’s mines.

In this land they would have been recognized as
        aspiring natures, spreading their wings for a nobler flight,
        seeking a higher and grander life. The smile of beauty would
        have urged them on. Hands innumerable would have given them a
        cordial and encouraging grasp. But in the land they had sought
        to benefit and failed, they suffered in silence and darkness,
        and died forgotten or cursed.

My heart and my brain ached with memory, and the thought
        again occurred: “Could the Preceptress ever have known
        such a race of people?”

I looked at her fair, calm brow, where not a wrinkle marred
        the serene expression of intellect, although I had been told
        that more than a hundred years had touched with increasing
        wisdom its broad surface. The smile that dwelt in her eyes, like
        the mystic sprite in the fountain, had not a suspicion of
        sadness in them. A nature so lofty as hers, where every feeling
        had a generous and noble existence and aim, could not have known
        without anguish the race of people I knew so well.
        Their sorrows would have tinged her life with a continual
        sadness.

The words of Wauna had awakened a new thought. I knew that
        their mental life was far above mine, and that in all the
        relations of life, both business and social, they exhibited a
        refinement never attained by my people. I had supposed these
        qualities to be an endowment of nature, and not a development
        sought and labored for by themselves. But my conversation with
        Wauna had given me a different impression, and the thought of a
        future for my own country took possession of me.

“Could it ever emerge from its horrors, and rise through
        gradual but earnest endeavor to such perfection? Could a higher
        civilization crowd its sufferings out of existence and, in time,
        memory?”

I had never thought of my country having a claim upon me
        other than what I owed to my relatives and society. But in
        Mizora, where the very atmosphere seemed to feed one’s brain
        with grander and nobler ideas of life and humanity, my nature
        had drank the inspiration of good deeds and impulses, and had
        given the desire to work for something beside myself and my own
        kindred. I resolved that if I should ever again behold my native
        country, I would seek the good of all its people along with that
        of my nearest and dearest of kin. But how to do it was a matter
        I could not arrange. I felt reluctant to ask either Wauna or her
        mother. The guileless frankness of Wauna’s nature was an
        impassable barrier to the confidence of crimes and wretchedness.
        One glance of horror from her dark, sweet eyes, would have
        chilled me into painful silence and sorrowful regret.

The mystery that had ever surrounded these lovely and noble
        blonde women had driven me into an unnatural reserve in regard
        to my own people and country. I had always perceived the utter
        absence of my allusion to the masculine gender, and conceiving
        that it must be occasioned by some more than ordinary
        circumstances, I refrained from intruding my curiosity.

That the singular absence of men was connected with nothing
        criminal or ignoble on their part I felt certain; but that it
        was associated with something weird and mysterious I had now
        become convinced. My efforts to discover their whereabouts had
        been earnest and untiring. I had visited a number of their large
        cities, and had enjoyed the hospitality of many private homes. I
        had examined every nook and corner of private and public
        buildings, (for in Mizora nothing ever has locks) and in no
        place had I ever discovered a trace or suggestion of man.

Women and girls were everywhere. Their fair faces and golden
        heads greeted me in every town and city. Sometimes a pair of
        unusually dark blue eyes, like the color of a velvet-leaved
        pansy, looked out from an exquisitely tinted face framed in
        flossy golden hair, startling me with its unnatural loveliness,
        and then I would wonder anew:

“Why is such a paradise for man so entirely devoid of
        him?”

I even endeavored to discover from the conversation of young
        girls some allusion to the male sex. But listen as attentively
        and discreetly as I could, not one allusion did I hear made to
        the mysteriously absent beings. I was astonished that young
        girls, with cheeks like the downy bloom of a ripe peach, should
        chatter and laugh merrily over every conversational topic but
        that of the lords of society. The older and the wiser among
        women might acquire a depreciating idea of their worth, but
        innocent and inexperienced girlhood was apt to surround that
        name with a halo of romance and fancied nobility that the
        reality did not always possess. What, then, was my amazement to
        find them indifferent and wholly neglectful of that (to
        me) very important class of beings.

Conjecture at last exhausted itself, and curiosity became
        indifferent. Mizora, as a nation, or an individual
        representative, was incapable of dishonor. Whatever their secret
        I should make no farther effort to discover it. Their
        hospitality had been generous and unreserved. Their influence
        upon my character—morally—had been an incalculable benefit. I
        had enjoyed being among them. The rhythm of happiness that swept
        like a strain of sweet music through all their daily life,
        touched a chord in my own nature that responded.

And when I contrasted the prosperity of Mizora—a prosperity
        that reached every citizen in its vast territory—with the varied
        phases of life that are found in my own land, it urged me to
        inquire if there could be hope for such happiness within its
        borders.

To the Preceptress, whose sympathies I knew were broad as the
        lap of nature, I at last went with my desire and perplexities. A
        sketch of my country’s condition was the inevitable prelude. I
        gave it without once alluding to the presence of Man. She
        listened quietly and attentively. Her own land lay like a
        charming picture before her. I spoke of its peaceful happiness,
        its perfected refinement, its universal wealth, and paramount to
        all its other blessings, its complete ignorance of social ills.
        With them, love did not confine itself to families, but
        encircled the Nation in one embrace. How dismal, in contrast,
        was the land that had given me birth.

“But one eminent distinction exists among us as a people,” I
        added in conclusion. “We are not all of one race.”

I paused and looked at the Preceptress. She appeared lost in
        reverie. Her expression was one of solicitude and approached
        nearer to actual pain than anything I had ever noticed upon it
        before. She looked up and caught my eye regarding her. Then she
        quietly asked:

“Are there men in your country?”

Part Second.

Chapter I.

I answered in the affirmative, and further added that I had a
        husband and a son.

The effect of a confession so simple, and so natural, wounded
        and amazed me.

The Preceptress started back with a look of loathing and
        abhorrence; but it was almost instantly succeeded by one of
        compassion.

“You have much to learn,” she said gently, “and I desire not
        to judge you harshly. You are the product of a people
        far back in the darkness of civilization. We are a
        people who have passed beyond the boundary of what was once
        called Natural Law. But, more correctly, we have become
        mistresses of Nature’s peculiar processes. We influence or
        control them at will. But before giving you any further
        explanation I will show you the gallery containing the portraits
        of our very ancient ancestors.”

She then conducted me into a remote part of the National
        College, and sliding back a panel containing a magnificent
        painting, she disclosed a long gallery, the existence of which I
        had never suspected, although I knew their custom of using
        ornamented sliding panels instead of doors. Into this I followed
        her with wonder and increasing surprise. Paintings on canvas,
        old and dim with age; paintings on porcelain, and a peculiar
        transparent material, of which I have previously spoken, hung so
        thick upon the wall you could not have placed a hand between
        them. They were all portraits of men. Some were represented in
        the ancient or mediaeval costumes of my own ancestry, and some
        in garbs resembling our modern styles.

Some had noble countenances, and some bore on their painted
        visages the unmistakable stamp of passion and vice. It is not
        complimentary to myself to confess it, but I began to feel an
        odd kind of companionship in this assembly of good and evil
        looking men, such as I had not felt since entering this land of
        pre-eminently noble and lovely women.

As I gazed upon them, arrayed in the armor of some stern
        warrior, or the velvet doublet of some gay cavalier, the dark
        eyes of a debonair knight looked down upon me with familiar
        fellowship. There was pride of birth, and the passion of
        conquest in every line of his haughty, sensuous face. I seemed
        to breathe the same moral atmosphere that had surrounded me in
        the outer world.

They had lived among noble and ignoble deeds I felt
        sure. They had been swayed by conflicting desires.
        They had known temptation and resistance, and reluctant
        compliance. They had experienced the treachery and
        ingratitude of humanity, and had dealt in it themselves.
        They had known joy as I had known it, and their sorrow
        had been as my sorrows. They had loved as I had loved,
        and sinned as I had sinned, and suffered as I had suffered.

I wept for the first time since my entrance into Mizora, the
        bitter tears of actual experience, and endeavored to convey to
        the Preceptress some idea of the painful emotion that possessed
        me.

“I have noticed,” she said, “in your own person and the
        descriptions you have given of your native country, a close
        resemblance to the people and history of our nation in ages far
        remote. These portraits are very old. The majority of them were
        painted many thousands of years ago. It is only by our perfect
        knowledge of color that we are enabled to preserve them. Some
        have been copied by expert artists upon a material manufactured
        by us for that purpose. It is a transparent adamant that
        possesses no refractive power, consequently the picture has all
        the advantage of a painting on canvas, with the addition of
        perpetuity. They can never fade nor decay.”

“I am astonished at the existence of this gallery,” I
        exclaimed. “I have observed a preference for sliding panels
        instead of doors, and that they were often decorated with
        paintings of rare excellence, but I had never suspected the
        existence of this gallery behind one of them.”

“Any student,” said the Preceptress, “who desires to become
        conversant with our earliest history, can use this gallery. It
        is not a secret, for nothing in Mizora is concealed; but we do
        not parade its existence, nor urge upon students an
        investigation of its history. They are so far removed from the
        moral imbecility that dwarfed the nature of these people, that
        no lesson can be learned from their lives; and their time can be
        so much more profitably spent in scientific research and
        study.”

“You have not, then, reached the limits of scientific
        knowledge?” I wonderingly inquired, for, to me, they had already
        overstepped its imaginary pale.

“When we do we shall be able to create intellect at will. We
        govern to a certain extent the development of physical life; but
        the formation of the brain—its intellectual force, or capacity I
        should say—is beyond our immediate skill. Genius is yet the
        product of long cultivation.”

I had observed that dark hair and eyes were as
        indiscriminately mingled in these portraits as I had been
        accustomed to find them in the living people of my own and other
        countries. I drew the Preceptress’ attention to it.

“We believe that the highest excellence of moral and mental
        character is alone attainable by a fair race. The elements of
        evil belong to the dark race.”

“And were the people of this country once of mixed
        complexions?”

“As you see in the portraits? Yes,” was the reply.

“And what became of the dark complexions?”

“We eliminated them.”

I was too astonished to speak and stood gazing upon the
        handsome face of a young man in a plumed hat and lace-frilled
        doublet. The dark eyes had a haughty look, like a man proud of
        his lineage and his sex.

“Let us leave this place,” said the Preceptress presently.
        “It always has a depressing effect upon me.”

“In what way?” I asked.

“By the degradation of the human race that they force me to
        recall.”

I followed her out to a seat on one of the small
        porticoes.

In candidly expressing herself about the dark complexions, my
        companion had no intention or thought of wounding my feelings.
        So rigidly do they adhere to the truth in Mizora that it is of
        all other things pre-eminent, and is never supposed to give
        offense. The Preceptress but gave expression to the belief
        inculcated by centuries of the teachings and practices of her
        ancestors. I was not offended. It was her conviction. Besides, I
        had the consolation of secretly disagreeing with her. I am still
        of the opinion that their admirable system of government, social
        and political, and their encouragement and provision for
        universal culture of so high an order, had more to do with the
        formation of superlative character than the elimination of the
        dark complexion.

The Preceptress remained silent a long time, apparently
        absorbed in the beauty of the landscape that stretched before
        us. The falling waters of a fountain was all the sound we heard.
        The hour was auspicious. I was so eager to develop a revelation
        of the mystery about these people that I became nervous over my
        companion’s protracted silence. I felt a delicacy in pressing
        inquiries concerning information that I thought ought to be
        voluntarily given. Inquisitiveness was regarded as a gross
        rudeness by them, and I could frame no question that I did not
        fear would sound impertinent. But at last patience gave way and,
        at the risk of increasing her commiseration for my barbarous
        mental condition, I asked:

“Are you conversant with the history of the times occupied by
        the originals of the portraits we have just seen?”

“I am,” she replied.

“And would you object to giving me a condensed recital of
        it?”

“Not if it can do you any good?”

“What has become of their descendants—of those
        portraits?”

“They became extinct thousands of years ago.”

She became silent again, lost in reverie. The agitation of my
        mind was not longer endurable. I was too near the acme of
        curiosity to longer delay. I threw reserve aside and not without
        fear and trembling faltered out:

“Where are the men of this country? Where do they stay?”

“There are none,” was the startling reply. “The
        race became extinct three thousand years ago.”

Chapter II.

I trembled at the suggestion of my own thoughts. Was this an
        enchanted country? Where the lovely blonde women fairies—or some
        weird beings of different specie, human only in form? Or was I
        dreaming?

“I do not believe I understand you,” I said. “I never heard
        of a country where there were no men. In my land they are so
        very, very important.”

“Possibly,” was the placid answer.

“And you are really a nation of women?”

“Yes,” she said. “And have been for the last three thousand
        years.”

“Will you tell me how this wonderful change came about?”

“Certainly. But in order to do it, I must go back to our very
        remote ancestry. The civilization that I shall begin with must
        have resembled the present condition of your own country as you
        describe it. Prisons and punishments were prevalent throughout
        the land.”

I inquired how long prisons and places of punishment had been
        abolished in Mizora.

“For more than two thousand years,” she replied. “I have no
        personal knowledge of crime. When I speak of it, it is wholly
        from an historical standpoint. A theft has not been committed in
        this country for many many centuries. And those minor crimes,
        such as envy, jealousy, malice and falsehood, disappeared a long
        time ago. You will not find a citizen in Mizora who possesses
        the slightest trace of any of them.

“Did they exist in earlier times?”

“Yes. Our oldest histories are but records of a succession of
        dramas in which the actors were continually striving for power
        and exercising all of those ancient qualities of mind to obtain
        it. Plots, intrigues, murders and wars, were the active
        employments of the very ancient rulers of our land. As soon as
        death laid its inactivity upon one actor, another took his
        place. It might have continued so; and we might still be
        repeating the old tragedy but for one singular event. In the
        history of your own people you have no doubt observed that the
        very thing plotted, intrigued and labored for, has in
        accomplishment proved the ruin of its projectors. You will
        remark this in the history I am about to relate.

“Main ages ago this country was peopled by two races—male and
        female. The male race were rulers in public and domestic life.
        Their supremacy had come down from pre-historic time, when
        strength of muscle was the only master. Woman was a beast of
        burden. She was regarded as inferior to man, mentally as well as
        physically. This idea prevailed through centuries of the earlier
        civilization, even after enlightenment had brought to her a
        chivalrous regard from men. But this regard was bestowed only
        upon the women of their own household, by the rich and powerful.
        Those women who had not been fortunate enough to have been born
        in such a sphere of life toiled early and late, in sorrow and
        privation, for a mere pittance that was barely sufficient to
        keep the flame of life from going out. Their labor was more
        arduous than men’s, and their wages lighter.

“The government consisted of an aristocracy, a fortunate few,
        who were continually at strife with one another to gain
        supremacy of power, or an acquisition of territory. Wars, famine
        and pestilence were of frequent occurrence. Of the subjects,
        male and female, some had everything to render life a pleasure,
        while others had nothing. Poverty, oppression and wretchedness
        was the lot of the many. Power, wealth and luxury the dower of
        the few.

“Children came into the world undesired even by those who
        were able to rear them, and often after an attempt had been made
        to prevent their coming alive. Consequently numbers of them were
        deformed, not only physically, but mentally. Under these
        conditions life was a misery to the larger part of the human
        race, and to end it by self-destruction was taught by their
        religion to be a crime punishable with eternal torment by
        quenchless fire.

“But a revolution was at hand. Stinted toil rose up, armed
        and wrathful, against opulent oppression. The struggle was long
        and tragical, and was waged with such rancor and desperate
        persistence by the insurrectionists, that their women and
        children began to supply the places vacated by fallen fathers,
        husbands and brothers. It ended in victory for them. They
        demanded a form of government that should be the property of
        all. It was granted, limiting its privileges to adult male
        citizens.

“The first representative government lasted a century. In
        that time civilization had taken an advance far excelling the
        progress made in three centuries previous. So surely does the
        mind crave freedom for its perfect development. The
        consciousness of liberty is an ennobling element in human
        nature. No nation can become universally moral until it is
        absolutely FREE.

“But this first Republic had been diseased from its birth.
        Slavery had existed in certain districts of the nation. It was
        really the remains of a former and more degraded state of
        society which the new government, in the exultation of its own
        triumphant inauguration, neglected or lacked the wisdom to
        remedy. A portion of the country refused to admit slavery within
        its territory, but pledged itself not to interfere with that
        which had. Enmities, however, arose between the two sections,
        which, after years of repression and useless conciliation,
        culminated in another civil war. Slavery had resolved to absorb
        more territory, and the free territory had resolved that it
        should not. The war that followed in consequence severed forever
        the fetters of the slave and was the primary cause of the
        extinction of the male race.

“The inevitable effect of slavery is enervating and
        demoralizing. It is a canker that eats into the vitals of any
        nation that harbors it, no matter what form it assumes. The free
        territory had all the vigor, wealth and capacity for long
        endurance that self-dependence gives. It was in every respect
        prepared for a long and severe struggle. Its forces were
        collected in the name of the united government.

“Considering the marked inequality of the combatants the war
        would necessarily have been of short duration. But political
        corruption had crept into the trust places of the government,
        and unscrupulous politicians and office-seekers saw too many
        opportunities to harvest wealth from a continuation of the war.
        It was to their interest to prolong it, and they did. They
        placed in the most responsible positions of the army, military
        men whose incapacity was well known to them, and sustained them
        there while the country wept its maimed and dying sons.

“The slave territory brought to the front its most capable
        talent. It would have conquered had not the resources against
        which it contended been almost unlimited. Utterly worn out,
        every available means of supply being exhausted, it collapsed
        from internal weakness.

“The general government, in order to satisfy the clamors of
        the distressed and impatient people whose sons were being
        sacrificed, and whose taxes were increasing, to prolong the war
        had kept removing and reinstating military commanders, but
        always of reliable incapacity.

“A man of mediocre intellect and boundless self-conceit
        happened to be the commander-in-chief of the government army
        when the insurrection collapsed. The politicians, whose
        nefarious scheming had prolonged the war, saw their opportunity
        for furthering their own interests by securing his popularity.
        They assumed him to be the greatest military genius that the
        world had ever produced; as evidenced by his success where so
        many others had failed. It was known that he had never risked a
        battle until he was assured that his own soldiers were better
        equipped and outnumbered the enemy. But the politicians asserted
        that such a precaution alone should mark him as an extraordinary
        military genius. The deluded people accepted him as a hero.

“The politicians exhausted their ingenuity in inventing
        honors for him. A new office of special military eminence, with
        a large salary attached, was created for him. He was burdened
        with distinctions and emoluments, always worked by the
        politicians, for their benefit. The nation, following the lead
        of the political leaders, joined in their adulation. It failed
        to perceive the dangerous path that leads to anarchy and
        despotism—the worship of one man. It had unfortunately selected
        one who was cautious and undemonstrative, and who had become
        convinced that he really was the greatest prodigy that the world
        had ever produced.

“He was made President, and then the egotism and narrow
        selfishness of the man began to exhibit itself. He assumed all
        the prerogatives of royalty that his position would permit. He
        elevated his obscure and numerous relatives to responsible
        offices. Large salaries were paid them and intelligent clerks
        hired by the Government to perform their official duties.

“Corruption spread into every department, but the nation was
        blind to its danger. The few who did perceive the weakness and
        presumption of the hero were silenced by popular opinion.

“A second term of office was given him, and then the real
        character of the man began to display itself before the people.
        The whole nature of the man was selfish and stubborn. The
        strongest mental trait possessed by him was cunning.

“His long lease of power and the adulation of his political
        beneficiaries, acting upon a superlative self-conceit, imbued
        him with the belief that he had really rendered his country a
        service so inestimable that it would be impossible for it to
        entirely liquidate it. He exalted to unsuitable public offices
        his most intimate friends. They grew suddenly exclusive and
        aristocratic, forming marriages with eminent families.

“He traveled about the country with his entire family, at the
        expense of the Government, to gradually prepare the people for
        the ostentation of royalty. The cities and towns that he visited
        furnished fetes, illuminations, parades and every variety of
        entertainment that could be thought of or invented for his
        amusement or glorification. Lest the parade might not be
        sufficiently gorgeous or demonstrative he secretly sent agents
        to prepare the programme and size of his reception, always at
        the expense of the city he intended to honor with his
        presence.

“He manifested a strong desire to subvert the will of the
        people to his will. When informed that a measure he had proposed
        was unconstitutional, he requested that the constitution be
        changed. His intimate friends he placed in the most important
        and trustworthy positions under the Government, and protected
        them with the power of his own office.

“Many things that were distasteful and unlawful in a free
        government were flagrantly flaunted in the face of the people,
        and were followed by other slow, but sure, approaches to the
        usurpation of the liberties of the Nation. He urged the
        Government to double his salary as President, and it
        complied.

“There had long existed a class of politicians who secretly
        desired to convert the Republic into an Empire, that they might
        secure greater power and opulence. They had seen in the deluded
        enthusiasm of the people for one man, the opportunity for which
        they had long waited and schemed. He was unscrupulous and
        ambitious, and power had become a necessity to feed the cravings
        of his vanity.

“The Constitution of the country forbade the office of
        President to be occupied by one man for more than two terms. The
        Empire party proposed to amend it, permitting the people to
        elect a President for any number of terms, or for life if they
        choose. They tried to persuade the people that the country owed
        the greatest General of all time so distinctive an honor. They
        even claimed that it was necessary to the preservation of the
        Government; that his popularity could command an army to sustain
        him if he called for it.

“But the people had begun to penetrate the designs of the
        hero, and bitterly denounced his resolution to seek a third term
        of power. The terrible corruptions that had been openly
        protected by him, had advertised him as criminally unfit for so
        responsible an office. But, alas! the people had delayed too
        long. They had taken a young elephant into the palace. They had
        petted and fed him and admired his bulky growth, and now they
        could not remove him without destroying the building.

“The politicians who had managed the Government so long,
        proved that they had more power than the people They succeeded,
        by practices that were common with politicians in those days, in
        getting him nominated for a third term. The people, now
        thoroughly alarmed, began to see their past folly and delusion.
        They made energetic efforts to defeat his election. But they
        were unavailing. The politicians had arranged the ballot, and
        when the counts were published, the hero was declared President
        for life. When too late the deluded people discovered that they
        had helped dig the grave for the corpse of their civil liberty,
        and those who were loyal and had been misled saw it buried with
        unavailing regret. The undeserved popularity bestowed upon a
        narrow and selfish nature had been its ruin. In his inaugural
        address he declared that nothing but the will of the people
        governed him. He had not desired the office; public life was
        distasteful to him, yet he was willing to sacrifice himself for
        the good of his country.

“Had the people been less enlightened, they might have
        yielded without a murmur; but they had enjoyed too long the
        privileges of a free Government to see it usurped without a
        struggle. Tumult and disorder prevailed over the country.
        Soldiers were called out to protect the new Government, but
        numbers of them refused to obey. The consequence was they fought
        among themselves. A dissolution of the Government was the
        result. The General they had lauded so greatly failed to bring
        order out of chaos; and the schemers who had foisted him into
        power, now turned upon him with the fury of treacherous natures
        when foiled of their prey. Innumerable factions sprung up all
        over the land, each with a leader ambitious and hopeful of
        subduing the whole to his rule. They fought until the
        extermination of the race became imminent, when a new and
        unsuspected power arose and mastered.

“The female portion of the nation had never had a share in
        the Government. Their privileges were only what the chivalry or
        kindness of the men permitted. In law, their rights were greatly
        inferior. The evils of anarchy fell with direct effect upon
        them. At first, they organized for mutual protection from the
        lawlessness that prevailed. The organizations grew, united and
        developed into military power. They used their power wisely,
        discreetly, and effectively. With consummate skill and energy
        they gathered the reins of Government in their own hands.

“Their first aim had been only to force the country into
        peace. The anarchy that reigned had demoralized society, and
        they had suffered most. They had long pleaded for an equality of
        citizenship with men, but had pleaded in vain. They now
        remembered it, and resolved to keep the Government that their
        wisdom and power had restored. They had been hampered in
        educational progress. Colleges and all avenues to higher
        intellectual development had been rigorously closed against
        them. The professional pursuits of life were denied them. But a
        few, with sublime courage and energy, had forced their way into
        them amid the revilings of some of their own sex and opposition
        of the men. It was these brave spirits who had earned their
        liberal cultivation with so much difficulty, that had organized
        and directed the new power. They generously offered to form a
        Government that should be the property of all intelligent adult
        citizens, not criminal.

“But these wise women were a small minority. The majority
        were ruled by the remembrance of past injustice. They
        were now the power, and declared their intention to hold the
        Government for a century.

“They formed a Republic, in which they remedied many of the
        defects that had marred the Republic of men. They constituted
        the Nation an integer which could never be disintegrated by
        States’ Rights ideas or the assumption of State sovereignty.

“They proposed a code of laws for the home government of the
        States, which every State in the Union ratified as their State
        Constitution, thus making a uniformity and strength that the
        Republic of men had never known or suspected attainable.

“They made it a law of every State that criminals could be
        arrested in any State they might flee to, without legal
        authority, other than that obtained in the vicinity of the
        crime. They made a law that criminals, tried and convicted of
        crime, could not be pardoned without the sanction of
        seventy-five out of one hundred educated and disinterested
        people, who should weigh the testimony and render their decision
        under oath. It is scarcely necessary to add that few criminals
        ever were pardoned. It removed from the office of Governor the
        responsibility of pardoning, or rejecting pardons as a purely
        personal privilege. It abolished the power of rich criminals to
        bribe their escape from justice; a practice that had secretly
        existed in the former Republic.

“In forming their Government, the women, who were its
        founders, profited largely by the mistakes or wisdom displayed
        in the Government of men. Neither the General Government, nor
        the State Government, could be independent of the other. A law
        of the Union could not become such until ratified by every State
        Legislature. A State law could not become constitutional until
        ratified by Congress.

“In forming the State Constitutions, laws were selected from
        the different State Constitutions that had proven wise for State
        Government during the former Republic. In the Republic of men,
        each State had made and ratified its own laws, independent of
        the General Government. The consequence was, no two States
        possessed similar laws.

“To secure strength and avoid confusion was the aim of the
        founders of the new Government. The Constitution of the National
        Government provided for the exclusion of the male sex from all
        affairs and privileges for a period of one hundred years.

“At the end of that time not a representative of the sex
        was in existence.”

Chapter III.

I expressed my astonishment at her revelation. Their social
        life existed under conditions that were incredible to me. Would
        it be an impertinence to ask for an explanation that I might
        comprehend? Or was it really the one secret they possessed and
        guarded from discovery, a mystery that must forever surround
        them with a halo of doubt, the suggestion of uncanny power? I
        spoke as deprecatingly as I could. The Preceptress turned upon
        me a calm but penetrating gaze.

“Have we impressed you as a mysterious people?” she
        asked.

“Very, very much!” I exclaimed. “I have at times been
        oppressed by it.”

“You never mentioned it,” she said, kindly.

“I could not find an opportunity to,” I said.

“It is the custom in Mizora, as you have no doubt observed,
        never to make domestic affairs a topic of conversation outside
        of the family, the only ones who would be interested in them;
        and this refinement has kept you from the solution of our social
        system. I have no hesitancy in gratifying your wish to
        comprehend it. The best way to do it is to let history lead up
        to it, if you have the patience to listen.”

I assured her that I was anxious to hear all she chose to
        tell. She then resumed:

“The prosperity of the country rapidly increased under the
        rule of the female Presidents. The majority of them were in
        favor of a high state of morality, and they enforced it by law
        and practice. The arts and sciences were liberally encouraged
        and made rapid advancement. Colleges and schools flourished
        vigorously, and every branch of education was now open to
        women.

“During the Republic of men, the government had founded and
        sustained a military and naval academy, where a limited number
        of the youth of the country were educated at government expense.
        The female government re-organized the institutions,
        substituting the youth of their own sex. They also founded an
        academy of science, which was supplied with every facility for
        investigation and progress. None but those having a marked
        predilection for scientific research could obtain admission, and
        then it was accorded to demonstrated ability only. This drew to
        the college the best female talent in the country. The number of
        applicants was not limited.

“Science had hitherto been, save by a very few, an
        untrodden field to women, but the encouragement and rare
        facilities offered soon revealed latent talent that developed
        rapidly. Scarcely half a century had elapsed before the pupils
        of the college had effected by their discoveries some remarkable
        changes in living, especially in the prevention and cure of
        diseases.

“However prosperous they might become, they could not dwell
        in political security with a portion of the citizens
        disfranchised. The men were resolved to secure their former
        power. Intrigues and plots against the government were
        constantly in force among them. In order to avert another civil
        war, it was finally decided to amend the constitution, and give
        them an equal share in the ballot. They had no sooner obtained
        that than the old practices of the former Republic were resorted
        to to secure their supremacy in government affairs. The women
        looked forward to their former subjugation as only a matter of
        time, and bitterly regretted their inability to prevent it. But
        at the crisis, a prominent scientist proposed to let the race
        die out. Science had revealed the Secret of Life.”

She ceased speaking, as though I fully understood her.

“I am more bewildered than ever,” I exclaimed. “I cannot
        comprehend you.”

“Come with me,” she said.

I followed her into the Chemist’s Laboratory. She bade me
        look into a microscope that she designated, and tell her what I
        saw.

“An exquisitely minute cell in violent motion,” I
        answered.

“Daughter,” she said, solemnly, “you are now looking upon the
        germ of all Life, be it animal or vegetable, a flower
        or a human being, it has that one common beginning. We have
        advanced far enough in Science to control its development. Know
        that the MOTHER is the only important part of all life. In the
        lowest organisms no other sex is apparent.”

I sat down and looked at my companion in a frame of mind not
        easily described. There was an intellectual grandeur in her look
        and mien that was impressive. Truth sat, like a coronet, upon
        her brow. The revelation I had so longed for, I now almost
        regretted. It separated me so far from these beautiful,
        companionable beings.

“Science has instructed you how to supercede Nature,” I said,
        finally.

“By no means. It has only taught us how to make her obey us.
        We cannot create Life. We cannot develop it. But we can
        control Nature’s processes of development as we will. Can you
        deprecate such a power? Would not your own land be happier
        without idiots, without lunatics, without deformity and
        disease?”

“You will give me little hope of any radical change in my own
        lifetime when I inform you that deformity, if extraordinary,
        becomes a source of revenue to its possessor.”

“All reforms are of slow growth,” she said. “The moral life
        is the highest development of Nature. It is evolved by the same
        slow processes, and like the lower life, its succeeding forms
        are always higher ones. Its ultimate perfection will be mind,
        where all happiness shall dwell, where pleasure shall find
        fruition, and desire its ecstasy.

“It is the duty of every generation to prepare the way for a
        higher development of the next, as we see demonstrated by Nature
        in the fossilized remains of long extinct animal life, a
        preparatory condition for a higher form in the next evolution.
        If you do not enjoy the fruit of your labor in your own
        lifetime, the generation that follows you will be the happier
        for it. Be not so selfish as to think only of your own narrow
        span of life.”

“By what means have you reached so grand a development?” I
        asked.

“By the careful study of, and adherence to, Nature’s laws. It
        was long years—I should say centuries—before the influence of
        the coarser nature of men was eliminated from the present
        race.

“We devote the most careful attention to the Mothers of our
        race. No retarding mental or moral influences are ever permitted
        to reach her. On the contrary, the most agreeable contacts with
        nature, all that can cheer and ennoble in art or music surround
        her. She is an object of interest and tenderness to all who meet
        her. Guarded from unwholesome agitation, furnished with
        nourishing and proper diet—both mental and physical—the child of
        a Mizora mother is always an improvement upon herself. With us,
        childhood has no sorrows. We believe, and the present condition
        of our race proves, that a being environed from its birth with
        none but elevating influences, will grow up amiable and
        intelligent though inheriting unfavorable tendencies.

“On this principle we have ennobled our race and discovered
        the means of prolonging life and youthful loveliness far beyond
        the limits known by our ancestors.

“Temptation and necessity will often degrade a nature
        naturally inclined and desirous to be noble. We early recognized
        this fact, and that a nature once debased by crime would
        transmit it to posterity. For this reason we never permitted a
        convict to have posterity.”

“But how have you become so beautiful?” I asked. “For, in all
        my journeys, I have not met an uncomely face or form. On the
        contrary, all the Mizora women have perfect bodies and lovely
        features.”

“We follow the gentle guidance of our mother, Nature. Good
        air and judicious exercise for generations and generations
        before us have helped. Our ancestors knew the influence of art,
        sculpture, painting and music, which they were trained to
        appreciate.”

“But has not nature been a little generous to you?” I
        inquired.

“Not more so than she will be to any people who follow her
        laws. When you first came here you had an idea that you could
        improve nature by crowding your lungs and digestive organs into
        a smaller space than she, the maker of them, intended them to
        occupy.

“If you construct an engine, and then cram it into a box so
        narrow and tight that it cannot move, and then crowd on the
        motive power, what would you expect?

“Beautiful as you think my people, and as they really are,
        yet, by disregarding nature’s laws, or trying to thwart her
        intentions, in a few generations to come, perhaps even in the
        next, we could have coarse features and complexions, stoop
        shoulders and deformity.

“It has required patience, observation and care on the part
        of our ancestors to secure to us the priceless heritage of
        health and perfect bodies. Your people can acquire them by the
        same means.”

Chapter IV.

As to Physical causes, I am inclined to doubt altogether of
        their operation in this particular; nor do I think that men owe
        anything of their temper or genius to the air, food, or
        climate.—Bacon.

I listened with the keenest interest to this curious and
        instructive history; and when the Preceptress had ceased
        speaking. I expressed my gratitude for her kindness. There were
        many things about which I desired information, but particularly
        their method of eradicating disease and crime. These two evils
        were the prominent afflictions of all the civilized nations I
        knew. I believed that I could comprehend enough of their method
        of extirpation to benefit my own country. Would she kindly give
        it?

“I shall take Disease first,” she said, “as it is a near
        relative of Crime. You look surprised. You have known life-long
        and incurable invalids who were not criminals. But go to the
        squalid portion of any of your large cities, where Poverty and
        Disease go hand in hand, where the child receives its life and
        its first nourishment from a haggard and discontented mother.
        Starvation is her daily dread. The little tendernesses that make
        home the haven of the heart, are never known to her. Ill-fed,
        ill-clothed, ill-cherished, all that might be refined
        and elevated in her nature, if properly cultivated, is choked
        into starveling shapes by her enemy—Want.

“If you have any knowledge of nature, ask yourself if such a
        condition of birth and infancy is likely to produce a noble,
        healthy human being? Do your agriculturists expect a stunted,
        neglected tree to produce rare and luscious fruit?”

I was surprised at the Preceptress’ graphic description of
        wretchedness, so familiar to all the civilized nations that I
        knew, and asked:

“Did such a state of society ever exist in this country?”

“Ages ago it was as marked a social condition of this land as
        it is of your own to-day. The first great move toward
        eradicating disease was in providing clean and wholesome food
        for the masses. It required the utmost rigor of the law to
        destroy the pernicious practice of adulteration. The next
        endeavor was to crowd poverty out of the land. In order to do
        this the Labor question came first under discussion, and
        resulted in the establishment in every state of a Board of
        Arbitration that fixed the price of labor on a per cent, of the
        profits of the business. Public and private charities were
        forbidden by law as having an immoral influence upon society.
        Charitable institutions had long been numerous and fashionable,
        and many persons engaged in them as much for their own benefit
        as that of the poor. It was not always the honest and benevolent
        ones who became treasurers, nor were the funds always
        distributed among the needy and destitute, or those whom they
        were collected for. The law put a stop to the possibility of
        such frauds, and of professional impostors seeking alms. Those
        who needed assistance were supplied with work—respectable,
        independent work—furnished by the city or town in which they
        resided. A love of industry, its dignity and independence, was
        carefully instilled into every young mind. There is no country
        but what ought to provide for everyone of its citizens a
        comfortable, if not luxurious, home by humane legislation on the
        labor question.

“The penitentiaries were reconstructed by the female
        government. One half the time formerly allotted to labor was
        employed in compulsory education. Industrial schools were
        established in every State, where all the mechanical employments
        were taught free. Objects of charity were sent there and
        compelled to become self supporting. These industrial schools
        finally became State Colleges, where are taught, free, all the
        known branches of knowledge, intellectual and mechanical.

“Pauperism disappeared before the wide reaching influence of
        these industrial schools, but universal affluence had not come.
        It could not exist until education had become universal.

“With this object in view, the Government forbade the
        employment of any citizen under the age of twenty-one, and
        compelled their attendance at school up to that time. At the
        same time a law was passed that authorized the furnishing of all
        school-room necessaries out of the public funds. If a higher
        education were desired the State Colleges furnished it free of
        all expenses contingent.

“All of these measures had a marked influence in improving
        the condition of society, but not all that was required. The
        necessity for strict sanitary laws became obvious. Cities and
        towns and even farms were visited, and everything that could
        breed malaria, or produce impure air, was compelled to be
        removed. Personal and household cleanliness at last became an
        object of public interest, and inspectors were appointed who
        visited families and reported the condition of their homes. All
        kinds of out-door sports and athletic exercises were encouraged
        and became fashionable.

“All of these things combined, made a great improvement in
        the health and vigor of our race, but still hereditary diseases
        lingered.

“There were many so enfeebled by hereditary disease they had
        not enough energy to seek recuperation, and died, leaving
        offspring as wretched, who in turn followed their parents’
        example.

“Statistics were compiled, and physician’s reports
        circulated, until a law was passed prohibiting the perpetuity of
        diseased offspring. But, although disease became less prevalent,
        it did not entirely disappear. The law could only reach the most
        deplorable afflictions, and was eventually repealed.

“As the science of therapeutics advanced, all
        diseases—whether hereditary or acquired—were found to be
        associated with abnormal conditions of the blood. A microscopic
        examination of a drop of blood enabled the scientist to
        determine the character and intensity of any disease, and at
        last to effect its elimination from the system.

“The blood is the primal element of the body. It feeds the
        flesh, the nerves, the muscles, the brain. Disease cannot exist
        when it is in a natural condition. Countless experiments have
        determined the exact properties of healthy blood and how to
        produce it. By the use of this knowledge we have eliminated
        hereditary diseases, and developed into a healthy and moral
        people. For people universally healthy is sure of being moral.
        Necessity begets crime. It is the wants of the ignorant
        and debased that suggests theft. It is a diseased fancy, or a
        mind ignorant of the laws that govern the development of human
        nature, that could attribute to offspring hated before birth:
        infancy and childhood neglected; starved, ill-used in every way,
        a disposition and character, amiable and humane and likely to
        become worthy members of society. The reverse is almost
        inevitable. Human nature relapses into the lower and baser
        instincts of its earlier existence, when neglected, ill-used and
        ignorant. All of those lovely traits of character which
        excite the enthusiast, such as gratitude, honor, charity are the
        results of education only. They are not the natural instincts of
        the human mind, but the cultivated ones.

“The most rigid laws were passed in regard to the practice of
        medicine. No physician could become a practitioner until
        examined and authorized to do so by the State Medical College.
        In order to prevent favoritism, or the furnishing of diplomas to
        incompetent applicants, enormous penalties were incurred by any
        who would sign such. The profession long ago became extinct.
        Every mother is a family physician. That is, she obeys the laws
        of nature in regard to herself and her children, and they never
        need a doctor.

“Having become healthy and independent of charity, crime
        began to decrease naturally. The conditions that had bred and
        fostered petty crimes having ceased to exist, the natures that
        had inherited them rose above their influence in a few
        generations, and left honorable posterity.

“But crime in its grossest form is an ineradicable hereditary
        taint. Generation after generation may rise and disappear in a
        family once tainted with it, without displaying it, and then in
        a most unexpected manner it will spring up in some descendant,
        violent and unconquerable.

“We tried to eliminate it as we had disease, but failed. It
        was an inherited molecular structure of the brain. Science could
        not reconstruct it. The only remedy was annihilation. Criminals
        had no posterity.”

“I am surprised,” I interrupted, “that possessing the power
        to control the development of the body, you should not do so
        with the mind.”

“If we could we would produce genius that could discover the
        source of all life. We can control Cause and Effect, but we
        cannot create Cause. We do not even know its origin. What the
        perfume is to the flower, the intellect is to the body; a secret
        that Nature keeps to herself. For a thousand years our greatest
        minds have sought to discover its source, and we are as far from
        it to-day as we were a thousand years ago.”

“How then have you obtained your mental superiority?” I
        inquired.

“By securing to our offspring perfect, physical and mental
        health. Science has taught us how to evolve intellect by
        following demonstrated laws. I put a seed into the ground and it
        comes up a little green slip, that eventually becomes a tree.
        When I planted the seed in congenial soil, and watered and
        tended the slip, I assisted Nature. But I did not create the
        seed nor supply the force that made it develop into a tree, nor
        can I define that force.”

“What has produced the exquisite refinement of your
        people?”

“Like everything else, it is the result of gradual
        development aiming at higher improvement. By following strictly
        the laws that govern the evolution of life, we control the
        formation of the body and brain. Strong mental traits become
        intensified by cultivation from generation to generation and
        finally culminate in one glorious outburst of power, called
        Genius. But there is one peculiarity about mind. It resembles
        that wonderful century plant which, after decades of developing,
        flowers and dies. Genius is the long unfolding bloom of mind,
        and leaves no posterity. We carefully prepare for the future
        development of Genius. We know that our children will be neither
        deformed nor imbecile, but we watch the unfolding of their
        intellects with the interest of a new revelation. We guide them
        with the greatest care.

“I could take a child of your people with inherited weakness
        of body and mind. I should rear it on proper food and
        exercise—both mental and physical—and it would have, when
        matured, a marked superiority to its parents. It is not what
        Nature has done for us, it is what we have done for her, that
        makes us a race of superior people.”

“The qualities of mind that are the general feature of your
        people,” I remarked, “are so very high, higher than our estimate
        of Genius. How was it arrived at?”

“By the processes I have just explained. Genius is always a
        leader. A genius with us has a subtlety of thought and
        perception beyond your power of appreciation. All organized
        social bodies move intellectually in a mass, with their leader
        just ahead of them.”

“I have visited, as a guest, a number of your families, and
        found their homes adorned with paintings and sculpture that
        would excite wondering admiration in my own land as rare works
        of art, but here they are only the expression of family taste
        and culture. Is that a quality of intellect that has been
        evolved, or is it a natural endowment of your race?”

“It is not an endowment, but has been arrived at by the same
        process of careful cultivation. Do you see in those ancient
        portraits a variety of striking colors? There is not a
        suggestion of harmony in any of them. On the contrary, they all
        display violent contrasts of color. The originals of them trod
        this land thousands of years ago. Many of the colors, we know,
        were unknown to them. Color is a faculty of the mind that is
        wholly the result of culture. In the early ages of society, it
        was known only in the coarsest and most brilliant hues. A
        conception and appreciation of delicate harmonies in color is
        evidence of a superior and refined mentality. If you will notice
        it, the illiterate of your own land have no taste for or idea of
        the harmony of color. It is the same with sound. The higher we
        rise in culture, the more difficult we are to please in music.
        Our taste becomes critical.”

I had been revolving some things in my mind while the
        Preceptress was speaking, and I now ventured to express them. I
        said:

“You tell me that generations will come and go before a
        marked change can occur in a people. What good then would it do
        me or mine to study and labor and investigate in or to teach my
        people how to improve? They can not comprehend progress. They
        have not learned by contact, as I have in Mizora, how to
        appreciate it. I should only waste life and happiness in trying
        to persuade them to get out of the ruts they have traveled so
        long; they think there are no other roads. I should be reviled,
        and perhaps persecuted. My doctrines would be called visionary
        and impracticable. I think I had better use my knowledge for my
        own kindred, and let the rest of the world find out the best way
        it can.”

The Preceptress looked at me with mild severity. I never
        before had seen so near an approach to rebuke in her grand
        eyes.

“What a barbarous, barbarous idea!” she exclaimed. “Your
        country will never rise above its ignorance and degradation,
        until out of its mental agony shall be evolved a nature kindled
        with an ambition that burns for Humanity instead of self. It
        will be the nucleus round which will gather the timid but
        anxious, and then will be lighted that fire which no
        waters can quench. It burns for the liberty of thought. Let
        human nature once feel the warmth of its beacon fires, and it
        will march onward, defying all obstacles, braving all perils
        till it be won. Human nature is ever reaching for the
        unattained. It is that little spark within us that has an
        undying life. When we can no longer use it, it flies
        elsewhere.”

Chapter V.

I had long contemplated a trip to the extreme southern
        boundary of Mizora. I had often inquired about it, and had
        always been answered that it was defined by an impassable ocean.
        I had asked them to describe it to me, for the Mizora people
        have a happy faculty of employing tersely expressive language
        when necessary; but I was always met with the surprising answer
        that no tongue in Mizora was eloquent enough to portray the
        wonders that bounded Mizora on the south. So I requested the
        Preceptress to permit Wauna to accompany me as a guide and
        companion; a request she readily complied with.

“Will you be afraid or uneasy about trusting her on so long a
        journey with no companion or protector but me?” I asked.

The Preceptress smiled at my question.

“Why should I be afraid, when in all the length and breadth
        of our land there is no evil to befall her, or you either.
        Strangers are friends in Mizora, in one sense of the word, when
        they meet. You will both travel as though among time endeared
        associates. You will receive every attention, courtesy and
        kindness that would be bestowed upon near and intimate
        acquaintances. No, in this land, mothers do not fear to send
        their daughters alone and unrecommended among strangers.”

When speed was required, the people of Mizora traveled
        altogether by air ships. But when the pleasure of landscape
        viewing, and the delight and exhilaration of easy progress is
        desired, they use either railroad cars or carriages.

Wauna and I selected an easy and commodious carriage. It was
        propelled by compressed air, which Wauna said could be obtained
        whenever we needed a new supply at any village or country
        seat.

Throughout the length and breadth of Mizora the roads were
        artificially made. Cities, towns, and villages were provided
        with paved streets, which the public authorities kept in a
        condition of perfect cleanliness. The absence of all kinds of
        animals rendered this comparatively easy. In alluding to this
        once in the presence of the Preceptress, she startled me by the
        request that I should suggest to my people the advantage to be
        derived from substituting machinery for animal labor.

“The association of animals is degrading,” she asserted. “And
        you, who still live by tilling the soil, will find a marked
        change economically in dispensing with your beasts of burden.
        Fully four-fifths that you raise on your farms is required to
        feed your domestic animals. If your agriculture was devoted
        entirely to human food, it would make it more plentiful for the
        poor.”

I did not like to tell her that I knew many wealthy people
        who housed and fed their domestic animals better than they did
        their tenants. She would have been disgusted with such a state
        of barbarism.

Country roads in Mizora were usually covered with a cement
        that was prepared from pulverized granite. They were very
        durable and very hard. Owing to their solidity, they were not as
        agreeable for driving as another kind of cement they
        manufactured. I have previously spoken of the peculiar style of
        wheel that was used on all kinds of light conveyances in Mizora,
        and rendered their progress over any road the very luxury of
        motion.

In our journey, Wauna took me to a number of factories, where
        the wonderful progress they had made in science continually
        surprised and delighted me. The spider and the silkworm had
        yielded their secret to these indefatigable searchers into
        nature’s mysteries. They could spin a thread of gossamer, or of
        silk from their chemicals, of any width and length, and with a
        rapidity that was magical. Like everything else of that nature
        in Mizora, these discoveries had been purchased by the
        Government, and then made known to all.

They also manufactured ivory that I could not tell from the
        real article. I have previously spoken of their success in
        producing various kinds of marble and stone. A beautiful table
        that I saw made out of artificial ivory, had a painting upon the
        top of it. A deep border, composed of delicate, convoluted
        shells, extended round the top of the table and formed the
        shores of a mimic ocean, with coral reefs and tiny islands, and
        tangled sea-weeds and shining fishes sporting about in the
        pellucid water. The surface was of highly polished smoothness,
        and I was informed that the picture was not a painting
        but was formed of colored particles of ivory that had been
        worked in before the drying or solidifying process had been
        applied. In the same way they formed main beautiful combinations
        of marbles. The magnificent marble columns that supported the
        portico of my friend’s house were all of artificial make. The
        delicate green leaves and creeping vines of ivy, rose, and
        eglantine, with their spray-like blossoms, were colored in the
        manufacturing process and chiseled out of the solid marble by
        the skillful hand of the artist.

It would be difficult for me to even enumerate all the
        beautiful arts and productions of arts that I saw in Mizora. Our
        journey was full of incidents of this kind.

Every city and town that we visited was like the introduction
        of a new picture. There was no sameness between any of them.
        Each had aimed at picturesqueness or stately magnificence, and
        neither had failed to obtain it. Looking back as I now do upon
        Mizora, it presents itself to me as a vast and almost limitless
        landscape, variegated with grand cities, lovely towns and
        villages, majestic hills and mountains crowned with glittering
        snows, or deep, delightful valleys veiled in scented vines.

Kindness, cordiality and courtesy met us on every side. It
        was at first quite novel for me to mingle among previously
        unheard-of people with such sociability, but I did as Wauna did,
        and I found it not only convenient but quite agreeable.

“I am the daughter of the Preceptress of the National
        College,” said Wauna; and that was the way she introduced
        herself.

I noticed with what honor and high esteem the name of the
        Preceptress was regarded. As soon as it was known that the
        daughter of the Preceptress had arrived, the citizens of
        whatever city we had stopped in hastened to extend to her every
        courtesy and favor possible for them to bestow. She was the
        daughter of the woman who held the highest and most enviable
        position in the Nation. A position that only great intellect
        could secure in that country.

As we neared the goal of our journey, I noticed an increasing
        warmth of the atmosphere, and my ears were soon greeted with a
        deep, reverberating roar like continuous thunder. I have seen
        and heard Niagara, but a thousand Niagaras could not equal that
        deafening sound. The heat became oppressive. The light also from
        a cause of which I shall soon speak.

We ascended a promontory that jutted out from the main land a
        quarter of a mile, perhaps more. Wauna conducted me to the edge
        of the cliff and told me to look down. An ocean of whirlpools
        was before us. The maddened dashing and thundering of the mighty
        waters, and the awe they inspired no words can paint. Across
        such an abyss of terrors it was certain no vessel could sail. We
        took our glasses and scanned the opposite shore, which appeared
        to be a vast cataract as though the ocean was pouring over a
        precipice of rock. Wauna informed me that where the shore was
        visible it was a perpendicular wall of smooth rock.

Over head an arc of fire spanned the zenith from which
        depended curtains of rainbows waving and fluttering, folding and
        floating out again with a rapid and incessant motion. I asked
        Wauna why they had not crossed in air-ships, and she said they
        had tried it often but had always failed.

“In former times,” she said, “when air-ships first came into
        use it was frequently attempted, but no voyager ever returned.
        We have long since abandoned the attempt, for now we know it to
        be impossible.”

I looked again at that display of uncontrollable power. As I
        gazed it seemed to me I would be drawn down by the resistless
        fascination of terror. I grasped Wauna and she gently turned my
        face to the smiling landscape behind us. Hills and valleys, and
        sparkling cities veiled in foliage, with their numberless parks
        and fountains and statues sleeping in the soft light, gleaming
        lakes and wandering rivers that glittered and danced in the
        glorious atmosphere like prisoned sunbeams, greeted us like the
        alluring smile of love, and yet, for the first time since
        entering this lovely land, I felt myself a prisoner. Behind me
        was an impassable barrier. Before me, far beyond this gleaming
        vision of enchantment, lay another road whose privations and
        dangers I dreaded to attempt.

I felt as a bird might feel who has been brought from the
        free expanse of its wild forest-home, and placed in a golden
        cage where it drinks from a jeweled cup and eats daintier food
        than it could obtain in its own rude haunts. It pines for that
        precarious life; its very dangers and privations fill its breast
        with desire. I began to long with unutterable impatience to see
        once more the wild, rough scenes of my own nativity. Memory
        began to recall them with softening touches. My heart yearned
        for my own; debased as compared with Mizora though they be,
        there was the congeniality of blood between us. I longed to see
        my own little one whose dimpled hands I had unclasped from my
        neck in that agonized parting. Whenever I saw a Mizora mother
        fondling her babe, my heart leapt with quick desire to once more
        hold my own in such loving embrace. The mothers of Mizora have a
        devotional love for their children. Their smiles and prattle and
        baby wishes are listened to with loving tenderness, and treated
        as matters of importance.

I was sitting beside a Mizora mother one evening, listening
        to some singing that I truly thought no earthly melody could
        surpass. I asked the lady if ever she had heard anything
        sweeter, and she answered, earnestly:

“Yes, the voices of my own children.”

On our homeward journey, Wauna took me to a lake from the
        center of which we could see, with our glasses, a green island
        rising high above the water like an emerald in a silver
        setting.

“That,” said Wauna, directing my attention to it, “is the
        last vestige of a prison left in Mizora. Would you like to visit
        it?”

I expressed an eager willingness to behold so curious a
        sight, and getting into a small pleasure boat, we started toward
        it. Boats are propelled in Mizora either by electricity or
        compressed air, and glide through the water with soundless
        swiftness.

As we neared the island I could perceive the mingling of
        natural and artificial attractions. We moored our boat at the
        foot of a flight of steps, hewn from the solid rock. On reaching
        the top, the scene spread out like a beautiful painting.
        Grottos, fountains, and cascades, winding walks and vine-covered
        bowers charmed us as we wandered about. In the center stood a
        medium-sized residence of white marble. We entered through a
        door opening on a wide piazza. Art and wealth and taste had
        adorned the interior with a generous hand. A library studded
        with books closely shut behind glass doors had a wide window
        that commanded an enchanting view of the lake, with its rippling
        waters sparkling and dimpling in the light. On one side of the
        mantelpiece hung a full length portrait of a lady, painted with
        startling naturalness.

“That,” said Wauna, solemnly, “was the last prisoner in
        Mizora.”

I looked with interested curiosity at a relic so curious in
        this land. It was a blonde woman with lighter colored eyes than
        is at all common in Mizora. Her long, blonde hair hung straight
        and unconfined over a dress of thick, white material. Her
        attitude and expression were dejected and sorrowful. I had
        visited prisons in my own land where red-handed murder sat
        smiling with indifference. I had read in newspapers, labored
        eloquence that described the stoicism of some hardened criminal
        as a trait of character to be admired. I had read descriptions
        where mistaken eloquence exerted itself to waken sympathy for a
        criminal who had never felt sympathy for his helpless and
        innocent victims, and I had felt nothing but creeping horror for
        it all. But gazing at this picture of undeniable repentance,
        tears of sympathy started to my eyes. Had she been guilty of
        taking a fellow-creature’s life?

“Is she still living?” I asked by way of a preface.

“Oh, no, she has been dead for more than a century,” answered
        Wauna.

“Was she confined here very long?”

“For life,” was the reply.

“I should not believe,” I said, “that a nature capable of so
        deep a repentance could be capable of so dark a crime as
        murder.”

“Murder!” exclaimed Wauna in horror. “There has not been a
        murder committed in this land for three thousand years.”

It was my turn to be astonished.

“Then tell me what dreadful crime she committed.”

“She struck her child,” said Wauna, sadly; “her little
        innocent, helpless child that Nature gave her to love and
        cherish, and make noble and useful and happy.”

“Did she inflict a permanent injury?” I asked, with increased
        astonishment at this new phase of refinement in the Mizora
        character.

“No one can tell the amount of injury a blow does to a child.
        It may immediately show an obvious physical one; it may later
        develop a mental one. It may never seem to have injured it at
        all, and yet it may have shocked a sensitive nature and injured
        it permanently. Crime is evolved from perverted natures, and
        natures become perverted from ill-usage. It merges into a
        peculiar structure of the brain that becomes hereditary.”

“What became of the prisoner’s child?”

“It was adopted by a young lady who had just graduated at the
        State College of the State in which the mother resided. It was
        only five years old, and its mother’s name was never mentioned
        to it or to anyone else. Long before that, the press had
        abolished the practice of giving any prominence to crime. That
        pernicious eloquence that in uncivilized ages had helped to
        nourish crime by a maudlin sympathy for the criminal, had ceased
        to exist. The young lady called the child daughter, and it
        called her mother.”

“Did the real mother never want to see her child?”

“That is said to be a true picture of her,” said Wauna; “and
        who can look at it and not see sorrow and remorse.”

“How could you be so stern?” I asked, in wondering
        astonishment.

“Pity has nothing to do with crime,” said Wauna, firmly. “You
        must look to humanity, and not to the sympathy one person
        excites when you are aiding enlightenment. That woman wandered
        about these beautiful grounds, or sat in this elegant home a
        lonely and unsympathized-with prisoner. She was furnished with
        books, magazines and papers, and every physical comfort.
        Sympathy for her lot was never offered her. Childhood is
        regarded by my people as the only period of life that is capable
        of knowing perfect happiness, and among us it is a crime greater
        than the heinousness of murder in your country, to deprive a
        human being of its childhood—in which cluster the only unalloyed
        sweets of life.

“A human being who remembers only pain, rebukes treatment in
        childhood, has lost the very flavor of existence, and the person
        who destroyed it is a criminal indeed.”

Chapter VI.

There was one peculiarity about Mizora that I noticed soon
        after my arrival, but for various reasons have refrained from
        speaking of before now. It was the absence of houses devoted to
        religious worship.

In architecture Mizora displayed the highest perfection.
        Their colleges, art galleries, public libraries, opera houses,
        and all their public buildings were grand and beautiful. Never
        in any country, had I beheld such splendor in design and
        execution. Their superior skill in this respect, led me to
        believe that their temples of worship must be on a scale of
        magnificence beyond all my conceiving. I was eager to behold
        them. I looked often upon my first journeyings about their
        cities to discover them, but whenever I noticed an unusually
        imposing building, and asked what it was, it was always
        something else. I was frequently on the point of asking them to
        conduct me to some church that resembled my own in worship, (for
        I was brought up in strict compliance with the creeds, dogmas,
        and regulations of the Russo Greek Church) but I refrained,
        hoping that in time, I should be introduced to their religious
        ceremonies.

When time passed on, and no invitation was extended me, and I
        saw no house nor preparation for religious worship, nor even
        heard mention of any, I asked Wauna for an explanation. She
        appeared not to comprehend me, and I asked the question:

“Where do you perform your religious rites and
        ceremonies?”

She looked at me with surprise.

“You ask me such strange questions that sometimes I am
        tempted to believe you a relic of ancient mythology that has
        drifted down the centuries and landed on our civilized shores,
        or else have been gifted with a marvelous prolongation of life,
        and have emerged upon us from some cavern where you have lived,
        or slept for ages in unchanged possession of your ancient
        superstition.”

“Have you, then,” I asked in astonishment, “no religious
        temples devoted to worship?”

“Oh, yes, we have temples where we worship daily. Do you see
        that building?” nodding toward the majestic granite walls of the
        National College. “That is one of our most renowned temples,
        where the highest and the noblest in the land meet and mingle
        familiarly with the humblest in daily worship.”

“I understand all that you wish to imply by that,” I replied.
        “But have you no building devoted to divine worship; no temple
        that belongs specially to your Deity; to the Being that created
        you, and to whom you owe eternal gratitude and homage?”

“We have;” she answered grandly, with a majestic wave of her
        hand, and in that mellow, musical voice that was sweeter than
        the chanting of birds, she exclaimed:

“This vast cathedral, boundless as our wonder; Whose shining
        lamps yon brilliant mists supply; Its choir the winds, and
        waves; its organ thunder; Its dome the sky.”

Aurora Borealis

“Do you worship Nature?” I asked.

“If we did, we should worship ourselves, for we are a part of
        Nature.”

“But do you not recognize an invisible and incomprehensible
        Being that created you, and who will give your spirit an abode
        of eternal bliss, or consign it to eternal torments according as
        you have glorified and served him?”

“I am an atom of Nature;” said Wauna, gravely. “If you want
        me to answer your superstitious notions of religion, I will, in
        one sentence, explain, that the only religious idea in Mizora
        is: Nature is God, and God is Nature. She is the Great Mother
        who gathers the centuries in her arms, and rocks their children
        into eternal sleep upon her bosom.”

“But how,” I asked in bewildered astonishment, “how can you
        think of living without creeds, and confessionals? How can you
        prosper without prayer? How can you be upright, and honest, and
        true to yourselves and your friends without praying for divine
        grace and strength to sustain you? How can you be noble, and
        keep from envying your neighbors, without a prayer for divine
        grace to assist you to resist such temptation?”

“Oh, daughter of the dark ages,” said Wauna, sadly, “turn to
        the benevolent and ever-willing Science. She is the goddess who
        has led us out of ignorance and superstition; out of degradation
        and disease, and every other wretchedness that superstitious,
        degraded humanity has known. She has lifted us above the low and
        the little, the narrow and mean in human thought and action, and
        has placed us in a broad, free, independent, noble, useful and
        grandly happy life.”

“You have been favored by divine grace,” I reiterated,
        “although you refuse to acknowledge it.”

She smiled compassionately as she answered:

“She is the divinity who never turned a deaf ear to earnest
        and persistent effort in a sensible direction. But prayers to
        her must be work, resolute and conscientious
        work. She teaches that success in this world can only
        come to those who work for it. In your superstitious belief you
        pray for benefits you have never earned, possibly do not
        deserve, but expect to get simply because you pray for them.
        Science never betrays such partiality. The favors she bestows
        are conferred only upon the industrious.”

“And you deny absolutely the efficacy of prayer?” I
        asked.

“If I could obtain anything by prayer alone, I would pray
        that my inventive faculty should be enlarged so that I might
        conceive and construct an air-ship that could cleave its way
        through that chaos of winds that is formed when two storms meet
        from opposite directions. It would rend to atoms one of our
        present make. But prayer will never produce an improved
        air-ship. We must dig into science for it. Our ancestors did not
        pray for us to become a race of symmetrically-shaped and
        universally healthy people, and expect that to effect a result.
        They went to work on scientific principles to root out disease
        and crime and want and wretchedness, and every degrading and
        retarding influence.”

“Prayer never saved one of my ancestors from premature
        death,” she continued, with a resolution that seemed determined
        to tear from my mind every fabric of faith in the consolations
        of divine interposition that had been a special part of my
        education, and had become rooted into my nature. “Disease, when
        it fastened upon the vitals of the young and beautiful and
        dearly-loved was stronger and more powerful than all the
        agonized prayers that could be poured from breaking hearts. But
        science, when solicited by careful study and experiment and
        investigation, offered the remedy. And now, we defy
        disease and have no fear of death until our natural time comes,
        and then it will be the welcome rest that the worn-out
        body meets with gratitude.”

“But when you die,” I exclaimed, “do you not believe you have
        an after life?”

“When I die,” replied Wauna, “my body will return to the
        elements from whence it came. Thought will return to the force
        which gave it. The power of the brain is the one mystery that
        surrounds life. We know that the brain is a mechanical structure
        and acted upon by force; but how to analyze that force is still
        beyond our reach. You see that huge engine? We made it. It is a
        fine piece of mechanism. We know what it was made to do. We turn
        on the motive power, and it moves at the rate of a mile a minute
        if we desire it. Why should it move? Why might it not stand
        still? You say because of a law of nature that under the
        circumstances compels it to move. Our brain is like that
        engine—a wonderful piece of mechanism, and when the blood drives
        it, it displays the effects of force which we call Thought. We
        can see the engine move and we know what law of nature it obeys
        in moving. But the brain is a more mysterious structure, for the
        force which compels it to action we cannot analyze. The
        superstitious ancients called this mystery the soul.”

“And do you discard that belief?” I asked, trembling and
        excited to hear such sacrilegious talk from youth so beautiful
        and pure.

“What our future is to be after dissolution no one knows,”
        replied Wauna, with the greatest calmness and unconcern. “A
        thousand theories and systems of religion have risen and fallen
        in the history of the human family, and become the superstitions
        of the past. The elements that compose this body may construct
        the delicate beauty of a flower, or the green robe that covers
        the bosom of Mother Earth, but we cannot know.”

“But that beautiful belief in a soul,” I cried, in real
        anguish, “How can you discard it? How sever the hope that after
        death, we are again united to part no more? Those who have left
        us in the spring time of life, the bloom on their young cheeks
        suddenly paled by the cold touch of death, stand waiting to
        welcome us to an endless reunion.”

“Alas, for your anguish, my friend,” said Wauna, with pityng
        tenderness. “Centuries ago my people passed through
        that season of mental pain. That beautiful visionary idea of a
        soul must fade, as youth and beauty fade, never to return; for
        Nature nowhere teaches the existence of such a thing. It was a
        belief born of that agony of longing for happiness without
        alloy, which the children of earth in the long-ago ages hoped
        for, but never knew. Their lot was so barren of beauty and
        happiness, and the desire for it is, now and always has been, a
        strong trait of human character. The conditions of society in
        those earlier ages rendered it impossible to enjoy this life
        perfectly, and hope and longing pictured an imaginary one for an
        imaginary part of the body called the Soul. Progress and
        civilization have brought to us the ideal heaven of the
        ancients, and we receive from Nature no evidence of any
        other.”

“But I do believe there is another,” I declared. “And we
        ought to be prepared for it.”

Wauna smiled. “What better preparation could you desire,
        then, than good works in this?” she asked.

“You should pray, and do penance for your sins,” was my
        reply.

“Then,” said Wauna, “we are doing the wisest penance every
        day. We are studying, investigating, experimenting in order that
        those who come after us may be happier than we. Every day
        Science is yielding us some new knowledge that will make living
        in the future still easier than now.”

“I cannot conceive,” I said, “how you are to be improved
        upon.”

“When we manufacture fruit and vegetables from the elements,
        can you not perceive how much is to be gained? Old age and death
        will come later, and the labor of cultivation will be done away.
        Such an advantage will not be enjoyed during my lifetime. But we
        will labor to effect it for future generations.”

“Your whole aim in life, then, is to work for the future of
        your race, instead of the eternal welfare of your own soul?” I
        questioned, in surprise.

“If Nature,” said Wauna, “has provided us a future life, if
        that mysterious something that we call Thought is to be clothed
        in an etherealized body, and live in a world where decay is
        unknown, I have no fear of my reception there. Live
        this life usefully and nobly, and no matter if a prayer
        has never crossed your lips your happiness will be assured. A
        just and kind action will help you farther on the road to heaven
        than all the prayers that you can utter, and all the pains and
        sufferings that you can inflict upon the flesh, for it will be
        that much added to the happiness of this world. The grandest
        epitaph that could be written is engraved upon a tombstone in
        yonder cemetery. The subject was one of the pioneers of progress
        in a long-ago century, when progress fought its way with
        difficulty through ignorance and superstition. She suffered
        through life for the boldness of her opinions, and two centuries
        after, when they had become popular, a monument was erected to
        her memory, and has been preserved through thousands of years as
        a motto for humanity. The epitaph is simply this: ‘The world is
        better for her having lived in it.’”

Chapter VII.

Not long after my conversation with Wauna, mentioned in the
        previous chapter, an event happened in Mizora of so singular and
        unexpected a character for that country that it requires a
        particular description. I refer to the death of a young girl,
        the daughter of the Professor of Natural History in the National
        College, whose impressive inaugural ceremonies I had witnessed
        with so much gratification. The girl was of a venturesome
        disposition, and, with a number of others, had gone out rowing.
        The boats they used in Mizora for that purpose were mere cockle
        shells. A sudden squall arose from which all could have escaped,
        but the reckless daring of this young girl cost her her life.
        Her boat was capsized, and despite the exertions made by her
        companions, she was drowned.

Her body was recovered before the news was conveyed to the
        mother. As the young companions surrounded it in the abandon of
        grief that tender and artless youth alone feels, had I not known
        that not a tie of consanguinity existed between them, I might
        have thought them a band of sisters mourning their broken
        number. It was a scene I never expect and sincerely hope never
        to witness again. It made the deeper impression upon me because
        I knew the expressions of grief were all genuine.

I asked Wauna if any of the dead girl’s companions feared
        that her mother might censure them for not making sufficient
        effort to save her when her boat capsized. She looked at me with
        astonishment.

“Such a thought,” she said, “will never occur to her nor to
        any one else in Mizora. I have not asked the particulars, but I
        know that everything was done that could have been done to save
        her. There must have been something extraordinarily unusual
        about the affair for all Mizora girls are expert swimmers, and
        there is not one but would put forth any exertion to save a
        companion.”

I afterward learned that such had really been the case.

It developed upon the Preceptress to break the news to the
        afflicted mother. It was done in the seclusion of her own home.
        There was no manifestation of morbid curiosity among
        acquaintances, neighbors and friends. The Preceptress and one or
        two others of her nearest and most intimate friends called at
        the house during the first shock of her bereavement.

After permission had been given to view the remains, Wauna
        and I called at the house, but only entered the drawing-room. On
        a low cot, in an attitude of peaceful repose, lay the breathless
        sleeper. Her mother and sisters had performed for her the last
        sad offices of loving duty, and lovely indeed had they made the
        last view we should have of their dear one.

There was to be no ceremony at the house, and Wauna and I
        were in the cemetery when the procession entered. As we passed
        through the city, I noticed that every business house was
        closed. The whole city was sympathizing with sorrow. I never
        before saw so vast a concourse of people. The procession was
        very long and headed by the mother, dressed and veiled in black.
        Behind her were the sisters carrying the body. It rested upon a
        litter composed entirely of white rosebuds. The sisters wore
        white, their faces concealed by white veils. Each wore a white
        rosebud pinned upon her bosom. They were followed by a long
        procession of young girls, schoolmates and friends of the dead.
        They were all dressed in white, but were not veiled. Each one
        carried a white rosebud.

The sisters placed the litter upon rests at the side of the
        grave, and clasping hands with their mother, formed a semicircle
        about it. They were all so closely veiled that their features
        could not be seen, and no emotion was visible. The procession of
        young girls formed a circle inclosing the grave and the
        mourners, and began chanting a slow and sorrowful dirge. No
        words can paint the pathos and beauty of such a scene. My eye
        took in every detail that displayed that taste for the beautiful
        that compels the Mizora mind to mingle it with every incident of
        life. The melody sounded like a chorus of birds chanting, in
        perfect unison, a weird requiem over some dead companion.

DIRGE She came like the Spring in its gladness We received
        her with joy—we rejoiced in her promise Sweet was her song as
        the bird’s, Her smile was as dew to the thirsty rose. But the
        end came ere morning awakened, While Dawn yet blushed in its
        bridal veil, The leafy music of the woods was hushed in snowy
        shrouds. Spring withered with the perfume in her hands; A winter
        sleet has fallen upon the buds of June; The ice-winds blow where
        yesterday zephyrs disported: Life is not consummated The rose
        has not blossomed, the fruit has perished in the flower, The
        bird lies frozen under its mother’s breast Youth sleeps in round
        loveliness when age should lie withered and weary, and full of
        honor. Then the grave would be welcome, and our tears would fall
        not. The grave is not for the roses of youth; We mourn the early
        departed. Youth sleeps without dreams— Without an awakening.

At the close of the chant, the mother first and then each
        sister took from her bosom the white rosebud and dropped it into
        the grave. Then followed her schoolmates and companions who each
        dropped in the bud she carried. A carpet of white rosebuds was
        thus formed, on which the body, still reclining upon its pillow
        of flowers, was gently lowered.

The body was dressed in white, and over all fell a veil of
        fine white tulle. A more beautiful sight I can never see than
        that young, lovely girl in her last sleep with the emblems of
        youth, purity and swift decay forming her pillow, and
        winding-sheet. Over this was placed a film of glass that rested
        upon the bottom and sides of the thin lining that covered the
        bottom and lower sides of the grave. The remainder of the
        procession of young girls then came forward and dropped their
        rosebuds upon it, completely hiding from view the young and
        beautiful dead.

The eldest sister then took a handful of dust and casting it
        into the grave, said in a voice broken, yet audible: “Mingle
        ashes with ashes, and dust with its original dust. To the earth
        whence it was taken, consign we the body of our sister.” Each
        sister then threw in a handful of dust, and then with their
        mother entered their carriage, which immediately drove them
        home.

A beautiful silver spade was sticking in the soft earth that
        had been taken from the grave. The most intimate of the dead
        girls friends took a spadeful of earth and threw it into the
        open grave. Her example was followed by each one of the
        remaining companions until the grave was filled. Then clasping
        hands, they chanted a farewell to their departed companion and
        playmate. After which they strewed the grave with flowers until
        it looked like a bed of beauty, and departed.

I was profoundly impressed by the scene. Its solemnity, its
        beauty, and the universal expression of sorrow it had called
        forth. A whole city mourned the premature death of gifted and
        lovely youth. Alas! In my own unhappy country such an event
        would have elicited but a passing phrase of regret from all
        except the immediate family of the victim; for there
        sorrow is a guest at every heart, and leaves little room for
        sympathy with strangers.

The next day the mother was at her post in the National
        College; the daughters were at their studies, all seemingly calm
        and thoughtful, but showing no outward signs of grief excepting
        to the close observer. The mother was performing her accustomed
        duties with seeming cheerfulness, but now and then her mind
        would drop for a moment in sorrowful abstraction to be recalled
        with resolute effort and be fastened once more upon the
        necessary duty of life.

The sisters I often saw in those abstracted moods, and
        frequently saw them wiping away silent but unobtrusive tears. I
        asked Wauna for the meaning of such stoical reserve, and the
        explanation was as curious as were all the other things that I
        met with in Mizora.

“If you notice the custom of different grades of civilization
        in your own country,” said Wauna, “you will observe that the
        lower the civilization the louder and more ostentatious is the
        mourning. True refinement is unobtrusive in everything, and
        while we do not desire to repress a natural and inevitable
        feeling of sorrow, we do desire to conceal and conquer it, for
        the reason that death is a law of nature that we cannot evade.
        And, although the death of a young person has not occurred in
        Mizora in the memory of any living before this, yet it is not
        without precedent. We are very prudent, but we cannot guard
        entirely against accident. It has cast a gloom over the whole
        city, yet we refrain from speaking of it, and strive to forget
        it because it cannot be helped.”

“And can you see so young, so fair a creature perish without
        wanting to meet her again?”

“Whatever sorrow we feel,” replied Wauna, solemnly, “we
        deeply realize how useless it is to repine. We place implicit
        faith in the revelations of Nature, and in no circumstances does
        she bid us expect a life beyond that of the body. That is a life
        of individual consciousness.”

“How much more consoling is the belief of my people,” I
        replied, triumphantly. “Their belief in a future reunion would
        sustain them through the sorrow of parting in this. It has been
        claimed that some have lived pure lives solely in the hope of
        meeting some one whom they loved, and who had died in youth and
        innocence.”

Wauna smiled.

“You do not all have then the same fate in anticipation for
        your future life?” she asked.

“Oh, no!” I answered. “The good and the wicked are
        divided.”

“Tell me some incident in your own land that you have
        witnessed, and which illustrates the religious belief of your
        country.”

“The belief that we have in a future life has often furnished
        a theme for the poets of my own and other countries. And
        sometimes a quaint and pretty sentiment is introduced into
        poetry to express it.”

“I should like to hear some such poetry. Can you recite
        any?”

“I remember an incident that gave birth to a poem that was
        much admired at the time, although I can recall but the two last
        stanzas of it. A rowing party, of which I was a member, once
        went out upon a lake to view the sunset. After we had returned
        to shore, and night had fallen upon the water in impenetrable
        darkness, it was discovered that one of the young men who had
        rowed out in a boat by himself was not with us. A storm was
        approaching, and we all knew that his safety lay in getting
        ashore before it broke. We lighted a fire, but the blaze could
        not be seen far in such inky darkness. We hallooed, but received
        no answer, and finally ceased our efforts. Then one of the young
        ladies who possessed a very high and clear soprano voice, began
        singing at the very top of her power. It reached the wanderer in
        the darkness, and he rowed straight toward it. From that time on
        he became infatuated with the singer, declaring that her voice
        had come to him in his despair like an angel’s straight from
        heaven.

“She died in less than a year, and her last words to him
        were: ‘Meet me in heaven.’ He had always been recklessly
        inclined, but after that he became a model of rectitude and
        goodness. He wrote a poem that was dedicated to her memory. In
        it he described himself as a lone wanderer on a strange sea in
        the darkness of a gathering storm and no beacon to guide him,
        when suddenly he hears a voice singing which guides him safe to
        shore. He speaks of the beauty of the singer and how dear she
        became to him, but he still hears the song calling him across
        the ocean of death.”

“Repeat what you remember of it,” urged Wauna.

“That face and form, have long since gone Beyond where the
        day was lifted: But the beckoning song still lingers on, An
        angels earthward drifted. And when death’s waters, around me
        roar And cares, like the birds, are winging: If I steer my bark
        to Heaven’s shore ’Twill be by an angel’s singing.”

“Poor child of superstition,” said Wauna, sadly. “Your belief
        has something pretty in it, but for your own welfare, and that
        of your people, you must get rid of it as we have got rid of the
        offspring of Lust. Our children come to us as welcome guests
        through portals of the holiest and purest affection. That love
        which you speak of, I know nothing about. I would not know. It
        is a degradation which mars your young life and embitters the
        memories of age. We have advanced beyond it. There is a cruelty
        in life,” she added, compassionately, “which we must accept with
        stoicism as the inevitable. Justice to your posterity demands of
        you the highest and noblest effort of which your intellect is
        capable.”

Chapter VIII.

The conversation that I had with Wauna gave me so much
        uneasiness that I sought her mother. I cannot express the shock
        I felt at hearing such youthful and innocent lips speak of the
        absurdity of religious forms, ceremonies, and creeds. She
        regarded my belief in them as a species of barbarism. But she
        had not convinced me. I was resolved not to be
        convinced. I believed she was in error.

Surely, I thought, a country so far advanced in civilization,
        and practicing such unexampled rectitude, must, according to my
        religious teaching, have been primarily actuated by religious
        principles which they had since abandoned. My only surprise was
        that they had not relapsed into immorality, after destroying
        church and creed, and I began to feel anxious to convince them
        of the danger I felt they were incurring in neglecting prayer
        and supplication at the throne to continue them in their
        progress toward perfection of mental and moral culture.

I explained my feelings to the Preceptress with great
        earnestness and anxiety for their future, intimating that I
        believed their immunity from disaster had been owing to Divine
        sufferance. “For no nation,” I added, quoting from my memory of
        religious precepts, “can prosper without acknowledging the
        Christian religion.”

She listened to me with great attention, and when I had
        finished, asked:

“How do you account for our long continuance in prosperity
        and progress, for it is more than a thousand years since we
        rooted out the last vestige of what you term religion, from the
        mind. We have had a long immunity from punishment. To what do
        you attribute it?”

I hesitated to explain what had been in my mind, but finally
        faltered out something about the absence of the male sex. I then
        had to explain that the prisons and penitentiaries of my own
        land, and of all other civilized lands that I knew of, were
        almost exclusively occupied by the male sex. Out of eight
        hundred penitentiary prisoners, not more than twenty or thirty
        would be women; and the majority of them could trace
        their crimes to man’s infidelity.

“And what do you do to reform them?” inquired the
        Preceptress.

“We offer them the teachings of Christianity. All countries,
        however, differ widely in this respect. The government of my
        country is not as generous to prisoners as that of some others.
        In the United States every penitentiary is supplied with a
        minister who expounds the Gospel to the prisoners every Sunday;
        that is once every seven days.”

“And what do they do the rest of the time?”

“They work.”

“Are they ignorant?”

“Oh, yes, indeed;” I replied, earnestly. “You could not find
        one scholar in ten thousand of them. Their education is either
        very limited, or altogether deficient.”

“Do the buildings they are confined in cost a great
        deal?”

“Vast sums of money are represented by them; and it often
        costs a community a great deal of money to send a criminal to
        the penitentiary. In some States the power to pardon rests
        entirely with the governor, and it frequently occurs that a
        desperate criminal, who has cost a county a great deal of money
        to get rid of him, will be pardoned by the governor, to please a
        relative, or, as it is sometimes believed, for a bribe.”

“And do the people never think of educating their criminals
        instead of working them?

“That would be an expense to the government,” I replied.

“If they would divide the time, and compel them to study half
        a day as rigorously as they make them work, it would soon make a
        vast change in their morals. Nothing so ennobles the mind as a
        broad and thorough education.”

“They are all compelled to listen to religious instruction
        once a week,” I answered. “That surely ought to make some
        improvement in them. I remember hearing an American lady relate
        her attendance at chapel service in a State penitentiary one
        Sunday. The minister’s education was quite limited, as she could
        perceive from the ungrammatical language he used, but he
        preached sound orthodox doctrine. The text selected had a
        special application to his audience: ‘Depart from me ye
        accursed, into everlasting torment prepared for the Devil and
        his angels.’ There were eight hundred prisoners, and the
        minister assured them, in plain language, that such would surely
        be their sentence unless they repented.”

“And that is what you call the consolations of religion, is
        it?” asked the Preceptress with an expression that rather
        disconcerted me; as though my zeal and earnestness entirely
        lacked the light of knowledge with which she viewed it.

“That is religious instruction;” I answered. “The minister
        exhorted the prisoners to pray and be purged of their sins. And
        it was good advice.”

“But they might aver,” persisted the Preceptress, “that they
        had prayed to be restrained from crime, and their prayers had
        not been answered.”

“They didn’t pray with enough faith, then;” I assured her in
        the confidence of my own belief. “That is wherein I think my own
        church is so superior to the other religions of the world,” I
        added, proudly. “We can get the priest to absolve us from sin,
        and then we know we are rid of it, when he tells us so.”

“But what assurance have you that the priest can do so?”
        asked the Preceptress.

“Because it is his duty to do so.”

“Education will root out more sin than all your creeds can,”
        gravely answered the Preceptress. “Educate your convicts and
        train them into controlling and subduing their criminal
        tendencies by their own will, and it will have more
        effect on their morals than all the prayers ever uttered.
        Educate them up to that point where they can perceive for
        themselves the happiness of moral lives, and then you may trust
        them to temptation without fear. The ideas you have expressed
        about dogmas, creeds and ceremonies are not new to us, though,
        as a nation, we do not make a study of them. They are very, very
        ancient. They go back to the first records of the traditionary
        history of man. And the farther you go back the deeper you
        plunge into ignorance and superstition.

“The more ignorant the human mind, the more abject was its
        slavery to religion. As history progresses toward a more diffuse
        education of the masses, the forms, ceremonies and beliefs in
        religion are continually changing to suit the advancement of
        intelligence; and when intelligence becomes universal, they will
        be renounced altogether. What is true of the history of one
        people will be true of the history of another. Religions are not
        necessary to human progress. They are really clogs. My ancestors
        had more trouble to extirpate these superstitious ideas from the
        mind than they had in getting rid of disease and crime. There
        were several reasons for this difficulty. Disease and crime were
        self-evident evils, that the narrowest intelligence could
        perceive; but beliefs in creeds and superstitions were
        perversions of judgment, resulting from a lack of thorough
        mental training. As soon, however, as education of a high order
        became universal, it began to disappear. No mind of
        philosophical culture can adhere to such superstitions.

“Many ages the people made idols, and, decking them with rich
        ornaments, placed them in magnificent temples specially built
        for them and the rites by which they worshipped them. There have
        existed many variations of this kind of idolatry that are marked
        by the progressive stages of civilization. Some nations of
        remote antiquity were highly cultured in art and literature, yet
        worshipped gods of their own manufacture, or imaginary gods, for
        everything. Light and darkness, the seasons, earth, air, water,
        all had a separate deity to preside over and control their
        special services. They offered sacrifices to these deities as
        they desired their co-operation or favor in some enterprise to
        be undertaken.

“In remote antiquity, we read of a great General about to set
        out upon the sea to attack the army of another nation. In order
        to propitiate the god of the ocean, he had a fine chariot built
        to which were harnessed two beautiful white horses. In the
        presence of a vast concourse of people collected to witness the
        ceremony, he drove them into the sea. When they sank out of
        sight it was supposed that the god had accepted the present, and
        would show his gratitude for it by favoring winds and peaceful
        weather.

“A thousand years afterward history speaks of the occurrence
        derisively, as an absurd superstition, and at the same time they
        believed in and lauded a more absurd and cruel religion. They
        worshipped an imaginary being who had created and possessed
        absolute control of everything. Some of the human family it had
        pleased him to make eminently good, while others he made
        eminently bad. For those whom he had created with evil desires,
        he prepared a lake of molten fire into which they were to be
        cast after death to suffer endless torture for doing what they
        had been expressly created to do. Those who had been created
        good were to be rewarded for following out their natural
        inclinations, by occupying a place near the Deity, where they
        were to spend eternity in singing praises to him.

“He could, however, be persuaded by prayer from following his
        original intentions. Very earnest prayer had caused him to
        change his mind, and send rain when he had previously concluded
        to visit the country with drouth.

“Two nations at war with each other, and believing in the
        same Deity, would pray for a pestilence to visit their enemy.
        Death was universally regarded as a visitation of Providence for
        some offense committed against him instead of against the laws
        of nature.

“Some believed that prayer and donations to the church or
        priest, could induce the Deity to take their relatives from the
        lake of torment and place them in his own presence. The Deity
        was prayed to on every occasion, and for every trivial object.
        The poor and indolent prayed for him to send them food and
        clothes. The sick prayed for health, the foolish for wisdom, and
        the revengeful besought the Deity to consign all their enemies
        to the burning lake.

“The intelligent and humane began to doubt the necessity of
        such dreadful and needless torment for every conceivable
        misdemeanor, and it was modified, and eventually dropped
        altogether. Education finally rooted out every phase of
        superstition from the minds of the people, and now we look back
        and smile at the massive and magnificent structures erected to
        the worship of a Deity who could be coaxed to change his mind by
        prayer.”

I did not tell the Preceptress that she had been giving me a
        history of my own ancestry; but I remarked the resemblance with
        the joyous hope that in the future of my own unhappy country lay
        the possibility of a civilization so glorious, the ideal heaven
        of which every sorrowing heart had dreamed. But always with the
        desire to believe it had a spiritual eternity.

Chapter IX.

I have described the peculiar ceremony attending the burial
        of youth in Mizora. Old age, in some respects, had a similar
        ceremony, but the funeral of an aged person differed greatly
        from what I had witnessed at the grave of youth. Wauna and I
        attended the funeral of a very aged lady. Death in Mizora was
        the gradual failing of mental and physical vigor. It came
        slowly, and unaccompanied with pain. It was received without
        regret, and witnessed without tears.

The daughters performed the last labor that the mother
        required. They arrayed her body for burial and bore it to the
        grave. If in that season of the year, autumn leaves hid the
        bier, and formed the covering and pillow of her narrow bed. If
        not in the fall, full-blown roses and matured flowers were
        substituted.

The ceremony was conducted by the eldest daughter, assisted
        by the others. No tears were shed; no mourning worn; no
        sorrowful chanting. A solemn dirge was sung indicative of decay.
        A dignified solemnity befitting the farewell to a useful life
        was manifest in all the proceedings; but no demonstrations of
        sorrow were visible. The mourners were unveiled, and performed
        the last services for their mother with calmness. I was so
        astonished at the absence of mourning that I asked an
        explanation of Wauna.

“Why should we mourn,” was the surprising answer, “for what
        is inevitable? Death must come, and, in this instance, it came
        in its natural way. There is nothing to be regretted or mourned
        over, as there was in the drowning of my young friend. Her life
        was suddenly arrested while yet in the promise of its
        fruitfulness. There was cause for grief, and the expressions and
        emblems of mourning were proper and appropriate. But here,
        mourning would be out of place, for life has fulfilled its
        promises. Its work is done, and nature has given the worn-out
        body rest. That is all.”

That sympathy and regret which the city had expressed for the
        young dead was manifested only in decorum and respectful
        attendance at the funeral. No one appeared to feel that it was
        an occasion for mourning. How strange it all seemed to me, and
        yet there was a philosophy about it that I could not help but
        admire. Only I wished that they believed as I did, that all of
        those tender associations would be resumed beyond the grave. If
        only they could be convinced. I again broached the subject to
        Wauna. I could not relinquish the hope of converting her to my
        belief. She was so beautiful, so pure, and I loved her so
        dearly. I could not give up my hope of an eternal reunion. I
        appealed to her sympathy.

“What hope,” I asked, “can you offer those whose lives have
        been only successive phases of unhappiness? Why should beings be
        created only to live a life of suffering, and then die, as many,
        very many, of my people do? If they had no hope of a spiritual
        life, where pain and sorrow are to be unknown, the burdens of
        this life could not be borne.”

“You have the same consolation,” replied Wauna, “as the
        Preceptress had in losing her daughter. That daring spirit that
        cost her her life, was the pride of her mother. She possessed a
        promising intellect, yet her mother accepts her death as one of
        the sorrowful phases of life, and bravely tries to subdue its
        pain. Long ages behind us, as my mother has told you, the
        history of all human life was but a succession of woes. Our own
        happy state has been evolved by slow degrees out of that
        sorrowful past. Human progress is marked by blood and tears, and
        the heart’s bitterest anguish. We, as a people, have progressed
        almost beyond the reach of sorrow, but you are in the midst of
        it. You must work for the future, though you cannot be of
        it.”

“I cannot,” I declared, “reconcile myself to your belief. I
        am separated from my child. To think I am never to see it in
        this world, nor through endless ages, would drive me insane with
        despair. What consolation can your belief offer
        me?”

“In this life, you may yearn for your child, but after this
        life you sleep,” answered Wauna, sententiously. “And how sweet
        that sleep! No dreams; no waking to work and trial; no striving
        after perfection; no planning for the morrow. It is oblivion
        than which there can be no happier heaven.”

“Would not meeting with those you have loved be happier?” I
        asked, in amazement.

“There would be happiness; and there would be work, too.”

“But my religion does not believe in work in heaven,” I
        answered.

“Then it has not taken the immutable laws of Nature into
        consideration,” said Wauna. “If Nature has prepared a conscious
        existence for us after this body decays, she has prepared work
        for us, you may rest assured. It might be a grander, nobler
        work; but it would be work, nevertheless. Then, how restful, in
        contrast, is our religion. It is eternal, undisturbable rest for
        both body and brain. Besides, as you say yourself, you cannot be
        sure of meeting those whom you desire to meet in that other
        country. They may be the ones condemned to eternal suffering for
        their sins. Think you I could enjoy myself in any surroundings,
        when I knew that those who were dear to me in this life, were
        enduring torment that could have no end. Give me oblivion rather
        than such a heaven.

“Our punishment comes in this world; but it is not so much
        through sin as ignorance. The savages lived lives of misery,
        occasioned by their lack of intelligence. Humanity must always
        suffer for the mistakes it makes. Misery belongs to the
        ignorant; happiness to the wise. That is our doctrine of reward
        and punishment.”

“And you believe that my people will one day reject all
        religions?”

“When they are advanced enough,” she answered. “You say you
        have scholars among you already, who preach their
        inconsistencies. What do you call them?”

“Philosophers,” was my reply.

“They are your prophets,” said Wauna. “When they break the
        shackles that bind you to creeds and dogmas, they will have done
        much to advance you. To rely on one’s own will power to
        do right is the only safe road to morality, and your only
        heaven.”

I left Wauna and sought a secluded spot by the river. I was
        shocked beyond measure at her confession. It had the
        earnestness, and, to me, the cruelty of conviction. To live
        without a spiritual future in anticipation was akin to
        depravity, to crime and its penalty of prison life forever. Yet
        here was a people, noble, exalted beyond my conceiving, living
        in the present, and obeying only a duty to posterity. I recalled
        a painting I had once seen that always possessed for me a
        horrible fascination. In a cave, with his foot upon the corpse
        of a youth, sat the crowned and sceptered majesty of Death. The
        waters of oblivion encompassed the throne and corpse, which lay
        with its head and feet bathed in its waters—for out of the
        Unknown had life come, and to the Unknown had it departed.
        Before me, in vision, swept the mighty stream of human life from
        which I had been swept to these strange shores. All its
        sufferings, its delusions; its baffled struggles; its wrongs,
        came upon me with a sense of spiritual agony in them that
        religion—my religion, which was their only consolation—must
        vanish in the crucible of Science. And that Science was the
        magician that was to purify and exalt the world. To live in the
        Present; to die in it and become as the dust; a mere speck, a
        flash of activity in the far, limitless expanse of Nature, of
        Force, of Matter in which a spiritual ideal had no part. It was
        horrible to think of. The prejudices of inherited religious
        faith, the contracted forces of thought in which I had been born
        and reared could not be uprooted or expanded without pain.

Chapter X.

I had begun to feel an intense longing to return to my own
        country, but it was accompanied by a desire, equally as strong,
        to carry back to that woe-burdened land some of the noble
        lessons and doctrines I had learned in this. I saw no means of
        doing it that seemed so available as a companion,—a being, born
        and bred in an atmosphere of honor and grandly humane ideas and
        actions.

My heart and my judgment turned to Wauna. She was endeared to
        me by long and gentle association. She was self-reliant and
        courageous, and possessed a strong will. Who, of all my Mizora
        acquaintances, was so well adapted to the service I
        required.

When I broached the subject to her, Wauna expressed herself
        as really pleased with the idea; but when we went to the
        Preceptress, she acknowledged a strong reluctance to the
        proposition. She said:

“Wauna can form no conception of the conditions of society in
        your country. They are far, very far, behind our own. They will,
        I fear, chafe her own nature more than she can improve theirs.
        Still, if I thought she could lead your people into a broader
        intelligence, and start them on the way upward to enlightenment
        and real happiness, I would let her go. The moment, however,
        that she desires to return she must be aided to do so.”

I pledged myself to abide by any request the Preceptress
        might make of me. Wauna’s own inclinations greatly influenced
        her mother, and finally we obtained her consent. Our
        preparations were carefully made. The advanced knowledge of
        chemistry in Mizora placed many advantages in our way. Our boat
        was an ingenious contrivance with a thin glass top that could be
        removed and folded away until needed to protect us from the
        rigors of the Arctic climate.

I had given an accurate description of the rapids that would
        oppose us, and our boat was furnished with a motive power
        sufficient to drive us through them at a higher rate of speed
        than what they moved at. It was built so as to be easily
        converted into a sled, and runners were made that could be
        readily adjusted. We were provided with food and clothing
        prepared expressly for the severe change to and rigors of the
        Arctic climate through which we must pass.

I was constantly dreading the terrors of that long ice-bound
        journey, but the Preceptress appeared to be little concerned
        about it. When I spoke of its severities, she said for us to
        observe her directions, and we should not suffer. She asked me
        if I had ever felt uncomfortable in any of the air-ship voyages
        I had taken, and said that the cold of the upper regions through
        which I had passed in their country was quite as intense as any
        I could meet within a lower atmosphere of my own.

The newspapers had a great deal to say about the departure of
        the Preceptress’ daughter on so uncertain a mission, and to that
        strange land of barbarians which I represented. When the day
        arrived for our departure, immense throngs of people from all
        parts of the country lined the shore, or looked down upon us
        from their anchored air-ships.

The last words of farewell had been spoken to my many friends
        and benefactors. Wauna had bidden a multitude of associates
        good-bye, and clasped her mother’s hand, which she held until
        the boat parted from the shore. Years have passed since that
        memorable parting, but the look of yearning love in that Mizora
        mother’s eyes haunts me still. Long and vainly has she watched
        for a boat’s prow to cleave that amber mist and bear to her arms
        that vision of beauty and tender love I took away from her. My
        heart saddens at the thought of her grief and long, long waiting
        that only death will end.

We pointed the boat’s prow toward the wide mysterious circle
        of amber mists, and then turned our eyes for a last look at
        Mizora. Wauna stood silent and calm, earnestly gazing into the
        eyes of her mother, until the shore and the multitude of fair
        faces faded like a vision of heaven from our views.

“O beautiful Mizora!” cried the voice of my heart. “Shall I
        ever again see a land so fair, where natures so noble and aims
        so lofty have their abiding place? Memory will return to you
        though my feet may never again tread your delightful shores.
        Farewell, sweet ideal land of my Soul, of Humanity,
        farewell!”

My thoughts turned to that other world from which I had
        journeyed so long. Would the time ever come when it, too, would
        be a land of universal intelligence and happiness? When the
        difference of nations would be settled by argument instead of
        battle? When disease, deformity and premature death would be
        unknown? When locks, and bolts and bars would be useless?

I hoped so much from the personal influence of Wauna. So
        noble, so utterly unconscious of wrong, she must surely
        revolutionize human nature whenever it came in contact with her
        own.

I pictured to myself my own dear land—dear, despite its many
        phases of wretchedness—smiling in universal comfort and health.
        I imagined its political prisons yawning with emptiness, while
        their haggard and decrepit and sorrowful occupants hobbled out
        into the sunshine of liberty, and the new life we were bringing
        to them. Fancy flew abroad on the wings of hope, dropping the
        seeds of progress wherever it passed.

The poor should be given work, and justly paid for it,
        instead of being supported by charity. The charity that had
        fostered indolence in its mistaken efforts to do good, should be
        employed to train poverty to skillful labor and economy in
        living. And what a world of good that one measure would produce!
        The poor should possess exactly the same educational advantages
        that were supplied to the rich. In this one measure, if
        I could only make it popular, I would see the golden promise of
        the future of my country. “Educate your poor and they will work
        out their own salvation. Educated Labor can dictate its rights
        to Capital.”

How easy of accomplishment it all seemed to me, who had seen
        the practical benefits arising to a commonwealth that had
        adopted these mottoes. I doubted not that the wiser and better
        of my own people would aid and encourage me. Free education
        would lead to other results.

Riches should be accumulated only by vast and generous
        industries that reached a helping hand to thousands of
        industrious poor, instead of grinding them out of a few hundred
        of poorly-paid and over-worked artisans. Education in the hands
        of the poor would be a powerful agent with which they would
        alleviate their own condition, and defend themselves against
        oppression and knavery.

The prisons should be supplied with schools as well as
        work-rooms, where the intellect should be trained and
        cultivated, and where moral idiocy, by the stern and rigorous
        law of Justice to Innocence, should be forced to deny itself
        posterity.

No philanthropical mind ever spread the wings of its fancy
        for a broader flight.

Chapter XI.

Our journey was a perilous one with all our precautions. The
        passage through the swiftest part of the current almost swamped
        our boat. The current that opposed us was so strong, that when
        we increased our speed our boat appeared to be cleaving its way
        through a wall of waters. Wauna was perfectly calm, and managed
        the motor with the steadiest nerves. Her courage inspired me,
        though many a time I despaired of ever getting out of the
        rapids. When we did, and looked up at the star-gemmed canopy
        that stretches above my own world, and abroad over the dark and
        desolate waste of waters around us, it gave me an impression of
        solemn and weird magnificence. It was such a contrast to the
        vivid nights of Mizora, to which my eyes had so long been
        accustomed, that it came upon me like a new scene.

The stars were a source of wonder and ceaseless delight to
        Wauna. “It looks,” she said, “as though a prodigal hand had
        strewn the top of the atmosphere with diamonds.”

The journey over fields of ice and snow was monotonous, but,
        owing to the skill and knowledge of Mizora displayed in our
        accoutrements, it was deprived of its severities. The wind
        whistled past us without any other greeting than its melancholy
        sound. We looked out from our snug quarters on the dismal hills
        of snow and ice without a sensation of distress. The Aurora
        Borealis hung out its streamers of beauty, but they were pale
        compared to what Wauna had seen in her own country. The
        Esquimaux she presumed were animals.

We traveled far enough south to secure passage upon a
        trading-vessel bound for civilized shores. The sun came up with
        his glance of fire and his banners of light, laying his glorious
        touch on cloud and water, and kissing the cheek with his warmth.
        He beamed upon us from the zenith, and sank behind the western
        clouds with a lingering glance of beauty. The moon came up like
        the ghost of the sun, casting a weird yet tender beauty on every
        object. To Wauna it was a revelation of magnificence in nature
        beyond her contriving.

“How grand,” she exclaimed, “are the revelations of nature in
        your world! To look upon them, it seems to me, would broaden and
        deepen the mind with the very vastness of their splendor. Nature
        has been more bountiful to you than to Mizora. The day with its
        heart of fire, and the night with its pale beauty are grander
        than ours. They speak of vast and incomprehensible power.”

When I took Wauna to the observatory, and she looked upon the
        countless multitudes of worlds and suns revolving in space so
        far away that a sun and its satellites looked like a ball of
        mist, she said that words could not describe her sensations.

“To us,” she said, “the leaves of Nature’s book are the winds
        and waves, the bud and bloom and decay of seasons. But here
        every leaf is a world. A mighty hand has sprinkled the suns like
        fruitful seeds across the limitless fields of space. Can human
        nature contemplate a scene so grand that reaches so far beyond
        the grasp of mind, and not feel its own insignificance, and the
        littleness of selfish actions? And yet you can behold these
        myriads of worlds and systems of worlds wheeling in the dim
        infinity of space—a spectacle awful in its vastness—and turn to
        the practice of narrow superstitions?”

At last the shores of my native land greeted my longing eyes,
        and the familiar scenes of my childhood drew near. But when,
        after nearly twenty years absence, I stood on the once familiar
        spot, the graves of my heart’s dear ones were all that was mine.
        My little one had died soon after my exile. My father had soon
        followed. Suspected, and finally persecuted by the government,
        my husband had fled the country, and, nearly as I could
        discover, had sought that universal asylum for the oppressed of
        all nations—the United States. And thither I turned my
        steps.

In my own country and in France, the friends who had known me
        in girlhood were surprised at my youthful appearance. I did not
        explain the cause of it to them, nor did I mention the people or
        country from whence I had come. Wauna was my friend and a
        foreigner—that was all.

The impression she made was all that I had anticipated. Her
        unusual beauty and her evident purity attracted attention
        wherever she went. The wonderful melody of her singing was much
        commented upon, but in Mizora she had been considered but an
        indifferent singer. But I had made a mistake in my anticipation
        of her personal influence. The gentleness and delicacy of her
        character received the tenderest respect. None who looked upon
        that face or met the glance of the dark soft eyes ever doubted
        that the nature that animated them was pure and beautiful. Yet
        it was the respect felt for a character so exceptionably
        superior that imitation and emulation would be impossible.

“She is too far above the common run of human nature,” said
        one observer. “I should not be surprised if her spirit were
        already pluming its wings for a heavenly flight. Such natures
        never stay long among us.”

The remark struck my heart with a chill of depression. I
        looked at Wauna and wondered why I had noticed sooner the
        shrinking outlines of the once round cheek. Too gentle to show
        disgust, too noble to ill-treat, the spirit of Wauna was chafing
        under the trying associations. Men and women alike regarded her
        as an impossible character, and I began to realize with a
        sickening regret that I had made a mistake. In my own country,
        in France and England, her beauty was her sole attraction to
        men. The lofty ideal of humanity that she represented was smiled
        at or gently ignored.

“The world would be a paradise,” said one philosopher, “if
        such characters were common. But one is like a seed in the
        ocean; it cannot do much good.”

When we arrived in the United States, its activity and
        evident progress impressed Wauna with a feeling more nearly akin
        to companionship. Her own character received a juster
        appreciation.

“The time is near,” she said, “when the New World will be the
        teacher of the Old in the great lesson of Humanity. You will
        live to see it demonstrate to the world the justice and policy
        of giving to every child born under its flag the highest mental,
        moral and physical training known to the present age. You can
        hardly realize what twenty-five years of free education will
        bring to it. They are already on the right path, but they are
        still many centuries behind my own country in civilization, in
        their government and modes of dispensing justice. Yet their free
        schools, as yet imperfect, are, nevertheless, fruitful seeds of
        progress.”

Yet here the nature of Wauna grew restless and homesick, and
        she at last gave expression to her longing for home.

“I am not suited to your world,” she said, with a look of
        deep sorrow in her lovely eyes. “None of my people are. We are
        too finely organized. I cannot look with any degree of calmness
        upon the practices of your civilization. It is a common thing to
        see mothers ill-treat their own helpless little ones. The
        pitiful cries of the children keep ringing in my ears. Cannot
        mothers realize that they are whipping a mean spirit into their
        offspring instead of out. I have heard the most enlightened deny
        their own statements when selfishness demanded it. I cannot
        mention the half of the things I witness daily that grates upon
        my feelings. I cannot reform them. It is not for such as I to be
        a reformer. Those who need reform are the ones to work for
        it.”

Sorrowfully I bade adieu to my hopes and my search for
        Alexis, and prepared to accompany Wauna’s return. We embarked on
        a whaling vessel, and having reached its farthest limit, we
        started on our perilous journey north; perilous for the lack of
        our boat, of which we could hear nothing. It had been left in
        charge of a party of Esquimaux, and had either been destroyed,
        or was hidden. Our progress, therefore, depended entirely upon
        the Esquimaux. The tribe I had journeyed so far north with had
        departed, and those whom I solicited to accompany us professed
        to be ignorant of the sea I mentioned. Like all low natures, the
        Esquimaux are intensely selfish. Nothing could induce them to
        assist us but the most apparent benefit to themselves; and this
        I could not assure them. The homesickness, and coarse diet and
        savage surroundings told rapidly on the sensitive nature of
        Wauna. In a miserable Esquimaux hut, on a pile of furs, I saw
        the flame of a beautiful and grandly noble life die out. My
        efforts were hopeless; my anguish keen. O Humanity, what have I
        sacrificed for you!

“Oh, Wauna,” I pleaded, as I saw the signs of dissolution
        approaching, “shall I not pray for you?”

“Prayers cannot avail me,” she replied, as her thin hands
        reached and closed over one of mine. “I had hoped once more to
        see the majestic hills and smiling valleys of my own sweet land,
        but I shall not. If I could only go to sleep in the arms of my
        mother. But the Great Mother of us all will soon receive me in
        her bosom. And oh! my friend, promise me that her dust shall
        cover me from the sight of men. When my mother rocked me to
        slumber on her bosom, and soothed me with her gentle lullaby,
        she little dreamed that I should suffer and die first. If you
        ever reach Mizora, tell her only that I sleep the sleep of
        oblivion. She will know. Let the memory of my suffering die with
        me.”

“Oh, Wauna,” I exclaimed, in anguish, “you surely have a
        soul. How can anything so young, so pure, so beautiful, be
        doomed to annihilation?”

“We are not annihilated,” was the calm reply. “And as to
        beauty, are the roses not beautiful? Yet they die and you say it
        is the end of the year’s roses. The birds are harmless, and
        their songs make the woods melodious with the joy of life, yet
        they die, and you say they have no after life. We are like the
        roses, but our lives are for a century and more. And when our
        lives are ended, the Great Mother gathers us in. We are the
        harvest of the centuries.”

When the dull, gray light of the Arctic morning broke, it
        fell gently upon the presence of Death.

With the assistance of the Esquimaux, a grave was dug, and a
        rude wooden cross erected on which I wrote the one word “Wauna,”
        which, in the language of Mizora, means “Happiness.”

The world to which I have returned is many ages behind the
        civilization of Mizora.

Though we cannot hope to attain their perfection in our
        generation, yet many, very many, evils could be obliterated were
        we to follow their laws. Crime is as hereditary as disease.

No savant now denies the transmittable taint of insanity and
        consumption. There are some people in the world now, who,
        knowing the possibility of afflicting offspring with hereditary
        disease, have lived in ascetic celibacy. But where do we find a
        criminal who denies himself offspring, lest he endow posterity
        with the horrible capacity for murder that lies in his
        blood?

The good, the just, the noble, close heart and eyes to the
        sweet allurements of domestic life, lest posterity suffer
        physically or mentally by them. But the criminal has no
        restraints but what the law enforces. Ignorance, poverty and
        disease, huddled in dens of wretchedness, where they multiply
        with reckless improvidence, sometimes fostered by mistaken
        charity.

The future of the world, if it be grand and noble, will be
        the result of Universal Education, free as
        the God-given water we drink.

In the United States I await the issue of universal liberty.
        In this refuge for oppression, my husband found a grave.
        Childless, homeless and friendless, in poverty and obscurity, I
        have written the story of my wanderings. The world’s fame can
        never warm a heart already dead to happiness; but out of the
        agony of one human life, may come a lesson for many. Life is a
        tragedy even under the most favorable conditions.

THE END

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