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REPRINTED FROM THE AMERICAN EDITION. * > ADAM, STEVENSON & OO. 1871. -- i . t .»\ MgMASTER university LISRAP^ '•i;\,.^€„ INSCRIBED TO MAX MULLEE, IN TRIBUTE OP RESPECT AND ADMIRATION I. H S C 2 < 3 it r M-:> T] AM a nai [y ances tharles U the W )yed a sc |nd, bein^ )r public ^as signa iterfered was the ien to tl: Iducation mercani Ifter I w ig a tas ime, all [esultory In the Kted by jquaintf rhich he THE COMING RACE. CHAPTER I. AM a native of , in the United States of America. [y ancestors migrated from England in the reign of Jharles II. ; and my grandfather was not undistinguished the War of Indei)endence. My family, therefore, en- )yed a somewhat high social position in right of birth ; [nd, being also opulent, they were considered disqualified )r public service. My father once ran for Congress, but '^as signally defeated by his tailor. After that event he iterfered little in politics, and lived much in his library. was the eldest of three sons, and sent at the age of six- jen to the old country, partly to complete my literary [ducation, partly to commence my commercial training in mercantile firm at Liverpool. My father died shortly [fter I was twenty-one ; and being left well off, and hav- ig a taste for travel and adventure, I resigned, for a ime, all pursuit of the almighty dollar, and became a [esultory wanderer over the face of the earth. In the year 18 — , happening to be in , I was in- rited by a professional engineer, with whom I had made jquaintance, to visit the recesses of the mine, upon rhich he was employed. r I R c 2 < 31 (f r 6 THE COMING UACE. The reader will understand, ere he close this narrative, my reason for concealing all clue to the district of which I write, and will perhaps thank me for refraining from | any description that may tend to its discovery. Let me say, then, as briefly as possible, that I accom- 1 panied the engineer into the interior of the mine, and bo- came so strangely fascinated b}^ its gloomy wonders, and I so interested in my friend's explorations, that I prolonged my stay in the neighbourhood, and descended daily, for some weeks, into the vaults and galleries hollowed byi nature and art beneath the surface of the earth. The engineer was persuaded that far richer deposits of mineral! wealth, than had yet been detected, would be found in a| new shaft that had been commenced under his operations. In piercing this shaft, we came one day upon a chasm jagged and seemingly chari'ed at the sides, as if burst as- under at some distant period by volcanic fires. Down I this chasm my friend caused himself to be lowered in a | " cage," having first tested the atmosphere by the safety- lamp. Ho remained nearly an hour in the abyss. When I he returned, he was very pale, and with an anxious, | thoughtful expression of face, very different from its or- dinary character, which was open, cheerful, and fearless.! He said briefly that the descent appeared to him unsafe,] and leading to no result ; and, suspending further opera- tions in the shaft, we returned to the more familiar parts | of the mine. All the rest of that day the engineer seemed pre-occu- pied by some absorbing thought. He was unusually taci- turn, and there was a scared, bewildered look in his eyesJ THE COMING RACE. IS that of a man who has seen a ghost. At night, as we two rere sitting alont in the lodging we shared together near the mouth of the mine, I said to my friend, — " Tell me frankly what you saw in that chasm : I am mre it was something strange and terrible. Whatever it )e, it has left your mind in a state of doubt. In such a jase two heads are better than one. Confide in me." The engineer long endeavoured to evade my inquiries ; )ut as, while he spoke, he helped himself unconsciously )ut of the brandy -flask to a degree to which he was wholly unaccustomed, for he was a very temperate man, lis reserve gradually melted away. He who would :eep himself to himself, should imitate the dumb animals, md drink water. At last he said, " I will tell you all. ^hen the cage stopped, I found myself on a ridge of rock ; and below me, the chasm, taking a slanting direc- tion, shot down to a considerable depth, the darkness of rhich my lamp could not have penetrated. But through ft, to my infinite suprise, streamed upward a steady bril- liant light. Could it be any volcanic fire ? in that case, surely I should have felt the heat. Still, if on this there ras doubt, it was of the utmost importance to our com- lon safety to clear it up. I examined the sides of the lescent, and found that I could venture to trust myself to the irregular projections or ledges, at least for some jome way. I left the cage and clambered down. As I Irew near and nearer to the light, the chasm became dder, and at last I saw, to my unspeakable amaze, a )road level road at the bottom of the abyss, illumined as far as the eye could reach by what seemed artificial gas- n I I/: m c 2 < .PI ,3 8 THE COMINO RACE. lamps placed at regular intervals, as in the thoroughfare of a great city ; and I heard confusedly at a distance a hum as of human voices. I know, of course, that no rival miners are at work in this district. Whose could be those voices ? What human hands could have levelled that road and marshalled those lamps ? " The superstitious belief, common to miners, that gno- mes or fiends dwell within the bowels of the earth, began to seize mo. I shuddered at the thought of descending further and braving the inhabitants of this nether valley. Nor indeed could I have done so without ropes, as from the spot I had reached to the bottom of the chasm the sides of the rock sank down abrupt, smooth, and sheer. I retraced my steps with some difficulty. Now I have told you all?" "You will descend again ?" " I ought, yet I feel as if I durst not." " A trusty companion halves the journey and doubles the courage. I will go with you. We will provide our- selves with ropes of suitable length and strength — and — pardon me — ^you must not drink more to-night. Our hands and feet must be steady and firm to-morrow." P- CHAPTER II. 'iTH the morning my friend's nerves were rebraced, and le was not less excited by curiosity than myself. Per- laps more ; for ho evidently believed in his own story, ind I felt considerable doubt of it ; not that he would havo wilfully told an untruth, but that I thought he must have )een under one of those hallucinations which seize on our fancy or our nerves in solitary, unaccustomed places, and pn which we give shape to the formless and sound to the lumb. We selected six veteran miners to watch our descent ; ind as the cage held only one at a time, the engineer de- scended first ; and when he had gained the ledge at which Ihe had before halted, the cage re-arose for me. I soon gain- ed his side. We had provided ourselves with a strong [coil of rope. The light struck on my sight as it had done the day be- Ifore on my friend's. The hollow through which it came sloped diagonally ; it seemed to me a diffused atmospheric llight, not like that from fire, but soft and silvery, as from a northern star. Quitting the cage, we descended, one after the other, easily enough, owing to the juts in the side, till we reached the place at which my friend had previously halted, and which was a projection just spa- cious enough to allow us to stand abreast. From this spot the chasm widened rapidly like the low^r end of ^ 't n C 2 < X '( ':fi 10 THE COMING RACE. i'- vast funnel, and I saw distinctly the valley, the road, the lamps which my companion had described/ He had ex- aggerated nothing. I heard the sounds he had heard — a mingled indescribable hum as of voices and a dull tramp as of feet. Straining mj' eye farther down, I clearly be- held at a distance the outline of some large building. It could not be mere natural rock, it was too symmetrical, with huge heavy Egyptian-like columns, and the whole lighted as from within. I had about me a small pocket- telescope, and, by the aid of this, I could distinguish, near the building I mention, two forms which seemed human, though I could not be sure. At least they were living, for they moved, and both vanished within the building. We now proceeded to attach the end of the rope we had brought with us, to the ledge on which we stood, by the aid of clamps and grappling hooks, with which, as well as with necessary tools, we were provided. We were almost silent in our work. We toiled like men afraid to speak to each other. One end of the rope being thus apparently made firm to the ledge, the other, to which we fastened a fragment of the rock, rested on the ground below, a distance of some fifty feet. I was a younger and a more active man than my companion, and having served on board ship in my boyhood, this mode of transit was more familiar to me than to him. In a whis- per I claimed the precedence, so that when I gained the ground, I might serve to hold the rope more steady for his descent. I got safely to the ground beneath, and the en- gineer now began to lower himself. But he had scarcely accomplished ten feet of the descent, when the fastenings THE COMING RACE. 11 rhich we had fancied so secure, gave way, or rather the rock itself proved treacherous and crumbled beneath the strain ; and the unhappy man was precipitated to the bot- tom, falling just at my feet, and bringing down with his fall, splinters of the rock, one of which, fortunately but a jmall one, struck and for the time stunned me. When I recovered my senses, I saw my companion an inanimate lass beside me, life utterly extinct. While I was bend- ing over his corpse in grief and horror, I heard close at land a strange sound between a snort and a hiss ; and iurning instinctively to the quarter from which it came saw emerging from a dark fissure in the rock, a vast and terrible head with open jaws and diill, ghastly, hungry [eyes— the head of a monstrous reptile resembling that of the crocodile or alligator, but infinitely larger than the largest creature of that kind I had ever beheld in my travels. I started to my feet and fled down the valley at ly utmost speed. I stopped at last, ashamed of my panic md ray flight, and returned to the spot on which I had left the body of my friend. It was gone ; doubtless the lonster had already drawn it into its den and devoured it. The rope and the grappling-hooks still lay where they lad fallen, but they afibrded me no chance of return ; it ^as impossible to re-attach them to the rock above, and bhe sides of the rock were too sheer and smooth for hu- lan steps to clamber. I was alone in this strange world, imidst the bowels of the earth. in !& C 2 < I «^ i w !:'• § Is' J CHAPTER III. Slowly and cautiously I went my solitary way down the lamplit road and towards +he large building I have de- scribed. The road itself seemed like a great Alpine pass, skirting rocky mountains of which the one through whose chasms I had descended formed a link. Deep below to the left lay a vast valley, which presented to my aston- ished eye, the unmistakeable evidences of art and culture. There were fields covered with strange vegetation, similar to none I have seen above the earth ; the colour of it not green, but rather of a dull leaden hue or of a golden red. There were lakes and rivulets which seemed to have been curved into artificial banks ; some of pure water, others that shone like pools of naphtha. At my right hand, ravines and defiles opened amidst the rocks, with passes between, evidently constructed by art, and border- ed by trees resembling, for the most part, gigantic ferns, with exquisite varieties of feathery foliage, and stems like those of the palm-tree. Others were more like the cane-plant, but taller, bearing large clusters of flowers. Others, again, had the form of enormous fungi, with short thick stems supporting a wide dome-like roof, from which either rose or drooped long slender branches. The whole scene behind, before, and beside me, far as the eye could reach, was brilliant with innumerable lamps. The world without a sun was bright and w^arm as an Italian ^' THE COMING EACE. 13 landscape at nooii; but the air less oppressive, the heat softer. Nor was the scene before me void of signs of habitation. I could distinguish at a distance, whether on the banks of lake or rivulet, or half-way upon eminen- ces, embedded amidst the vegetation, buildings that must surely be the homes of the men. I could even discover, though far off, forms that appeared to me human moving amidst the landscape. As I paused to gaze, I saw to the right, gliding quickly through the air, what appeared a small boat, impelled by sails shaped like wings. It soon passed out of sight, descending amidst the shades of a forest. Right above me there was no sky, but only a cavernous roof. This roof grew higher and higher at the distance of the landscapes beyond, till it became imper- ceptible, as an atmosphere of haze formed itself beneath. Continuing my walk, I started, — from a bush that re- sembled a great tangle of sea- weeds, interspersed with fern-like shrubs and plants of large leafage shaped like that of the aloe or prickly-pear, — a curious animal about the size and shape of a deer. But as, after bounding away a few paces, it turned round and gazed at me in- quisitively, I perceived that it was not like any species of deer now extant above the earth, but it brought in- stantly to my recollection a plaster cast I had seen in some museum of a variety of the elk stag, said to have existed before the L^^uge. The creature seemed tame enough, and, after inspecting me a moment or two, began to graze on the singular herbage around undismayed and careless. in I it/) z < X V ' ^ t !.■ e " CHAPTER iV. I NOW came in full sight of the building. Yes, it had| been made by hands, and hollowed partly out of a great rock. I should have supposed it at the first glance tol have been of the earliest form of Egyptian architecture! It was fronted by huge columns, tapering upward froml massive plinths, and with capitals that, as I came nearer,] I perceived to be more ornamental and more fantasticall) graceful than Egyptian architecture allows. As the Co-I rinthian capital mimics the leaf of the acanthus, so the| capitals of these columns imitated the foliage of the vegetation neighbouring them, some aloe-like, some fern-| like. And now there came out of this building a foi — human ; — ^was it human ? It stood on the broad waj and looked around, beheld me and approached. It camfl within a few yards of me, and at the sight and presence of it an indescribable awe and tremor seized me, rooting my feet to the ground. It reminded me of symbolical! images of Genii or Demons that are seen on Etruscanl vases, or limned on the walls of Eastern sepulchres— I images that borrow the outlines of man, and are yet o( another race* It was tall> not gigantic, but tall as the taUest men below the height of giants. Its chief covering seemed to me to be composed o^ large wings folded over its breast and reaching to it knees i the rest of its attire was composed of an undei THE COMING RACE. 15 tunic and leggings of some thin fibrous material. It wore on its head a kind of tiara that shone with jewels, and carried in its right hand a slender staff of bright metal like polished steel. But the face ! it was that which inspired my awe and my terror. It was the face of man, but yet of a type of man distinct from our known extant races. The nearest approach to it in outline and expression is the face of the sculptured sphinx — so regu- lar in its calm, intellectual, mysterious beauty. Its colour was peculiar, more like that of the red man than any other variety of our species, and yet different from it — a richer and a softer hue, with large black eyes, deep and brilliant, and brows arched as a semicircle. The face was beardless ; but a nameless something in the aspect, tranquil though the expression, and beauteous though the features, roused that instinct of danger which the sight of a tiger or serpent arouses. I felt this manlike image was endowed with forces inimical to man. As it drew near, a cold shudder came over me. I fell on my knees j and covered my face with my hands. in !| s C 2 < S r w- M: CHAPTER V. A VOICE accosted me — a very quiet and very musical keyl of voice — in a language of which I could not understandl a word, but it served to dispel my fear. I uncovered myl face and looked up. The stranger (I could scarcely bringj myself to call him man) surveyed me with an eye tha^ seemed to read to the very depths of my heart. He thei placed his left hand on my forehead, and with the staff in his right, gently touched my shoulder. The effect oil this double contact was magical. In place of my formeJ terror, there passed into me a sense of contentment, o\ joy, of confidence in myself and in the being before me I rose, and spoke in my own language. He listened me with apparent attention, but with a slight surpris in his looks ; and shook his head, as if to signify that was not understood. He then took me by the hand an(| led me in silence to the building. The entrance wa open — indeed there was no door to it. We entered aJ immense hall, lighted by the same kind of lustre as u the scene without, but diffusing a fragrant odour. Thj floor was in large tesselated blocks of precious metal, an^ partly covered with a sort of mat-like carpeting, strain of low music, above and around, undulated as i| from invisible instruments, seeming to belong naturallj to the place, just as the sound of murmuring waters THE COMING RACE. longs to a rocky landscape, or the warble of birds to remal groves. A figure, in a simpler garb than that of ray guide, but ^f similar faoiiion, was standing motionless near the thres- iold. My guide touched it twice with his staff, and it Lut itself into a rapid and gliding movement, skimming loiselessly over the floor. Gazing on it, I then saw that was no living form, but a mechanical automaton. It light be two minutes after it vanished through a door- }S8 opening, half screened by curtains at the other end the hall, when, through the same opening, advanced a )y of about twelve years old, with features closely re- ^rnbling those of my guide, so that they seemed to me ddently son and father. On seeing me the child uttered cry and lifted a staff, like that borne by my cfuide, as in menace. At a word from the elder he dropped it. le two then conversed for some moments, examining [e while they spoke. The child touched my garments, id stroked my face with evident curiosity, uttering a [und like a laugh, but with an hilarity more subdued lan the mirth of our laughter. Presently the roof of e hall opened, and a platform descended, seemingly instructed on the same principle as the " lifts " used in kels and warehouses, for mounting from one story to [other. [The stranger placed himself and the child on the plat- rm, and motioned to me to do the same, which I did. [e ascended quickly and safely, and alighted in the [dst of a corridor, with doorways on either side, through one of these doorways I was conducted into B n it. 2 i < ^ r ¥. 18 THE COMING RACE. a chamber fitted up with an Oriental splendour; the walls were tesselated with spars, and metals, and uncutl jewels ; cushions and divans abounded ; apertures as fon windows, but unglazed, were made in the chamber, open] ing to the floor ; and as I passed along I obsei'ved thaJ these openings led into spacious balconies, and commanded views of the illumined landscape without. In cages sus pendcd from the ceiling there were birds of strange fom and bright plumage, which, at our entrance, set up chorus of song, modulated into tune, as is that of oi piping bullfinches. A delicious fragrance, from censer of geld elaborately sculptured, filled the air. Sever automata, like the one I had seen, stood dumb and mo tionless by the walls. The stranger placed me besid] him on a divan, and again spoke to me, and again spoke, but without the least advance towards understand ing each other. But now I began to feel the effects of the blow I hii received from the splinters of the falling rock moij acutely than I had done at first. There came over me a sense of sickly faintness, accor panipd with acute, lancinating pains in the head anj neci£. I sank back on the seat, and strove in vain stifle a groan. On this the child, who had hither seemed to eye me with distrust or dislike, knelt by mj side to support me ; taking one of my hands in both own, he approached his lips to my forehead, breathing it softly. In a few moments my pain ceased ; a drowsj happy calm crept over me ; I fell asleep. How long I remained in this state I know not, hi THE COMING RACE. 19 ■'im t f Iwhen I woke I felt perfectly restored. My eyes opened ipon a group of silent forms, seated around me in the rravity and quietude of Orientals — all more or less like the first stranger ; the same mantling wings, the same Fashion of garment, the same sphinx-like faces, with the leep dark eyes, and red man's colour ; above all, the same type of race — race akin to man's, but infinitely stronger )f form and ' grander of aspect, and inspiring the same mutterable feeling of dread. Yet each countenance was lild and tranquil, anc* even kindly in its expression, ind, strangely enough, it seemed to me that in this very jalm and benignity consisted the secret of the dread /^hich the countenances inspired. They seemed as void >f the lines and shadows which care and sorrow, and )assion and sin, leave upon the faces of men, as are the faces of sculptured gods, or as, in the eyes of Christian lourners, seem the peaceful brows of the dead. I felt a warm hand on my shoulder ; it was the child's. [n his eyes there was a sort of lofty pity and tenderness, mch as that with which we may gaze on some suffering ^ird or butterfly. I shrank from that touch — I shrank rem that eye. I was vaguely impressed with a belief [hat, had he so pleased, that child could have killed me is easily as a man can kill a bird or a butterfly. The |hild seemed pained at my repugnance, quitted me, and blaced himself beside one uf the windows. The others jontinued to converse with each other in a low tone, and [y their glances towards me I could perceive that I was le object of their conversation. One in especial seemed be urging some proposal affecting me on the being n (/; c 2 < if w t ' r IE 20 THE COMING RACE. whom I had first met, and this last, by his gesture, seemed about to assent to it, when the child suddenly quitted his post by the window, placed himself between me and the other forms, as if in protection, and spoke quickly and eagerly. By some intuition or instinct, I felt that the child I had before so dreaded was pleading in my behalf] Ere he had ceased another stranger had entered the room. He appeared older than the rest, though not old; his I countenance, less smoothly serene than theirs, though equally regular in its features, seemed to me to have more the touch of a humanity akin to my own. He listenedl quietly to the words addressed to him, first by my guidej next by two others of the group, and lastly by the child then turned towards myself, and addressed me, not byl words, but by signs and gestures. These I fancied thati I perfectly understood, and I was not mistaken. I coni.| prehended that he inquired whence I came. I extended my arm and pointed towards the road which had led mel from the chasm in the rock ; then an idea seized me. l| drew forth my pocket-book, and sketched on one of it blank leaves a rough design of the ledge of the rock, th^ rope, myself clinging to it ; then of the cavernous roc below, the head of the reptile, the lifeless form of mj friend. I gave this primitive kind of hieroglyph to mj interrogator, who, after inspecting it gravely, handed il| to his next neighbour, and it thus passed round the group The being I had at first encountered then said a fe^ words, and the child, who approached and looked at mj| drawing, nodded as if he comprehended its purport, ad returning to the window, expanded the wings attached THE COMING RACE. 21 Ihis form, shook them once or twice, and then launched |himself into space without. I started up in amaze and lastfined to the window. The child was already in the lir, buoyed on his wings, which he did not flap to and fro as a bird does, but which were elevated over his head, md seemed to bear him steadily aloft without effort of us own. His flight seemed as swift as an eagle's ; and I )bserved that it was towards the rock whence I had de- scended, of which the outline loomed visible in the bril- liant atmosphere. In a very few minutes he returned, skimming through the opening from which he had gone, md dropped on the floor the rope and grappling-hooks I md left at the descent from the chasm. Some words in low tone passed between the beings present : one of the froup touched an automaton, which started forward and Hided from the room ; then the last comer, who had ad- [ressed me by gestures, rose, took me by the hand, and id mo into the corridor. There the platform, by which had mounted, awaited us ; we placed ourselves on it, id were lowered into the hall below. My new com- mion, still holding me by the hand, conducted me from le building into a street (so to speak) that stretohed jyond it, with buildings on either side, separated from ich other by gardens, bright with rich-coloured vegeta- |on and strange flowers. Interspersed amidst these gar- jns, which were divided from each other by low walls, walking slowly along the road, were many forms simi- to those I had already seen. Some of the passers-by, observing me, approached my guide, evidently by their les, looks, and gestures, addressing to him inquiries n I C 2 < IS V ¥- ■to. r 5 !■ -i ii i 4:1 l;l 22 THE COMING RACE. about myself. In a few moments a crowd collected round us, examining me with great interest, as if I were 8onie| rare wild animal. Yet, even in gratifying their curiosity, they pi-eserved a grave and courteous demeanour ; and, after a few words from my guide, who seemed to me tol deprecate obstruction in our road, they fell back with n stately inclination of head, and resumed their own way with tranquil indifference. Midway in this thoroughfare we stopped at a building that differed from those we had hitherto passed, inasmuch as it foVnied three sides of al vast court, at the angles of which were lofty pyramidal! towers ; in the open space, between the sides, was a cirj cular fountain, of colossal dimensions, and throwing up dazzling spray of what seemed to me fire. We entered] the building through an open doorway, and came into an enormous ^all, in which were several groups of childrer all apparently employed in work, as at some great factory] There was a huge engine in the wall which was in fui play, with wheels and cylinders resembling our owij steam-engines, except that it was richly ornamented witlj precious stones and metals, and appeared to emanate pale phosphorescent atmosphere of shifting light. Manjl of the children were at some mysterious work on tliij machinery, others were seated before tables. I was noj allowed to linger long enough to examine into the natur of their employment. Not one young voice was heard- not one young face turned to gaze on us. They were al still and indifferent as may be ghosts, through the mi( of which pass unnoticed the forms of the living. Quitting this hall, my guide led me through a galler TIIK COA^INO RACK. 28 richly painted in compartments, with a Imrbari'j mixture ()f gold in the colours, liko pictures by Louis T^rnnach. The subjects descriVed on these walls appeared to my glance as intended to illustrate events in the history of the race amidst which I was admitted. In all there were Ifigurcs, most of them like the maidike creatures I had Iseen, but not all in the same fashion of g.irb, nor all with wings. There were also the eftigies of various animals Lmd birds wholly strange to me, with backgrounds depict- ing landscapes or buildings. So far as my imperfect :nowledge of the pictorial art would allow me to form an )pinion, these paintings seemed very accurate in design md very rich in colouring, showing a perfect knowledge )f perspective, but their details not arranged according to the rules of composition acknowledged by our artists — ranting, as it were, a centre; so that the effect was vague, scattered, confused, bewildering — they were like hetero- reneous fragments of a dream of art. We now came into a room of moderate size, in which |tvas assembled what I afterwards knew to be the family )f n^ guide, seated at a table spread as for repast. The ^orras thus grouped were those of my guide's wife, his laughter, and two sons. I recognised at once the differ- mce between the two sexes, though the two females were )f taller stature and ampler proportions than the males ; md their countenances, if still more symmetrical in out- line and contour, were devoid of the softness and timidity )f expression which give charm to the face of woman as feen on the earth above. The wife wore no wings, the laughter wore wings longer than those of the males. n c < n r D. 24 THE COMING RACE. My guide uttered a few words, on which all the persons I seated rose, and with that peculiar mildness of look and manner which I have before noticed, and which is, in truth, the common attribute of this formidable race, they saluted me according to their fashion, which consists in| 1 lying the right hand very gently on the head and utter- ing a soft sibilant monosyllable — S.Si, equivalent to "Wel- come." The mistress of the house then seated me beside her, I and heaped a golden platter before me from one of the| dishes. While I ate (and though the viands were new to me, 11 marvelled more at the delicacy than the strangeness ofl their flavour), my companions conversed quietly, and, so far as I could detect, with polite avoidance of any direct reference to myself, or any obtrusive scrutiny of my ap- pearance. Yet I was the first creature of that variety of the human race to which I belong that they had ever beheld, and was consequently regarded by them as a most curious and abnormal phenomenon. But all rudeness is unknown to this people, and the youngest child is taught to despise any vehement emotional demonstration. 'When the meal was ended, my guide again took me by the hand,| and, re-entering the gallery, touched a metallic plate in- scribed with strange figures, and which I rightly conjec- tured to be of the nature of our telegraphs. A platforml descended, but this time we mounted to a much greater height than in the former building, and found ourselves! in a room of moderate dimensions, and which in its! general character had much that might be familiar to the THE COMING RACE. 25 associations of a visitor from the upper world. There were shelves on the wall containing what- appeared to be bookf!, and indeed were so ; mostly very small, like our diamond duodecimos, shaped in the fashion of our volumes, .and bound in fine sheets of metal. There were several curious-looking pieces of mechanism scattered about, ap- parently models, such as might be seen in the study of any professional mechanician. Four automata (mechani- cal contrivances which, with these people, answer the ordinary purposes of domestic service) stood phantom-like at each angle in the wall. In a recess was a low couch, or bed with pillows. A window, with curtains of some fibrous material drawn aside, opened upon a large balcony. jMy host ste ;ped out into the balcony; I followed him. We were on the uppermost story of one of the angular pyramids; the view beyond was of a wild and solemn beauty impossible to describe, — the vast ranges of pre- cipitous rock which formed the distant background, the [intermediate valleys of mystic many-coloured herbage, the lash of waters, many of them like streams of roseate lame, the serene lustre diff'used over all by myriads of lamps, combined to form a whole of which no words of line can convey adequate description; so splendid was ft, yet so sombre ; so lovely, yet so awful. But my attention was soon diverted from these nether landscapes. Suddenly there arose, as from the streets )eloWa>a burst of joyous music ; then a winged form soared [nto the space ; another as in chase of the first, another md another ; others after others, till the crowd grew thick ind the numbsr countless. But how describe the fantas- m r 0- .> ■■ \ 26 THE COMING RACE. 11 tic grace of these forms in their undulating movements ! They appeared engaged in some sport or amusement ; now forming into opposite squadrons; now scattering ; now each group threading the other, soaring, descending, inter- weaving, severing ; all in measured time to the music below, as if in the dance of the fabled Peri. I turned my gaze on my host in a feverish wonder. I ventured to place my hand on the large wings that lay folded on his breast, and in doing so a slight shock as of electricity passed through me. I recoiled in fear ; my host smiled, and, as if courteously to gratify my curiosity, slowly expanded his pinions. I observed that his gar- ment beneath then became dilated as a bladder that fills with air. The arms seemed to slide into the wings, and in another moment he had launched himself into the luminous atmosphere, and hovered there, still, and with outspread wings, as an eagle that basks in the sun. Then, rapidly as an eagle swoops, he rushed downwards into the midst of one of the groups, skimming through the midst, j and as suddenly again soaring aloft. Thereon, three forms, in one of which I thought to recognise my host's daughter, detached themselves from the rest, and followed him as a bird sportively follows a bird. My eyes, dazzled with the lights and bewildered by the throngs, ceased to distinguish the gyrations and evolutions of these winged playmates, till presently my host re-emerged from the| crowd and alighted at my side. ^ The strangeness of all I had seen began now to operate I fast on my senses; my mind itself began to wander. Though not inclined to be superstitious, nor hitherto THE COMING RACE. 27 believing that man could be brought into bodily com- munication with demons, I felt the terror and the wild excitement with which, in the Gothic ages, a traveller might have persuaded himself that ho witnessed a sahhat of fiends and witches. I have a vague recollection of having attempted with vehement gesticulation, and forms of exorcism, and loud incoherent words, to repel my courteous and indulgent host ; of his mild endeavours to calm and soothe me ; of his intelligent conjecture that my fright and bewilderment were occasioned by the differ- ence of form and movement between us which the wings that had excited my marvelling curiosity had, in exercise, j made still more strongly perceptible ; of the gentle smile with which he had sought to dispel my alarm by drop- ping the wings to the ground and endeavouring to show me that they were but a mechanical contrivance. That sudden transformation did but increase my horror, and as extreme fright often shows itself by extreme daring, I sprang at his throat like a wild beast. On an instant I was felled to the ground as by an electric shock, and the last confused images floating before my sight ere T became wholly insensible, were the form of my host kneeling be- side me with one hand on my forehead, and the beautiful calm face of his daughter, with large, deep, inscrutable eyes intently fixed upon my own. n (/) C < m I IK ill r I •* fi c > ^ CHAPTER VI. I REMAINED in this unconscious state, as I afterwards learned, for many days, even for some weeks, according to our computation of time. When I recovered I was in a strange room, my host and all his family were gathered round me, and to my utter amaze my host's daughter accosted me in my own language with but a slightly foreign accent. " How do you feel V she asked. It was some moments before I could overcome mv sur- prise enough to falter out, "You know my language? How ? Who and what are you ?" My host smiled and motioned to one of hia sons, who then took from a table a number of thin metallic sheets on which were uraced drawings of various figures — a house, a tree, a bird, a man, &c. • In these designs I recognised my own style of drawing. Under each figure was written the name of it in my lan- guage, and in my writing ; and in another handwriting a word strange to me beneath it. Said the host, " Thus we began ; nd my daughter Zee, who belongs to the College of Sages, has been your in- structress and ours too." Zee then placed before me. other metallic sheets, on which, in my writing, words first, and then sentences were inscribed. Under each word and each sentence THE COMING RACE. r 29 strange characters in another hand. Rallying my senses, I comprehended that thus a rude dictionary had been ef- fected. Had it been done while I was dreaming ? " That [ is enough now," said Zee, in a tone of command. " Repose and take food." 'it; I i iC/" 1:1 # CHAPTER VII. A iiooM to myself was assigned to me in this .vast edifice It was prettily and fantastically arranged, but without any of the splendour of metai-work or gems which was displayed in the more public apartments. The walls were hung with a variegated matting made from the stalks and fibres of plants, and the floor carpeted with the same. The bed was without curtains, its supports of iron rest- ing on balls of crystal ; the coverings, of thin white sub- stance resembling cotton. There were sundry shelves containing books. A curtained recess communicated with an aviary filled with singing-birds, of which I did not recognise one resembling those I have seen on earth, except a beautiful species of dove, though this was distin- guished from our doves by a tall crest of bluish plumes. All these birds had been trained to sing in artful tunes, and greatly exceeded the skill of our piping bullfinches, which can rarely achieve more than two tunes., and caii-| not, I believe, sing those in concert. One might have sup- posed one's self at an opera in listening to the voices in I my aviary. There were duets and trios, and quartettes and choruses, all arranged as in one piece of music. Did I want to silence the birds ? I had but to draw a curtain over the aviary, and their song hushed as they found themselves left in the dark. Another opening formed a THE COMING RACE. 81 window, not glazed, but on touching a spring, a shutter ascended fron the floor, formed of some substance less transparent than glass, but still sufficiently pellucid to allow a softening view of the scene without. To this window was attached a balcony, or rather hanging-garden, wherein grew many graceful plants and brilliant flowers. The apartment and its appurtenances had thus a character, if strange in detail, still familiar, as a whole, to modern notions of luxury, and would have excited admiiation if found attached to the apartments of an English duchess or a fashionable French author. Before I arrived this was Zee's chamber ; she had hospitably assigned it to me. Some hours after the waking up which is described in my last chapter, I was lying alone on my couch trying to fix my thoughts on conjecture as to the nature and genus of the people amongst whom I was thrown, when my host and his daughter Zee entered the room. My host, still speaking my native language, inquired, with much polite- ness, whether it would be agreeable to me to converse, or if I prefen^d solitude. I replied, that I should feel much honoured and obliged by the opportunity offered me to express my gratitude for the hospitality and civilities T had received in a country to which I was a stranger, and to learn enough df its customs and manners not to offend through ignorance. * As I spoke, I had of course risen from my couch : bu Zee, much to my co^tfusion, curtly ordered me to lie down again, and there was something in her voice and eye, gentle as both were, that compelled my obedience. She then seated herself unconcernedly at the foot of my bed, n (/) ^ M' ■:' ■*;;* 82 THE COMING RACE. while her father took his place on a divan a few feet dis- tant. " But what part of the world do you come from," asked my host, **t\i&i we should appear so strange to you, and you to us ? I have seen individual specimens of nearly all the races differing from our own, except the primeval savages who dwell in the most desolate and remote recesses of uncultivated nature, unacquainted with other light than that they obtain from volcanic fires, and con- tented to grope their way in the dark, as do many creep- 1 ing, crawling, and even flying things. But certainly you | cannot be a member of those barbarous tribes, nor, on the other hand, do you seem to belong to any civilized people." I was somewhat nettled at this last observation, and replied that I had the honour to belong to one of the most civilized nations of the earth ; and that, so far as light | was concerned, while I admired the ingenuity and dis- regard of expense with which my host and Ms fellow- citizens had contrived to illumine the regions unpenetrated by the rays of the sun, yet I could not conceive how any who had once beheld the orbs of heaveja could compare to | their lustre the artificial lights invented by the necessities . of mim. B.,.t my host said he had seen specimens of most of the races differing from his own, save the wretched barbarians he had mentioned. Now, was it possible that he had never been on the surface of the earth, or could he only be referring to communities buried within its en- trails? My host was for some moments silent ; his countenance .'S« THE COMING RACE. 33 showed a degree of surprise which the people of that race rery rarely manifest under any circumstances, howsoever jxtraordinary. But Zee was more intelligent, and ex- claimed, " So you see, my father, that there is a truth in ^he old tradition ; there always is truth in every tradition jommonly believed in all times and by all tribes." "Zee," said my host, mildly, "you belong to the College )f Sages, and ought to be wiser than I am; but, as chief |)f the Light-preserving Council, it is my duty to take no- thing for granted till it is proved to the evidence of my )wn senses." Then, turning to me, he asked me several questions about the surface of the earth and the heavenly )odies ; upon which, though I answered him to the best |>f my knowledge, my answera seemed not to satisfy nor fonvince him. He shook his head quietjy, and, changing [he subject rather abruptly, asked how I had come down rom what he was pleased to call one world to the other, answered, that under the surface of the earth there were dnes containing minerals, or metals, essential to our rants and our progress in all arts and industries ; and I |hen briefly explained the manner in which, while explor- ig one of these Btines, I and my ill-fated friend had [btained a glimpse of the regions into which we had fescended, and how the descent had cost him his life; )pealiDg to the rope and grappling-hooks that the child id brought into the house in which I had been at first jceived, as a witness of the truthfulness of my story. My host then proceeded to question me as to the habits id modes of life among the races on the upper earth, lore especially among those considered to be of the most C * . n I t/) R c < m if It 34 THE COMING RACE. J mu advanced in that civilization which he was pleased to define " the art of diffusing throughout a community the tranquil happiness which belongs to a virtuous «nd well- ordered household." Naturally desiring to represent in| the most favourable colours the world from which I came, I touched but slightly, though indulgently, on the anti- quated and decaying institutions of Europe, in order to I expatiate on the present grandeur and prospective pre- eminence of that glorious Aiuerican Republic, in which Europe enviously seeks its model and tremblingly foresees its doom. Selecting for an example of the social life ofl the United States that city in which progress advances at the fastest rate, I indulged in an animated description of the moral habits of New York. Mortified to see, by the faces of my listeners, that I did not make the favour- able impression I had anticipated, I elevated my theme; dwelling on the excellence of democratic institutions,! their promotion of tranquil happiness by the governmentl of party, and the mode in which they diffused such happi- ness throughout the community by preferring, for thflj exercise of power and the acquisition of honours, the lowJ liest citizens in point of property, education, and character] Fortunately recollecting the peroration of a speech, on thJ purifying influences of American democracy and theiJ destined spread over the world, made by a certain elc quent senator (for whose vote in the Senate a Bailway Company, to which my two brothers belonged, had jus paid 20,000 dollars), I wound up by repeating its glowii predirtion? of the magnificent future that smiled upoii mankind — when the flag of freedom should float over THE COMING RACE. 35 entire continent, and two hundred millions of intelligent citizens, accustomed from infancy to the daily use of revol- vers, should apply to a cowering universe the doctrine of the Patriot Monroe. When I hcd concluded, my host gently shook his head, and fell into a musing study, making a sign to me and his daughter to remain silent while he reflected. And after a time he said, in a very earnest and solemn tone, " If you think, as you say, that you, though a stranger, have received kindness at the hands of mo and mine, 1 adjure you to reveal nothing to any other of our people respect- ing the world from which you came, unless, on consider- ation, I give you permission to do so. Do you consent to this request V* " Of course I pledge my word to it," said I, somewhat amazed; and I extended my right hand to grasp his. But he placed my hand gently on his forehead and his own right hand on my breast, which is the custom amongst this race in all matters of promise or verbal obligations. Then turning to his daughter, he said, " And you, Zee, will not repeat to any one what the stranger has said, or may- say, to me or to you, of a world other than our own." Zee rose and kissed her father on the temples, saying, with a smile, " A Gy's tongue is wanton, but love can fetter it fast. And if, my father, you fear lest a chance word from I me or yourself could expose our community to daiiger, by I a desire to explore a world beyond us, will not a wave of the vnl, properly impelled, wash even the memory of what we have heard the stranger say out of the tablets of Ithe brain?" " What is th6 vril ?" I asked. r>il '- 1 III ,j ^ i ^*V' '■ ) M :, ,j m "■f t'Jr ■ ^ '; ..^^m 30 THE COMING RACE. I ml Therewith Zee began to enter into an explanation of which I understood but very little, for there is no word in any language I know which is an exact synonym for vril. I should call it electricity, except that it compre- hends in its manifold branches other forces of nature, to which, in our scientific nomenclature, differing names are assigned, such as magnetism, galvanism, &c. These people consider that in vril they have arrived at the unity in natural energic agencies, which has been conjectured by many philosophers above ground, and which Faraday thus intimates under the more cautious term of correla- tion : — "I have long held an opinion," says that illustrious experimentalist, "almost amounting to a conviction, in common, I believe, with many other lovers of natural knowledge, that the various forms under which the forces of matter are made manifest have one common origin ; or, in other words, are so directly related and mutually dependent, that they are convertible, as it were, into one another, and possess equivalents of power in their action." These subterranean philosophers assert that by one operation of vril, which Faraday would perhaps calll " atmospheric magnetism,'' they can influence the varia- tions of temperature — in plain words, the weather; that| by other operations, akin to those ascribed to mesmerism, electro-biology, odic force, &c., but applied scientifically! through vril conduct )rs, they can exercise influence over minds, and bodies anjmal and vegetable, to an extent not surpassed in the romances of our mystics. To all such agencies they give the common name of vril. Zee asked THE COMING RACE. ff mo if, in my world, it was not known tliat all tho faculties of tho mind could bo quickened to a degree unknown in the waking state, by trance or vision, in which the thoughts of one brain could be transmitted to another, and knowledge be thus rapidly interchanged. T replied, that there were amongst us stories told of such trance or vision, and that I had heard much and seen something of tho mode in which they were aitificially effected, as in mesmeric clairvoyance ; but that these practices had fallen much into disuse or contempt, partly because of the gross impostures to which they had been made subservient, and partly because, even where the effects upon certain abnormal constitutions were genuinely produced, the effects, when fairly examined and analysed, were very unsatisfactory — not to be relied upon for any systematic truthfulness or any practical purpose, and rendered very mischievous to credulous persons by the superstitions they tended to produce. Zee received my answers with much benignant attention, and said that similar instances of abuse and credulity had been familiar to their own scientific experience in the infancy of their knowledge, and while the properties of vril were mis- apprehended, but that she reserved further discussion on this subject till I was more fitted to enter into it. She I contented herself with adding, that it was through the agency of vril, while I had been placed in the state of trance, that I had been made acquainted with the rudi- ments of their language ; and that she and her father* who alone of the family took the pains to watch the experiment, had acquired a greater proportionate know- 88 THE COMING RACE. ledge of my language than I of their own ; partly because my language was much simpler than theirs, comprising far less of complex ideas ; and partly because their organ- ization was, by hereditary culture, much more ductile and more leadily capable of acquiring knowledge than mine. At this I secretly demurred ; and having had in the course of a practical life, to sharpen my wits, whether at home or in travel, I could not allow that my cerebral organization could possiblj'^ be duller than that of people who had lived all their lives by lamplight. However, while I was thus thinking, Zee quietly pointed her fore- finger at my forehead and sent me to sleep. * CHAPTER VIII. t'u When I once more woke I saw by my bedside the child who had brought the rope and grapling-hooks to the house in which I had been first received, and which, as I afterwards learned, was the residence of the chief magis- trate of the tribe. The child, whose name was Tae (pro- nounced Tar-ee), was the magistrate's eldest son. I found that during my last sleep or trance I had made still greater advance in the language of the country, and could converse with comparative ease and fluency. This child was singularly handsome, even for the beau- tiful race to which he belonged, with a countenance very manly in aspect for his years, and with a more vivacious and energetic expression than I had hitherto seen in the serene and passionless faces of the men. He brought me the tablet on which I had drawn the mode of my descent, and had also sketched the head of the horrible reptile that had scared me from my friend's corpse. Pointing to that part of the drawing, Tae put to me a few questions respecting the size and form of the monster, and the eave or cavern from which it had emerged. His interest in my answers seemed so grave as to divert him for a while from any curiosity as to myself or my antecedents. But to my great embarrassment, seeing how I was pledged to my host, he was just beginning to ask me where I came from, when Zee fortunately entered, and> overhearing 1; ; ! m I 40 THE COMING RACE. m e IN HM m him, said, "Tae, give to our guest any information he may desire, but ask none from him in return. To ques- tion him who he is, whence he comes, or wherefore he is here, would be a breach of the law which my father has laid down for this house." "So be it," said Tae, pressing his hand to his heart; and from that moment till the one in which I saw him last, this child, vith v/hora I became very intimate, never once put to me any of the questions thus interdicted. CHAPTER IX. M It was not for some time, and until, by repeated trances, if they are so to be called, my mind became better pre- pared to interchange ideas with my entertainers, and more fully to comprehend differences of manners and cus- toms, au first too straiige to my experience to be seized by my reason, that I was enabled to gathor the following details respecting the origin and history of this subterra- nean population, as portion of one great family race called the Ana. According to the earliest traditions, the remote progeni- tors of the race had once tenanted a world above the surface of that in which their descendants dwelt. Myths of that world were stiU preserved in their Archives, and in those myths were legends ci' a vaulted dome in which the lamps were lighted by no human hand. But such legends were considered by most commentators as allegorical fables. According to these traditions the earth itself, at the date to which these traditions ascend* was not indeed in its infancy, but in the throes and travail of transition from one form of development to another, and subject to many violent revolutions of 1 nature. By one of such revolutions, that portion of the upper world inhabited by the ancestors of this race had been subjected to inundations, not rapid, but gradual and uncontrollable, in which all, save a scanty remnant, were i''.n ix 'if 42 THE COMING RACE. i \f '■' III submerged and perished. Whether this be a record of our historical and sacred Deluge, or of some earlier one, contended for by geologists, I do not pretend to conjec- ture : though, according to the chronology of this people, as compared with that of Newton, it must have been many thousands of years before the time of Noah. On the other hand, the account of these writers does not harmonise with the opinions most in vogue among geolo- gical authorities, inasmuch as it places the existence of a human rare upon earth at dates long anterior to that assigned t the terrestrial formation adapted to the intro- duction ol mammalia. A band of the ill-fated race, thus invaded by the Flood, had, during the march of the waters, taken refuge in caverns amidst the loftier rocks, and, wandering through these hollows, they lost sight of the upper world for ever. Indeed, the whole face of the earth had been changed by this great revulsion ; land had been turned into sea — sea into land. In the bowels of the inner earth, even now, I was informed as a positive fact, might be discovered the remains of human habita- tion — habitation not in huts and caverns, but in vast cities, whose ruins attest the civilization of races which flourished before the age of Noah, and are not to be clas- sified with those genera to which philosophy ascribes the use of flint and the ignorance of iron. The fugitives had carried with them the knowledge of the arts they had practised above ground — arts of culture and civilization. Their earliest want must have been I that of supplying below the earth the light they had lost | above it ; and at no time, even in the traditional period, ll;"1 THE COMING RACE. 43 do the races, of which the one I now sojourned with formed a tribe, seem to have been unacquainted with the art of extracting light from gases, or manganese, or petro- leum. They had been accustomed in their former state to contend with the rude forces of nature ; and, indeed, the lengthened batlile they had fought with their con- queror, Ocean, which had taken centuries in its spread, had quickened their skill in curbing waters into dikes and channels. To this skill they owed their preservation in their new abode. " For many generations," said my host, with a sort of contempt and hon-or, " these primitive forefathers are said to have degraded their rank and shortened their lives by eating the flesh of animals, many varieties of which had, like themselves, escaped the Deluge, and sought shelter in the hollows of the earth ; other animals, supposed to be unknown to the upper world, those hollows themselves produced." When what we should term the historical age emerged from the twilight of tradition, the Ana were already es- tablished in different communities, and had attained to a degree of civilization very analagous to that which the more advanced nations above the earth now enjoy. They were familiar with most of our mechanical inven- tions, including the application of steam as well as gas. The communities were in fierce competition with each other. They had their rich and their poor; they had orators and conquerors ; they made war either for a do- main or an idea. Though the various states acknowledged various foniis of government, free institutions were begin- ning to preponderate ; popular assemblies increased in \n if u. '■■ '''' , W. 44 THE COMING RACE. \m: ll power ; republics soon became general ; the democracy to which the most enlightened European politicians look forward as the extreme goal of political advancement, and which still prevailed among other subterranean races, whom they despised as barbarians, the lo^'tier family of Ana, to which belonged the tribe I was visiting, looked back to as one of the crude and ignorant experiments which belong to the infancy of political science. It was the age of envy and hate, of fierce passions, of constant social changes more or less violent, of strife between classes, of war between state and state. This phase of society lasted, however, for some ages, and was finally brought to a close, at least, among the nobler and more intellectual populations, by the gradual discovery of the latent powers stored in the all-permeating fiuid whicb they denominate Vril. According to the account I received from Zee, who, as an erudite professor in the College of Sages, had studied such matters more diligently than any other member of ! my host's family, this fluid is capable of being raised and disciplined into the mightiest agency over all forms of | matter, animate or inanimate. It can destroy, like the flash of lightning ; yet, differently applied, it can replenish or invigorate life, heal, and preserve, and on it they chiefly rely for the cure of disease, or rather for enabling the physical organization to re-establish the due equilibrium of its natural powers, and thereby to cure itself By this agency they rend way through the most solid substances, and open valleys for culture through the rocks of their subterranean wilderness. From it they extract the light THE COMING RACE. 45 which supplies their lamps, finding it steadier, softer, and healthier than the other inflammable materials they had formerly used. But the effects of the alleged discovery of the means to direct the more terrible force of vril were chiefly re- markable in their influence upon social polity. As these effects became familiarly known and skilfully adminis- tered, war between the vril-discoverers ceased, for they brought the art of destruction to such perfection as to annul all superiority in numbers, disciplir or military skill. The fire lodged in the hollow of a rod directed by the hand of a child could shatter the strongest fortress, or cleave its burning way from the van to the rear of an. embattled host. If army met army, and both had com- mand of this agency, it could be but to the annihilation of each. The age of war was therefore gone, but with the cessation of war other effects bearing upon the social state soon became apparent. Man was so completely at the mercy of man, each whom he encountered being able, if so willing, to slay him on the instant, that all notions of government by force gradually vanished from political systems and forms of law. It is only by force that vast communities, dispersed through great distances of space can be kept together; but now there was no longer either the necessity of bclf-preservation or the pride of L.ggran- disement to make one state desire to preponderate in population over another. The Vril-discoverers thus, in the course of a few gener- ations, peacefully split into communities of moderate size. [The tribe amongst which I had fallen was limited to 12,- r Hi- *': 1 m t\ 46 THE COMING RACE. 000 families. Each tribe occupied a terii ly sufficient for all its wants; and, at stated periods, the surplus popula- tion departed to seek a realm of its own. There appeared no necessity for any arbitrary selection of these emi- grants ; there was always a sufficient number who volun- teered to depart. These subdivided states, petty if we regard either ter- ritory or population, — all appertained to one vast general family. They spoke the Sctmo lar?o;uage, though the diale'^'ts might slightly differ. They intermarried ; they maintained the same general laws and customs ; and so important a bond between these several communities was the knowledge of vril and the practice of its agencies, that the word A- Vril was synonymouo with civiliza- tion; and Vril-ya, signifying "The Civilized Nations," was the common name by which the communities employ- ing the uses of vril distinguished themselves from such of the Ana as were yet in a state of barbarism. The government of the tribe of Vril-ya I am treating of was apparently very -con-plicated, really very simple. It was based upon a principle recognised in theory, though little carried out in practice, above ground — viz., that the object of all systems of philosophical thought tends to the attainment of unity, or the ascent through all inter- vening labyrinths to the simplicity of a single first cause or principle. Thus in politics, even republican writers have agreed that a benevolen autocracy would insure the best administration, if there were any guarantees for its continuance, or against its gradual abuse of the powers accorded to it. This singular community elected there- » :•» THE COMING RACE. 47 fore a single supreme magistrate styled Tur ; he held his office nominally for life, but he could seldom be induced to retain it after the first approach of old age. There was indeed in this society nothing to induce any of its mem- bers to covet the cares of office. No honours, no insignia of higher rank, were assigned to it The supreme magis- trate was not distinguished from the rest by superior habitation or revenue. On the other hand, the duties awarded to him were marvellously light and easy, requir- ing no proponderant degree of energy or intelligence. There being no apprehensions of war, there were no armies to maintain ; boing no government of force, there was no police to appoint and direct. What we call crime was utterly unknown to the Vril-ya ; and there were no courts of criminal justice. The rare instances of civil disputes were referred for arbitration to friends chosen by either party, or decided by the Council of Sages, which will be described later. There were no professional law- yers ; and indeed their laws were but amicable conven- tions, for there was no power to enforce laws against an offender who carried in his staff the power to destroy his judges. There were customs and regulations to compli- ance with which, for several ages, the people had tacitly habituated themselves ; or if in any instL\nce an indi- vidual felt such compliance hard, he quit i 3d the com- munity and went elsewhere. There was, in fact, quietly established amid this state, much the same compact that is found in our private families, in which we virtually say to any independent grown-up member of the family whom we receive and en ertain, "Stay or go, according ifl ^■!!lL I I 48 THE COMING BACE. m as our habits and regulations suit or displease you." But though there were no laws such as we call laws, no ract above ground is so law-observing. Obedience to the rule adopted by the community has become as much an in- stinct as if it were implanted by nature. Even in every household the head of it makes a regulation for its guid- ance, which is never resisted nor even cavilled at by those who belong to the family. They have a proverb, the pithiness of which is much lost in this paraphrase, " No happiness without order, no order without authority, no authority without unity." The mildness of all govern- ment among them, civU or domestic, may be signalised by their idiomatic expressions for such terms as illegal or forbidden — viz., " It is requested not to do so and so." Poverty among the Ana is as unknown as crime ; not that property is held in common, or that all are equals in the extent of their possessions or the size and luxury of their habitations: but tnere being no difference of rank or position between the grades of wealth or the choice of occupations, each pursues his own inclinations without creating envy or vying ; some like a modest, some a more splendid kind of life ; each makes himself happy in his own way. Owing to this absence of r impetition, and the limit placed on the population, it is c .cult for a family to fall into distress ; there are no hazardous speculations,, no emulators striving for superior wealth aid rank. No doubt, in each settlement all originally had the same pro- portions of land dealt out to them ; but some, more ad- venturous than others, had extended their possessions farther into the bordering wilds, or had improved into \ T* * 4 THE COMING RACE. 49 richer fertility the produce of their fields, or entered into commerce or trade. Thus, necessarily, some had grown richer than others, but none had become absolutely poor, or wanting anything which their tastes desired. If they did so, it was always in their power to migrate, or at the worst to apply, without shame and with certainty of aid, to the rich, for all the members of the community co'i- sidered themselves as brothers of one affectionate and united family. More upon this head will be treated of incidentally as ray narrative proceeds. The chief care of the supreme magistrate was to com- municate with certain active departments charged with the administration of special details. The most import- ant and essential of such details was that connected with the due provision of light. Of this department my host, Aph-Lin, was the chief Another department, which might be called the foreign, communicated with the neigh- bouring kindred states, principally for the purpose of ascertaining all new inventions ; and to a third depart- ment, all such inventions and improvements in machinery were committed for trial. Connected with this depart- ment was the College of Sages — a college especially favoured by such of the Ana as were widowed and child- less, and by the young unmarried females, amongst whom Zee was the most active, ai id, if what we call renown or distinction was a thing acknowledged by this people (which I shiill later show it is not), among the most re- nowned or distinguished. It is by the female Professors of this College that those studies which are deemed of least use in practical life — as purely speculative philo* n I c/ ' l\ I 50 THE COMING RACE. .i ' Vi. sophy, tho history of remote periods, and such sciences as entomology, conchology, &c. — are the more diligently cul- tivated. Zee, whose mind, active as Aristotle's, equally embraced the largest dominions and the minutest details of thought, had written two volumes on the parasite in- sect that dwells amid the hairs of a tiger's* paw, which work was considered the best authority on that interest- ing subject. But the researches of the Sages are not con- fined to such subtle or elegant studies. They comprise various others more important, and especially the pro- perties of vril, to the perception of which their finer nervous organisation renders the female Professors emi- nently keen. It is out of this College that the Tur, or f chief magistrate, selects Councillors, limited to three, in the rare instances in which novelty of event or circum- stance perplexes his own judgment. There are a few other departments of minor con- sequence, but all are carried on so noiselessly and quietly that the evidence of a government seems to vanish alto- gether, and social order to be as regular and unobtrusive as if it were a law of nature. Machinery is employed to an inconceivable extent in all the operations of labour, within and without doors, and it is the unceasing object of the department charged with its administration to extend its efficiency. There is no class of labourers or * The animal here referred to has many pohits of difference from the tiger of the upper world. It is larger, and with a broader paw, and still more receding frontal. K haunts the sides of lakes and pools, and feeds principally on fishes, though it does not object to any terrestrial animal of inferior strength that comes in its way. It is becom- ing very scarce even in the wild districts, where it is devoured by gigantic reptiles. 1 apprdiend that it clearly belongs to the tiger species, since the parasite animalcule found in its paw, like that found in the Asiatic tiger's is a miniature image of itself. THE COMING RACE. 51 servants, but all who ore required to assist or control the machinery are found ir the children, from the time they leave the care of their mothers to the marriageable ago, which they place at sixteen for the Gy-ei (the females), twenty for the Ana (the males). These children are formed into bands and sections under tlieir own chiefs, each following the pursuits in which he is most pleased, or for which he feels himself most fitted. Some take to handicrafts, some to agriculture, some to household work, and some to the only services of danger to which the population is exposed ; for the sole perils that threaten this tribe are, first, from those occasional convulsions within the earth, to foresee and guard against which tasks their utmost ingenuity — irruptions of fire and water, the storms of subterra can winds and escaping gases. At the borders of the domain, and at all places where such peril might be apprehended, vigilant inspectors are sta- tioned, with telegraphic communication to the hall in which chosen sages take it by turns to hold perpetual sittings. These inspectors are always selected from the elder boys approaching the age of puberty, and on Xhe principle that at that age observation is more acute, and the physical forces more alert than at any other. The second service of danger, less grave, is in the destruction of all creatures hostile to the life, or the culture, or even the comfort of the Ana. Of these the most formidable are the vast reptiles, of some of which antediluvian relics are preserved in our museums, and certain gigantic winged creatureS) half bird, half reptile. These, together with lesser wild animals, corresponding to our tigers or veno- s I ; '■ i IN It . THE COMING RACE. mous serpents, it is left to the younger children to hunt and destroy ; because, according to the Ana, here ruthless- ness is v anted, and the younger a child the more ruthless- ly he will destroy. There is another class of animals in the destruction of which discrimination is to be used, and against which children of intermediate age are appointed — ^animals that do not threaten the life of man, but ravage the produce of his labour — varieties of the elk and deer species, and a smaller creature much akin to our rabbit, though infinitely more destructive to the crops, and much more cunning in its mode of depredation. It is the first object of these appointed infants, to tame the more intel- ligent of such animals into respect for enclosures signal- ized by conspicuous landmarks, as dogs are taught to respect a larder, or even to guard the master's property. It is only where such creatures are found untamable to this extent that they are destroyed. Life is never taken away for food or for sport, and never spared where inimi- cal to the Ana. Concomitantly with these bodily services and ta4>ks, the mental education of the children goes on till boyhood ceases. It is the general custom, then, to pass through a course of instruction at the College of Sages, in which, besides more general studies, the pupil receives special lessons in such vocation or direction of intellect as he himself selects. Some, however, prefer to pass this period of probation in travel, or to emigrate, or to settle down at once into rural or commercial pursuits. No force is put upon individual inclination. . *» CHAPTER X. \W":' i The word Ana (pronounced broadly Arna) corresponds with our plural me?i ; An (pronounced Am), the singu- lar, with man. The word for woman is Gy (pronounced hard, as in Guy) ; it forms itself into Gy-ei for the plural, but the G becomes soft in the plural like Jy-ei. They have a proverb to the effect that this difference in pro- nunciation is symbolical, for that the female is soft in the concrete, but hard to deal with in the individual. The Gy-ei are in the fullest enjoyment of all the rights of equality with males, for which certain philosophers above ground contend. In childhood they perform the offices of work and la- bour impartially with the boys, and, indeed, in the earlier age appropriated to the destruction of animals irreclaim- ably hostile, the girls are frequently preferred, as being by constitution more ruthless under the influence of fear or hate. In the interval between infancy and the marriageable age familiar intercourse between the sexes is suspended. At the marriageable age it is renewed, never with worse consequences than those which attend upon marriage. All arts and vocations allotted to the one sex are open to the other, and the Gy-ei arrogate to themselves a superior- ity in all those abstruse and mystical branches of rea- soning, for which they say the Ana are unfitted by a duller sobriety of understanding, or the routiae of their •31 '■ 54 THE COMING RACE. m matter-of-fact occupations ; just as young ladies in our own world constitute themselves authorities in the subtlest points of theological doctrine, for which few men, actively engaged in worldly business, have sufficient learning or refinement of intellect. Whether owing to early training in gymnastic exercises or to their constitu- tional organization, the Gy-ei are usually superior to the Ana in physical strength (an important element in the consideration and maintenance of female rights). They attain to loftier stature, and amid their rounder propor- tions are embedded sinews and muscles as hardy as those of the other sex. Indeed they assert that, according to the original laws of nature, females were intended to be larger than males, and maintain this dogma by reference to the earliest formations of life in insects, and in the most ancient family of the vertebrata — viz., fishes — in both of which the females are generally large enough to make a meal of their consorts if they so desire. Above all, the Gy-ei have a readier and more concentred power over that mysterious fluid or agency which contains the element of destruction, with a larger portion of that sagacity which comprehends dissimulation. Thus they can not only defend themselves against all aggressions from the males, but could, at any moment when he least expected his danger, terminate the existence of an offend- ing spouse. To the credit of the Gy-ei no instance of their abuse of this awful superiority in the art of de- struction is on record for several ages. The last that oc- curred in the community I speak of appears (according to their chronology) to have been about two thousand years I I THE COMING RACE. 55 ( I ago. A Gy, then, in a fit of jealousy, slew her husband ; and this abominable act inspired such terror among the males that they emigrated in a body and left all the Gy-ei to themselves. The history runs that the widowed Gy-ei, thus reduced to despair, fell upon the murderess when in her sleep (and therefore unarmed), and killed her, and then entered into a solemn obligation amongst themselves to abrogate for ever the exercise of their extreme con- jugal powers, and to inculcate the same obligation for ever and ever on their female children. By this concilia- * tory process, a deputation despatched to the fugitive con- sorts succeeded in persuading many to return, but those who did return were mostly the elder ones. The younger, either froin too craven a doubt of their consorts, or too high an estimate of their own merits, rejected all over- tures, and, remaining in other communities, were caught up there by other mates, with whom perhaps they were no better off. But the loss of so large a portion of the male youth operated as a salutary warning on the Gy-ei, and confirmed them in the pious resolution to which they had pledged themselves. Indeed it is now popularly con- sidered that, by long hereditary disuse, the Gy-ei have lost both the aggressive and the defensive superiority over the Ana which they once possessed, just as in the inferior animals above the earth many peculiarities in their origi- nal formation, intended by nature for their protection, gradually fade or become inoperative when not needed under altered circumstances. I should be sorry, however, for any An who induced a Gy to make the experiment whether he or she were the stronger. n ^ tl lit • \ 56 THE COMING RACE. ^5-' Wi From the incident I have narrated, the Ana date cer- tain alterations in the marriage customs, tending, perhaps, somewhat to the advantage of the male. They now bind themselves in wedlock only for three years ; at the end of each third year either male or female can divorce the other and is free to marry again. At the end of ten years the An has the privilege of taking a second wife, allowing the first to retire if she so please. These regu- lations are for the most part a dead letter ; divorces and polygamy are extremely rare, and the marriage state now seems singularly happy and serene among this astonishing people; — the Gy-ei, notwithstanding their boastful su- periority in physical strength and intellectual abilities, being much curbed into gentle manners by the dread of separation or of a second wife, and the Ana being very much the creatures of custom, and not, except under great aggravation, likely to exchange for hazardous novel- ties, faces and manners to which they are reconciled by habit. But there is one privilege the G/-ei carefully retain, and the desire for which perhaps forms the secret motive of most lady asserters of woman rights above ground. They claim the privilege, here usurped by men, of proclaiming their love and urging their suit ; in other words, of being the wooing party rather than the wooed. Such a phenomenon as an old maid does not exist among the Gy-ei. Indeed it is very seldom that a Gy does not secure any An upon whom she sets her heart, if his affec- tions be not strongly engaged elsewhere. However coy, reluctant, and prudish, the male she courts may prove at first, yet her perseverance, her aMour, her persuasive THE COMING RACE. 57 powers, her command over the mystic agencies of vril, are pretty sure to run down his neck into what we call "the fatal noose." Their argument for the reversal of that relationship of the sexes which the blind tyranny of man has established on the sirface of the earth, appears cogent, and is advanced with a frankness which might well be commended to impartial consideration. They say, that of the two, the female is by nature of a more loving disposition than the male — that love occupies a larger space in her thoughts, and is more essential to her happiness, and that therefore she ought to be the wooing party; that otherwise the male is a shy and dubitant* creature — that he has often a selfish predilection for tha single state — that he often pretends to misunderstana tender glances and delicate hints — that, in short, he must be resolutely pursued and captured. They add, moreover, that unless the Gy can secure the An of her choice, and one whom she would not select out of the whole world becomes her mate, she is not only less happy than she otherwise would be, but she is not so good a being, that her qualities of heart are not sufficiently developed ; whereas the An is a creature that less lastingly concen- trates his affections on one object ; that if he cannot get the Gy whom he prefers he easily reconciles himself to another Gy ; and finally, that, at the worst, if he is loved and taken care of, it is less necessary to the welfare of his existence that he should love as well as be loved ; he grows contented with his creature comforts, and the many occupations of thought which he creates for himself Whatever may be said as to this reasoning, the system 58 THE COMING RACE. 1 «// works well for the male ; for being thus sure that he is truly and ardently loved, and that the more coy and re- luctant he shows himself, the more the determination to secure him increases, he generally contrives to make his consent dependent on such conditions as he thinks the best calculated to insure, if not a blissful, at least a peace- ful life. Each individual An has his own hobbies, his own ways, his own predilections, and whatever they may be, he demands a promise of full and unrestrained con- cession to them. This, in the pursuit of her object, the Gy readily promises ; oi^d az the characteristic of this extra- ordinary people is an implicit veneration for truth, and her word once given is never broken even by the giddiest Gy, the conditions stipulated for are religiously observed. In fact, notwithstanding all their abstract rights and powers, the Gy-ei are the most amiable, conciliator}'-, and submis- sive wives I have ever seen even in the happiest house- holds above ground. It is an aphorism among them, that " where a Qy loves it is her pleasure to obey." It will be observed that in the relationship of the sexes I have spoken only of marriage, for such is the moral perfection to which this community has attained, that any illicit connection is as little possible amongst them as it would be to a couple of linnets during the time they agreed to live in pairs. f;-r^ CHAPTER XL Nothing had more perplexed me in seeking to reconcile my sense to the 3xistence of regions extending below the surface of the earth, and habitable by beings, if dissimilar from, still, in all material points of organism, akin to those in the upper world, than the contradiction thus presented to the doctrine in which, I belie^ e, most geologists and philosophers concur — viz., that though with us the sun is the great source of heat, yet the deeper we go beneath the crust of the earth, the greater is the increasing heat, being, it is said, found in the ratio of a degree for every foot, commencing from fifty feet below the surface. But though the domains of the tribe I speak of were on the higher ground, so comparatively near to the surface, that I could account for a temperature, therein, suitable to organic Hfe, yet even the ravines and valleys of that realm were muqh less hot than philosophers would deem possible at such a depth — certainly not warmer than the south of France, or at least of Italy. And according to all the accounts I received, vast tracts immeasurably deeper be- neath the surface, and in which one might have thought only salamanders could exist, were inhabited by innumer- able races organised like ourselves. I cannot pretend in any way to account for a fact which is so at variance with the recognised laws of science, nor could Zee much help me towards a solution of it. She did but conjecture that 60 rHE COMING RACE. sufficieni allowance had not been made by our philoso- phers for the extreme porousness of the interior earth— the vastness of its cavities and irregularities, which served to create free currents of air and frequent winds — and for the various modes in which heat is evaporated and thrown off. She allowed, however, that there was a depth at which the heat wa^ deemed to be intolerable to such organized life as was known to the experience of the Vril-ya, though their philosophers believed that even in such places life of some kind, lite sentiment, life intellec- tual, would be found abundant and tiiriving, could the philosophers penetrate to it. "Wherever the All-Good builds," said she, "there, be sure. He places inhabitants. He loves not empty dwellings." She added, however, that many changes in temperature and climate had been effected by the skill of the Vril-y* and that the agency of vril had been successfully employed in such changes. She described a subtle and life-giving medium called Lai, which I suspect to be identical with the ethereal oxygen of Dr. Lewins, wherein work all the correlative forces united under the name of vril; and contended that wherever this medium could be expanded, as it were, sufficiently for the various agencies of vril to have ample play, a temperature congenial to the highest forms of life could be secured. She said also, that it was the belief of their naturalists that flowers and vegetation had been produced oiiginally (whether developed from seeds borne from the surface of the earth in the earlier convulsions of nature, or imported hy the tribes th at first sought refuge in cavernous hollows) through the operations of the light THE COMING RACE. 61 constantly brought to bear on them, and the gradual im- provement in culture. She said also, that since the vril light had superseded all other light-giving bodies, the colours of flower and foliage had become more brilliant, and vegetation had acquired larger growth. Leaving these matters to the consideration of those better competent to deal with them, I must now devote a few pages to the very interesting questions connected with the language of the Vril-ya. n 1 ' i-li ' y^.- V iii h. m CHAPTER XII. The language of the Vril-ya is peculiarly interesting, be- cause it seems to me to exhibit with groat clearness the traces of the three uain transitions through which lan- guage passes in attaining to perfection of form. One of the most illustrious of recent philologists, Max Muller, in arguing for the analogy between the strata of language and the strata of the earth, lays down this absolute drgma: "No language can, by any possibiUty, be inflectional without having passed through the agglu- tinative and isolating stratum. No language can be agglutinative without clinging witli iuS roots to the under- lying stratum of isolation." — 'On the Stratification of Language, p. 20. Taking then the Chinese language as the best existing type of the original isolating stratum, "as the faithful photograph of man in his heading-strings trying the muscles of his mind, groping his way, and so delighted with his first successful grasps that he, repeats them again and again,"* — wg have, in the language of the Vril-ya, still " clinging with its roots to the underlying stratum," the evidences of the original isolation. It abounds in monosyllables, which are the foundations of the language. The transition into the agglutinative form marks an epoch that must have gradually extended through ages, the * Max MUUer, * Stratification of Languat;e,' p. 13. ;• ■. -A THE COMING RACE. G8 written literature of which has only survivtd in a few fragments of symbolical mythology and certain nithy sen- tences which have passed into popular proverbs. With the extant literature of the Vril-ya the inflectional striatum commences. No doubt at that time there must have operated concurrent causes, in the fusion of races by some dominant people, and the rise of some grea t literary pheno- mena by which the form of language became arrested and fixed. As the inflectional stage prevailed over the agglu- tinative, it is surprising to see how much more boldly the original roots of the language project from the surface that conceals them. In the old fragments and proverbs of the preceding stage the monosyllables which compose those roots vanish amidst words of enormous length, com- prehending whole sentences from which no one part can be disentangled from the other and employed separately. But when the inflectional form of language became so far advanced as to have its scholars and grammarians, they seem to have united in extirpating all such polysynthe- tical or polysyllabic monsters, as devouring invaders of the aboriginal forms. Words beyond three syllables be- came proscribed as barbarous, and in proportion as the language grew thus simplified it increased in strength, in dignity, and in sweetness. Though now very compressed in sound, it gains in clearness by that compression. By a single letter, according to its position, they contrive to express all that with civilized nations in our upper world it takes the waste, sometimes of syllables, sometimes of sentences, to express. Let me here cite one or two in- stances : An (which I will translate man), Ana (men) j n t or m 64 THE COMING RACE. i m w-^ ui r Ji; J': the letter a is with them a letter implying multitude, ac- cording to where it is placed ; Sana means mankind; Ansa, a multitude of men. The prefix of certain letters in their alphabet invariably denotes compound significa- tions. For instance, 01 (which with them is a single letter, as ^^ is a single letter with the Greeks) at the com- mencement of a word infers an assemblage or union of things, sometimes kindred, sometimes dissimilar — as Con, a bouse ; Gloon, a town (i.e., an assemblage of houses). Ata is sorrow ; Glata, a public calamity. Aur-an is the health or wellbeing of a man ; Glauran, the wellbeing of the state, the good of the community ; and a word con- stantly in their mouths is A-glauran, which denotes their political creed — viz., that " the first principle of a com- munity ii* the good of all." Aub is invention ; Sila, a tone in music. Glaubsila, as uniting the ideas of inven- tion and of musical intonation, is the classical word for poetry — abbreviated, in ordinary conversation, to Glaubs. Na, which with them is, like Gl, but a single letter, always, when an initial, implies something antagonistic to life or joy or comfort, resembling in this the Aryan root Nak, expressive of perishing or destruction. Nax is darkness ; Narl, death ; Naria, sin or evil ; Nas — an ut- termost condition of sin and evil — corruption. In writing, they deem it irreverent to express the Supreme Being by any special name. He is symbolised by what may be termed the hieroglyphic of a pyramid, j^. In prayer they address Him by a name which they deem too sacred to confide to a stranger, and I know it not. In conversation they generally use a periphrastic epithet^ such as the All- THE COMINa RACE. 65 Good. The letter V, symbolical of the inverted pyramid where it is an initial, nearly always denotes excellence or power ; as Vril, of which I have said so much ; Veed, an immortal spirit; "Veed-ya, immortality; Koom, pronounced like the Welsh Cwm, denotes something of hoUowness. Koom itself is a cave ; Koom-in, m: If:: :1 ' r 1 CHAPTER XIV. Though, as I have said, the Vril-ya discourage all specu- lations on the nature of the Supreme Being, they appear to concur in a beMef by which they think to solve that great pro t^r* cif the existence of evil which has so per- plexed the ? hil sophy of the upper world. They hold that wherever Ho i.os once given life, with the percep- tions of that life, however faint it be, as in a plant, the life is never destroyed ; it passes into new and improved forms, though not in this planet (differing therein from the ordinary doctrine of metempsychosis), and that the living thing retains the sense of identity, so that it con- nects its past life with its future, and is conscious of its progressive improvement in the scale of joy. For they say that, without this assumption, they cannot, according to the lights of human reason vouchsafed to them, dis- cover the perfect justice which must bo a constituent quality of the All- Wise and the All-Good. Injustice, they say, can only emanate from three causes : want of wisdom to perceive what is just, want of benevolence to desire, want of power to fulfil it ; and that each of these three wants is incompatible in the All- Wise, the All- Good, the All-Powerful. But that, while even in this life, the wisdom, the benevolence, and the power of the Su- preme Being are sufficiently apparent to compel our re- cognition, the justice, necessarily resulting from those THE COMING RACE. 75 attributes, absolutely requires another life, not for man only, but for every living thing of the inferior orders. That, alike in the animal and the vegetable world, we see one individual rendered, by circumstances beyond its con- trol, exceedingly wretched compared to its neighbours — one only exists as the prey of another — oven a plant suffers from disease till it perishes prematurely, while the plant next to it rejoices in its vitality and lives out its happy life free from a pang. That it is an erroneous an- alogy from human infirmities to reply by saying that the Supreme Being only acts by general laws >'»veby making his own secondary causes so potent as ^o r r the essen- tial kindness of the First Cause ; and • t HI meaner and more ignorant conception of the AU-Gooc, tc dismiss with a brief contempt all consideration of ^ '"tlce for the myr- iad forms into which He has infused life, and a8.sume that justice is only due to the single product of the An. There is no small and no great in the eyes of the Divine Life- Giver. But once grant that nothing, however humble, which feels that it lives and suffers, can perish through the series of ages, that all its suffering here, if continu- ous from the moment of its birth to that of its transfer to another foi-m of being, would be more brief compared with eternity than the cry of the new-born is compared to the whole life of a man ; and once suppose that this living thing retains its sense of identity when so trans- formed (for without that sense, it could be aware of no future being), and though, indeed, the fulfilment of divine justice is removed from the scope of our ken, yet we have ' a right to assume it to be uniform and universal, and not Cr t tar s: rj i^ >> Co K fTP| 1 ^ ir \m 76 THE COMINO RACE. varying and partial, as \i would be if acting only upon general secondary law; because such perfect justice flows of necessity from perfectness of knowledge to conceive, perfectncss of love to will, and perfectness of power to complete it. However fantastic this belief of the Vril-ya may be, it tends perhaps to confirm politically the system of govern- ment which, admitting differing degrees of wealth, yet establishes perfect equality in rank, exquisite mildness in all relations and intercourse, and tenderness to all created things, which the good of the community does not require them to destroy. And though their notion of compensa- tion to a tortured insect or a cankered flower may seem to some of us a very wild crochet, yet, at least, it is not a mischievous one ; and it may furnish matter for no un- pleasing reflection to think that within the abysses of earth, never lit by a ray from the material heaven, there should have penetrated so luminous a conviction of the inefiable goodness of the Creator — so fixed an idea that the general laws by which He acts cannot admit of any partial injustice or evil, and therefore cannot be compre- hended without reference to their action over all space an<1 throughout all time. And since, as I shall have occasion to observe later, the intellectual conditions and social systems of this subterranean race comprise and harmonise great, and apparently antagonistic, varieties in philosophical doctrine and speculation which have from time to time been started, discussed, dismissed, and then re-appeared amongst thinkers or dreamers in the upper world, — so I may perhaps appropriately conclude this THE COMING RACE. 77 reference to the belief of the Vril-ya, that self-conscious or sentient life once given is indestructible among inferior creatures as well as in man, by an eloquent passage from the work of that eminent zoologist, Louis Agassiz, wliich I have only just met with, many ye«^rs after 1 have com- mitted to paper those recollections of the life of the Vril- ya which I now reduce into something like arrangement and form : " The relations which individual animals bear to one another are of such a character that they ought long ago to have been considered as sufficient proof that no organized being could ever have been called into exist- ence by other agency than by the direct intervention of a reflective mind. This argues strongly in favour of the existence in every animal of an immaterial principle simi- lar to that which by its excellence and superior endow- ments places man so much above animals ; yet the prin- ciple unquestionably exists, and whether it. be called sense, reason, or instinct, it presents in the whole range of organised beings a series of phenomena closely linked to- gether, and upon it are based not only the higher mani- festations of the mind, but the very permanence of the specifiic differences which characterise every organism. Most of the arguments in favour of the immortality of man apply equally to the permanency of this principle in other living beings. May I not add that a future life in which man would be deprived of that great source of enjoyment and intellectual and moral improvement which results from contemplation of the harmonies of an organic world would involve a lamentable loss? And may we 1-4^ 78 THE COMING RACE. not lock to a spiritual concert of the combined worlds and all their inhabitants in the presence of their Creator juj the highest conception in paradise ?" — * Essay on Classifi- cation* sect. xvii. p. 97-99. CHAPTER XV. Kind to me as I found all in this household, the young daughter of my host was the most considerate and thoughtful in her kindnesss. At her suggestion I laid aside the habiliments in which I had descended from the upper earth, and adopted the dress of the Vril-ya, with the exception of the artful wings which served them, when on foot, as a graceful mantle. But as many of the Vril-ya, when occupied in urban pursuits, did not wear these wings, this exception created no marked difierence between myself and the race among which I sojourned, and I was thus enabled to visit the town without exciting unpleasant curiosity. Out of the household no one sus- pected that I had come from the upper world, and I was but regarded as one of some inferior and barbarous tribe whom Aph-Lin entertained as a guest. The city was large in proportion to the territory round it, which was of no greater extent than many an English or Hungarian nobleman's estate ; but the whole of it, to the verge of the rocks which constituted its boundary, was cultivated to the nicest degree, except where certain allotmei. ts of mountain and pasture were humanely left free to the sustenance of the harmless animals they had tamed, though not for domestic use. So great is their kindness towards these humbler creatures, that a sum m devoted from the public treasury for the pa?pose of r'e* ^«- )i 80 THE COMING RACE. r I',* ill r porting them to other Vril-ya communities willing to receive them (chiefly new colonies), whenever they become too numerous for the pastures allotted to them in their native jJace. They do not, however, multiply to an extent comparable to the ratio at which with us, animals bred for slaughter increase. It seems a law of nature that animals not useful to man gradually recede from the domains he occupies, or even become extinct. It is an old custom of the various sovereign states amidst which the race of tho Vril-ya are distributed, to leave between each state a neutral and uncultivated border- land. In the instance of the community I speak of, this tract, being a ridge of savage rocks, was impassable by foot, but was easily surmounted, whether by the wings of the inhabitants or the air boats, of which I shall speak hereafter. Roads through it were also cut for the transit of vehicles impelled by vril. These intercommunicating tracts were always kept lighted, and the expense thereof defrayed by a special tax, to which all the communities comprehended in the denomination of Vril-ya contribute in settled proportions. By these means a considerable commercial traffic with other states, both near and dis- tant, was carried on. The surplus wealth of this special community was chiefly agricultural. The community was also eminent for skill in constructing implements connected with the arts of husbandry. In exchange for such merchandise it obtained articles more of luxury than necessity. There were few things imported on which they set a higher price^ than birds taught to pipe artful tunes in concert. These were brought from a great dis- i I THE COMING RACE. 81 tance, and were marvellous for beauty of song and plum- age. I understand that extraordinary care was taken by their breeders and teachers in selection, and that the species had wonderfully improved during the last few years. I saw no other pet animals among this community except some very amusing and sportive creatures of the Batrachian species, resembling frogs, but with very intel- ligent countenances, which the children were fond of, and kept in their private gardens. They appear to have no animals akin to our dogs or horses, though that learned naturalist, Zee, informed me that such creatures had once existed in those parts, and might now be found in regions inhabited hy other races than the Vril-ya. She said that they had gradually disappeared from the more civilized world since the discovery of Vril, and the results attend- ing that discovery had dispensed with their uses. Ma- chinery and the invention of wings had superseded the horse as a beast of burden ; and the dog was no longer wanted either for protection or the chase, as it had been when the ancestors of the Vril-ya feared the aggressions of their own kind, or hunted the lesser animals for food. Indeed, however, so far as the horse was concerned, this region was so rocky that a horse could have been, there, of little use either for pastime or burden. The only creature they use for the latter purpose is a kind of large goat which is much employed on farms. The nature of the surrounding soil in these districts may be said to have first suggested the invention of wings and air-boats. The largeness of space, in proportion to the space occupied by the city, was occasioned by the custom of surrounding F to tx. 1'^ 82 THE COMINO KACE. every house with a separate garden. The broad main street, in which Aph-Lin dwelt, expanded into a vast square, in which were placed the College of Sages and all the public offices ; a magnificent fountain of the luminous fluid which I call naphtha (I am ignorant of its real nature) in the centre. All these public edifices have a uniform character of massiveness and solidity. They reminded me of the architectural pictures of Martin. Along the upper stories of each ran a balcony, or rather a terraced garden, supported by columns, filled with flower- ing plants, and tenanted by many kinds of tame birds. From the square branched several streets, all broad and brilliantly lighted, and ascending up the eminence on either side. In my excursions in the town I was never allowed to go alone ; Aph-Lin or his daughter was my habitual companion. In this community the adult Gy is seen walking with any young An as familiarly as if there were no difference of sex. The retail shops are not very numerous ; the persons who attend on a customer are all children of various ages, and exceedingly intelligent and courteous, but without the least touch of importunity or cringing. The shop- keeper himself might or might not be visible ; when visible, he seemed rarely employed on any matter con- nected with his professional business ; and yet he had taken to that business from special liking to it, and quite independently of his general sources of fortune. Some of the richest citizens in the community kept such shops. As I have before said, no difference of rank is recognisable, and, therefore, all occupations hold the THE COMING IlACE. 83 mam vast ad all inous ) real ave a They [artin. ther a lower- birds. id and ice OQ never as my Gy is f there same equal social status. An An, of whom I bought my sandals, was a brother of the Tur, or chief magistrate ; and, though his shop was not larger than that of any bootmaker in Bond Street or Broadway, he was said to be twice as rich as the Tur who dwelt in a palace. No doubt, however, he had some country-seat. The Ana of the community are, on the whole, an indolent set of beings after the active age of childhood. Whether by temperament or philosophy, they rank repose among the chief blessings of life. Indeed, when you take away from a human being the incentives to action which are found in cupidity or ambition, it seems to me no wonder that he rests quiet. In their ordinary movements they prefer the use of their feet to that of their wings. But for their sports (or to indulge in a bold misuse of terms) their public prome- nades, they employ the latter, also for the aerial dances I have described, as well as for visiting their country places, which are mostlj" placed on lofty heights; and, when still young, they prefer their wings for travel into the other regions of the Ana, to vehicular conveyances. Those who accustom themsel"\*es to flight can fly, if less rapidly than some birds, yet from twenty-five to thirty miles an hour, and keep up that rate for five or six hours at a stretch. But the Ana generally, on reaching middle age, are not fond of rapid movements requiring violent, exercise. Perhaps for this reason, as they hold a doctrine which our own physicians will doubtless approve — viz,, that regular transpiration through the pores of the skin is essential to health, they habitually use the sweating- m ft 1 cz fe Ml r i t. ! 84 THE COMING RACE. J I : I baths, to which we give the name of Turkish or Roman, succeeded by douches of perfumed waters. They have great faith in the salubrious virtue of certain perfumes. It is their custom also, at stated but rare periods, per- haps four times a year when in health, to use a bath charged with vril.* They consider that this fluid, spar- ingly used, is a great sustainer of life ; but used in excess, when in the nonnal state of health, rather tends to re- action and exhausted vitality. For nearly all their dis- eases, however, they resort to it as the chief assistant to nature in throwing off the complaint. In their own way they are the most luxurious of peo- ple, but all their luxuries are innocent. They may be said to dwell in an atmosphere of music and fragrance. Every room has its mechanical contrivances for melodious sounds, usually tuned down to soft-murmured notes, which seem like sweet whispers from invisible spirits. They are too accustomed to these gentle sounds to find them a hindrance to conversation, nor, when alone, to reflection. But they have a notion that to breathe an air filled with continuous melody ar^d perfume has neces- sarily an effect at once soothing and elevating upon the formation of character and the habits of thought. Though so temperate, and with total abstinence from other animal food than milk, and from all intoxicating drinks, they are delicate and dainty to an extreme in food and beverage ; and in all their sports, even the old exhibit a child-like * I once tried the effect of the vril bath. It was very bimilar in its invigoratiiijf |>'»s\er8 to that of the b' ihs at Gastein, the virtues of which are ascribed by many phy. B*':iar8 to oisctricity ; but though similar, the effect of the vril bath was more lasting. THE COMING RACE. 85 gaiety. Happiness is the end at which they aim, not as the excitement of a moment, but as the prevailing condi- tion of the entire existence ; and regard for the happiness of each other is evinced by the exquisite amenity of their manners. Their conformation of skull has marked differences from that of any known races in the upper world, though I cannot help thinking it a development, in the course of countless ages, of the Brachy cephalic type of the Age of Stone in Lyell's "Elements of Geology," C. X., p. 113, as compared with the Dolichocephalic type of the beginning of the Age of Iron, correspondent with that now so preva- lent amongst us, and called the Celtic type. It has the same comparative massiveness of forehead, not receding like the Celtic — the same even roundness in the frontal organs ; but it is far loftier in the apex, and far less pronounced in the hinder cranial hemisphere where phrenologists place the animal organs. To speak as a phrenologist, the cranium common to the Vril-ya has the organs of weight, number, tune, form, order, casuality, very largely developed ; thr.t of construction much more pro- nounced than that of ideality. Those lich are called the moral organs, such as conscientiou ss and benevo- lence, are amazingly full ; amativeness id combativeness are both small ; adhesiveness large ; the organ of destruc- tiveness {i. e., of determined cleaii ace of intervening obstacles) immense, but less than that of benevolence and their philoprogenitiveness takes rather the character of compassion and tenderness to things that need aid or protection, than of the animal love of c. "spring. I never cz «^ il Cr i.-' ii 8G THE COMING RACE. f- :• \ ^-' i met with one person deformed or misshapen. The beauty of their countenances is not only in symmetry of feature, but in a smoothness of surface, which continues without line or wrinkle to the extreme of old age, and a serene sweetness of expression, combined with that majesty which seems to come from consciousness of power and the freedom of all terror, physical or moral. It is that very sweetness, combined with that majesty, which in- spired in a beholder like myself, accustomed to strive with the passions of mankind, a sentiment of humiliation, of awe, of dread. It is such an expression as a painter might give to a demi-god, a genius, an angel. The males of the Vrilya are entirely beardless; the Gy-ei some- times, in old age, develope a small moustache. I was suprised to find that the colour of their skin was not uniformly that which I had remarked in those indi- viduals whom I had first encountered — some being much fairer, f rid even with blue eyes, and hair of a deep golden auburn, though still of complexions warmer or richer in tone than persons in the north of Europe. I was tf Id that this admixture of colouring arose from intermarriage with other and more distant tribes of the Vril-ya, who, whether by accident of climate or early dis- tinction of race, were of fairer hues than the tribes of which this community formed one. It was considered that the dark-red skin showed the most ancient family of Ana; but they attached no sentiment of pride to that antiquity, and, on the contrary, believed their present ex- cellence of breed came from frequent crossing with other families differing, yet akin ; and they encourage such in- THE COMING RACE. 87 termarriagea, always provided that it be with the Vril-ya nations. Nations which, not conforming their manners and institutions to those of the Vril-ya, nor indeed held capable of acquiring the powers over the Vril agencies which it had taken them generations to attain and trans- mit, were regarded with more disdain than citizens of New York regard the negroes. I learned from Zee. who had more lore in aJl matters than any male with whom I was brought into familiar converse, that the superiority of the Vril-ya was supposed to have originated in the intensity of their earlier strug- gles against obstacles in nature amidst the locaJities in which they had first settled. " Wherever," .said Zee, moralising, " wherever goes on that early process in the history of civilization, by which life is made a struggle, in which the individual has to pu^ ^rth all his powers to compete with his fellow, we invariaoly find this result — viz., since in the competition a vast number must perish, nature selects for preservation only the strongest speci- mens. With our race, therefore, even before the discov- ery of Vril, only the highest organizations were preser- ved ; and there is among our ancient books a legend, once popularly believed, that we were driven from a region that seems to denote the world you come from, in order to perfect our condition and attain to the purest elimina- tion of our species by the severity of the struggles our forefathers underwent ; and that, when our education shall become finally completed, we are destined to return to the upper world, and supplant all the inferior races therein." 5: « 88 THK COMING RACE. Hi: 1 1 , Apli-Lin and Zee often conversed with me in private upon the political and social conditions of that upper world, in which Zee so philosophically assumed that the inhabitants were to be exterminated one day or other by the advent of the Vril-ya. They found in my accounts, — in which I continued to do all I could (without launch- ing falsehoods so positive that they would have been easily detected by the shrewdness of my listeners) to pre- sent our powers and ourselves in the most flattering point of view, — perpetual subjects of comparison between our most civilized populations and the meaner subterranean races which they considered hopelessly plunged in barba- rism, 'and doomed to certain if gradual extinction. But they both agreed in desiring to conceal from their com- munity, all premature opening into the regions lighted by the sun ; both were humane, and shrunk from the thought of annihilating so many millions of creatures ; and the pictures I drew of our life, highly coloured as they were, saddened them. In vain I boasted of our great men — poets, philosophers, orators, generals — and defied the Vril- ya to produce their equals. " Alas !" said Zee, her grand face softening into an angel-liko compassion, " this pre- dominance of the few over the many is the surest and most fatal sign of a race incorrigibly savage. See you not that the primary condition of mortal happiness con- sists in the extinction of that strife and competition be- tween individuals, which no matter what forms of gov- ernment they adopt, render the many subordinate to the few, destroy real liberty to the individual, whatever may be the nominal liberty of 'the state, and annul that calm 1' ; 1|! f THE COMING RACE. 89 of existence, without which, felicity, mental or bodily, cannot be obtained ? Our notion is, that the more we can assimilate life to the existence which our noblest idea can conceive to be that of spirits on the other side of the grave, why, the more we approximate to a divine happi- ness here, and the more easily we glide into the condi- tions of being hereafter. For, surely, all we can imagine of the life of gods, or of blessed immortals, supposes the absence of self-made cares and contentious passions, such as avarice and ambition. It seems to us that it must be a life of serene tranquillity, not indeed without active oc- cupations to the intellectual or spiritual powers, but occu- pations, of whatsoever nature they be, congenial to the idiosyncrasies of each, not forced or repugnant — a life gladdened by the untrammelled interchange of gentle affections, in which the moral atmosphere utterly kills hate and vengeance, and strife and rivalry. Such is the political state to which all the tribes and families of the Vril-ya seek to attain, and towards that goal all our theories of government are shaped. You see how utterly opposed is such a progress to tliat of the uncivilized na- tions from which you come, and which aim at systematic perpetuity of troubles, and cares, and warring passions aggravated more and more as their progress storms its way onward. The most powerful of all the races in our world, beyond the pale of the Vril-ya, esteems itself the best governed of all political societies, and to have reach- ed in that respect the extreme end at which political wis- dom can arrive, so that the other nations should tend more or less to copy it. It has established, on its broad- rr-, Cr I "ft 5» i 90 THE COMING RACE. T A' est base, the Koom-Posh — viz., the government of the ignorant upon the principle of being the most numerous. It has placed the supreme bliss in the vying with each other in all things, so that the evil passions are never in repose — vying for power, for wealth, for eminence of some kind ; and in this rivalry it is horrible to hear the vitu- peration, the slander?, and calumnies which even the best and mildest among them heap on each other without remorse or shame." " Some years ago," said Aph-Lin, " I visited this peo- ple, and their misery and degradation were the more ap- paling, because they were always boasting of their feli- city and grandeur as compared with the rest of their species. And there is no hope that this people, which evidently resembles your own, can improve, because all their notions tend to further deterioration. They desire to enlarge their dominion more and more, in direct antag- onism to the truth that, beyond a very limited range, it is impossible to secure to a community the happiness which belongs to a well-ordered family ; and the more they mature a system by which a few individuals are heated and swollen to a size above the standard slender- ness of the millions, the more they chuckle and exact, and cry out 'See by what great exceptions to the com- mon littleness of our race we prove the magnificent re- sults of our system!*" " In fact," resumed Zee, " if the wisdom of human life be to approximate to the serene equality of immortals, there can be no more direct flying off into the opposite direction than a system which aims at carrying to the THE COMING RACE. 91 of the nerous. th each ever in )f some e vitu- he best without lis peo- ore ap- ir feli- if their , which use all desire antag- inge, it >piness 8 more lis are ender- exact, cem- ent re- utniost the inequalities and turbulences of mortals. Nor do I see how, by any forms of religious belief, mortals, so acting, could fit themselves even to appreciate the joys of immortals to which they still expect to be transferred by the mere act of dying. On the contrary, minds accus- tomed to place happiness in things so much the reverse of godlike, would find the happiness of gods exceedingly dull, and would long to get back to a world in which they could quarrel with each other." i! (T— I I. an life ortals, )posite to the IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 1.1 I£i|2j8 |25 |io ^^" mH ■^ lii 12.2 ^ ». mm lit Itt u 1* u 14.0 H2.0 L25|||..4|y^ 4 6" » ^V ^^ Hiotographic Sciences Corporation 23 WIST MAIN STMIT WEBSTM.N.Y. 145M (716) •72-4503 n . if r'yii CHAPTER XVI. 1 HAVi spoken so much of the Vril Staff that my reader may expect me to describe it. This I cannot do accu- rately, for I was never allowed to handle it for fear of some terrible accident occasioned by my ignorance of its use ; and I have no doubt that it requires much skill and practice in the exercise of its various powers. Tt is hol- low, and has in the handle several stops, keys, or springs, by which its force can be altered, modified, or directed— so that by one process it destroys, by another it heals— by one it can rend the rock, by another disperse the vapour — by one it affects bodies, by another it can ex- ercise a certain influence over minds. It is usually carried in the convenient size of a walking-stick, but it has slides by which it can be lengthened and shortened at will. When used for special purposes, the upper part rests in the hollow of the palm, with the fore and middle fingers protruded. I was assured, however, that its power was "not equal in all, but proportioned to the amount of cer- tain vril properties in the wearer in affinity, or rapport with the purposes to be effected. Some were more potent to destroy, others to heal, &c. ; much also depended on the calm and steadiness of volition in the manipulator. They assert that the full exercise of vril power can only be acquired by constitutional temperament — i. e., by ' i THE COMING RACE. 93 ^ reader io accu- r fear of 36 of its kill and t is hol- springs, •ected— heals — 2rse the can ex- ' carried Eis slides at will, rests in 3 fingers wer was i of cer- rappoH 3 potent nded on ipnlator. jan only '. e., by hereditarily transmitted organization — and that a female infant of four years old, belonging to the Vril-ya races, can accomplish feats with the wand, placed for the first time in her hand, which a life spent in its practice would not enable the strongest and most skilled mechanician, born out of the Vril-ya, to achieve. All these wands are not equally complicated ; those intrusted to children are much simpler than those borne by sages of either sex, and constructed with a view to the special object in which the children are employed ; which, as I have before said, is among the youngeSt children the most destructive. In the wands of wives and mothers the correlative destroy- ing force is usually abstracted, the healing power fully charged. I wish I could say more in detail of this sin- gular conductor of the vril fluid, but its machinery is as exquisite as its effects are marvellous. I should say, however, that this people have invented certain tubes by which the vril fluid can be conducted towards the object it is meant to destroy, throughout a distance almost indefinite ; at least I put it modestly when I say from 500 to 600 miles. And their mathematical science as applied to such purpose is so nicely accurate, that on the report of some observer in an air-boat, any member of the vril department can estimate unerringly the nature of intervening obstacles, the height to which the projectile instrument should be raised, and the extent to which it should be charged, so as to reduce to ashes within a space of time too short for me to venture tp specify it, a capital twice as vast as London. Certainly these Ana are wonderful mechanicians — s: mj ^: 5> oo ' R So m ;■ r^Z rr, :=D ■ ' . i tumf 94 THE COMING RACE. W wonderful for the adaptations of the inventive faculty to practical uses. I went with my host and his daughter Zee over the great public museum, which occupies a wing in the Col- lege of Sages, and in which are hoarded, as curious speci- mens of the ignorant and blundering experiments of ancient times, many contrivances on which we pride our- selves as recent achievements. In one department, care- lessly thrown aside as obsolete lumber, are tubes for destroying life by metallic balls and an inflammable powder, on the principle of our cannons and catapults, and even still more murderous than our latest improve- ments. My host spoke of these with a smile of contempt, such as an artillery officer might bestow on the bows and arrows of the Chinese. In another department there were models of vehicles and vessels worked by steam, and of an air-balloon which might have been constructed by Montgolfier. " Such," said Zee, with an air of meditative wisdom — " such were the feeble triflings with nature of our savage forefathers, ere they had even a glimmering perception of the properties of viil ! " This young Gy was a magnificent specimen of the muscular force to which the females of her country attain. Her features were beautiful, like those of all her race : never in the upper world have I seen a face so grand and so faultless, but her devotion to the severer studies had given to her countenance an expression of abstract thought, which rendered it somewhat stern when in re- pose; and such sternness became formidable when ob- it' % THE COMINa BACE. 95 served in connection with her ample shoulders and lofty stature. She was tall even for a Qy, and I saw her lift up a cannon as easily as I could lift a pocket-pistol. Zee inspired me with a profound terror — a terror which in- creased when we came into a department of the museum appropriated to models of contrivances, worked by the agency of vril ; for here, merely by a certain play of her vril staff — she herself standing at a distance— she put into movement large and weighty substances. She seemed to endow them with intelligence, and to make them comprehend and obey her command. She set com- plicated pieces of machinery into movement, arrested the movement or continued it, until, within an incredibly short time, various kinds of raw material were reproduced as symmetrical works of art, complete and perfect. What- ever effect mesmerism or electro-biology produces over the nerves and muscles of animated objects, this young Gy produced by the motions of her slender rod over the springs and wheels of lifeless mechanism. When I mentioned to my companions my astonishment at this influence over inanimat« matter — ^while owning that, in our world, I had witnessed phenomena which showed that over certain living organizations certain other living organizations could establish an influence genuine in itself, but often exaggerated by credulity or craft — Zee, who was more interested in such subjects than her father, bade me stretch forth my hand, and then, placing beside it her own, she called my attention to certain distinctions of type and character. In the first place, the thumb of the Gy (and, as I afterwards noticed, of all that race, ft I: ::aD i^< t ;3C; \r*:. ■ 'K ■ Vf • I 11 A 96 THE COMING RACE. male or female) was much larger, at once longer and more massive, than is found with our species above ground There is almost, in this, as great a difference as there is Between the thumb of a man and that of a gorilla. Secondly, the palm is proportionately thicker than ours — the texture of the skin infinitely finer and softer — its average warmth is greater. More remarkable than all this, is a visible nerve, perceptible under the skin, which starts from the wrist, skirting the ball of the thumb, and branching, fork-like, at the roots of the fore and middle fingers. " With your slight formation of thumb," said the philosophical young Gy, "and with the absence of the nerve, which you find more or less developed in the hands of our race, you cp'a never achieve other than im- perfect and feeble power over the agency of vril ; but so far as the nerve is concerned, that is not found in the hands of our earliest progenitors, nor in thoiie of the ruder tribes without the pale of the Vril-ya. It has been slowly developed in the course of generations, commenc- ing in the early achievements, and increasing with the continuous exercise, of the vril power ; therefore, in the course of one or two thousand years, such a nerve may possibly be engendered in those higher beings of your race, who devote themselves to that paramount science, through which is attained command over all the subtler forces of nature permeated by vriL But when you talk of matter as something in itself inert and motionless, your parents or tutors surely cannot have left you so ig- norant as not to know that no form of matter is motion less and inert : every particle is constantly in motion, and THE COMING RACE. 97 constantly acted upon by agencies, of which heat is the most apparent and rapid, but vril the most subtle, and, when skilfully wielded, the most powerful. So that, in fact, the current launched by my hand, and guided by my will, does but render quicker and more potertt the action which is eternally at work upon every particle of matter, however inert and stubborn it may seem. If a heap of metal be not capable of originating a thought of its own, yet, through its internal susceptibility to move- ment, it obtains the power to roc(3ive the thought of the intellectual agent at work on it; and which, when con- veyed with a sufficient force of the vril power, it is as much compelled to obey, as if it were displaced by a visible bodily force. It is animated for the time being by the soul thus infused into it, so that one may almost say that it lives and it reasons. Without this we could not make our automata supply the place of servants." I was too much in twe of the thews and the learning of the young Gy to hazard the risk of arguing with her. I had read, somewhere, in my schoolboy days, that a wise man, disputing with a Roman Emperor, suddenly drew in his horns ; and when the Emperor asked him whether he had nothing further to say on his side of the question, replied, " Nay, Csesar, there is no arguing against a rea- soner who commands ten legions/' Thoujh I had a secret persuasion ^;hat, whatever the real effects of Vril upon ma.tter, Mr. Faraday could have proved her a very shallow philosopher as to its extent or its causes, I had no doubt that Zeo could have brained all the Fellows of the Royal Society, one after the othor O Co cz r n ■Ml- . ■ P* 5 , 98 THE COMING RACE. with a blow of her fist. Every sensible man knows that it is useless to argue with any ordinary female upon matters he comprehends ; but to argue with a Gy seven feet high, upon the mysteries of vril, — as well argue in a desert, and with a simoon I Amid the various departments to which the vast build- ing of the College of Sages was appropriated, that which interested me most was devoted to the archaeology of the Vril-ya, and comprised a very ancient collection of por- traits. In these the pigments and groundwork employed were of so durable a nature that even pictures, said to be executed at dates as remote as those in the earliest aimals of the Chinese, retained much freshness of colour. In ex- amining this collection, two things especially struck me : — I'it, That the pictures said to be between 6000 and 7000 years old were of a much higher degree of art thtin any produced within the la t 3000 or 4000 years; and, 2nd, That the portraits within the former period much more resembled our own upper world and European types of countenance. Some of them, indeed, remind me of the Italian heads which look out from the canvas of Titian — speaking of ambition or craft, of care or of grief, with furrows in which the passions have passed with iron ploughshare. These were the countenances of men who had lived in struggle and conflict before the discovery of the latent forces of vril had changed the character of society — men who had fought with each other for power or fame as we in the upper world fight. The type of face began to evince a marked change about a thousand years after the vril revolution, becoming THE COMING RACE. 99 then, with each generation, more serene, and in that serenity more terribly distinct from the faces of labouring and sinful men ; while in proportion as the beauty and the grandeur of the countenance itself became more fully developed, the art of the painter became more tame and monotonous. " But the greatest curiosity in the collection was that of three portraits belonging to the pre-historical age, and, according to mythical tradition, taken by the orders of a philosopher, whose origin and attributes were as much mixed up with symbolical fable as those of an Indian Budh or a Greek Prometheus. From this mysterious personage, at once a sage and a hero, all the principal sections of the Vril-ya race pretend to trace a common origin. The portraits are of the philosopher himself, of his grandfather, and great-grandfather. They are all at full length. The philosopher is attired in a long tunic which seems to form a loose suit of scaly armour, borrowed, perhaps, from some fish or reptile, but the feet and hands are exposed : the digits in both are wonderfully long, and webbed. He has little or no perceptible throat, and a low receding forehead, not at all the ideal of a sage's. He has bright brown prominent eyes, a very wide mouth, and high cheek bones, and a muddy complexion. Ac- cording to tradition, this philosopher had lived to a pat- riarchal age, extending over many centuries, and he re- membered distinctly in middle life his grandfather as surviving, and in childhood his great-grandfather; the portrait of the first he had taken, or caused to be taken, I'i 1 1 1 :' IE CI rr-, W \ t ''■ t4 ■1 B'"^ m. m ^(Jl 100 THE COMING RACE. \v while yet alive — that of the latter was taken from his effigies in mummy. The portrait of the grandfather had the features and aspect of the philosopher, only much more exaggerated : he was not dressed, and the colour of his body was singular ; the breast and stomach yellow, the shoulders and legs of a dull bronze hue : the great- grandfather was a magnificent specimen of the Batrachian gehus, a Giant Frog, pur et simple. Among the pithy sayings which, according to tradition, the philosopher bequeathed to posterity in rhythmical form and sententious brevity, this is notably recorded — " Humble yourselves, my descendants, the father of your race was €i,twat (tadpole) : exalt yourselves, my descend- ants, for it was the same Divine Thought which created your father that develops itself in exalting you." Aph-Lin told me this fable while I gazed on the three Batrachian portraits. I said in reply : " You make a jest of my supposed ignorance and credulity as an uneducated Tish, but though these horrible daubs may be of great antiquity, and were intended, perhaps, for some rude cari- cature, I presume that none of your race, even in the less enlightened ages, ever believed that the great-grandson of a Frog became a sententious philosopher; or that any section, I will not say of the lofty Vril-ya, but of the meanest varieties of the human race, had its origin in a Tadpole." *' Pardon me," answered Aph-Lin : " in what we call the Wrangling or Philosophical Period of History, which was at its height about seven thousand years ago, there was a very distinguished naturalist, who proved to the w THE COMING RACE. 101 1 his • had nuch ur of jUow, freat- chian lition, imical ed — ' your 3cend- reated three I a jest iicated great cari- \e less son of it any )f the n in a re call which , there to the sati$ifaction of numerous disciples such analogical and anatomical agreements in structure between an An and a Frog, as to show that out of the one must have developed the other. They had some diseases in common ; they were both subject to the same parasitical worms in the intestines ; and, strange to say, the An has, in his struc- ture, a swimming-bladder, no longer of any use to him, but which is a rudiment that clearly proves his descent from a Frog. Nor is there any argument against this theory to be found in the relative difference of size, for there are still existent in our world Frogs of a size and stature not inferior to our own, and many thousand years ago they appear to have been still larger." "I understand that," said I, "because Frogs thus enor- mous are, according to our eminent geologists, who perhaps saw them in dreams, said to have been distinguished in- habitants of the upper world before the Deluge; and such Frogs are exactly the creatures likely to have flourished in the lakes and morasses of your subterranean regions. But pray, proceed." "In the Wrangling Period of History, whatever one sage asserted another sage was sure to contradict. In fact, it was a maxim in that age, that the human reason could only be sustained aloft by being tossed to and fro in the perpetual motion of contradiction ; and therefore another sect of philosophers maintained the doctrine that the An was not the descendant of the Frog, but that the Frog was clearly the improved development of the An. The shape of the Frog, taken generally, was much more symmetrical than that of An : besides the beautiful con- 5: Co CI ^i n i) PI 102 THE COMING KACE. formation of its lower limbs, its flanks and shoulders, the majority of the Ana in that day were almost deformed, and certainly ill-shaped. Again, the Frog had the power to live alike on land and in water — a mighty privilege, partaking of a spiritual essence denied to the An, since the disuse of his swimming-bladder clearly proves his degeneration from a higher development of species. Again, the earlier races of the Ana seem to have been covered with hair, and, even to a comparatively recent date, hirsute bushes deformed the very faces of our ances- tors, spreading wild over their cheeks and chins, as similar bushes, my poor Tish, spread wild over yours. But the object of the higher races of the Ana through countless generations has been to erase all vestige of connection with hairy vertebrata, and they have gradually eliminated that debasing capillary excrement by the law of sexual selec- tion ; the Gy-ei naturally prefering youth or the beauty of smooth faces. But the degree of the Frog in the scale of the vertebrata is shown in this, that he has no hair at all, not even on his head. He was born to that hairless perfection which the most beautiful of the Ana, despite the culture of incalculable ages, have not yet attained. The wonderful complication and delicacy of a Frog's nervous system and arterial circulation were shown by this school to be more susceptible of enjoyment than our inferior, or at least simpler, physical frame allows us to be. The examination of a Frog's hand, if I may use that expression, accounted for its keener suscepti- bility to love, and to social life in general. In fact, gre- garious and amatory as are the Ana, Frogs ars still more THE COMINO RACE. 103 518, the brmed, power ivilege, n, since ves his species. '6 been recent r ances- sirnilar But the Duntless on with bed that il selec- I beauty he scale > hair at hairless , despite ittained. Frog's shown joyment il frame Eind, if I suscepti- act, gre- till niore so. In short, these two schools raged against each other ; one asserting the An to be the perfected type of the* '^'rog; the other that the Frog was the highest development of the An. The moralists were divided in opinion with the naturalists, but the bulk of them sided with the Frog- preference school. They said, with much plausibility, that in moral conduct (viz., in the adherence to rules best adapted to the health and welfare of the individual and the community) there could be no doubt of the vast superiority of the Frog. All history showed the whole- sale immorality of the human race, the complete dis- regard, even by the most renowned amongst them, of the laws which they acknowledged to be essential to their own and the general happiness and wellbeing. But the severest critic of the Frog race could not detect in their manners a single aberration from the moral law tacitly recognized by themselves. And what, after all, can be the profit of civilization if superiority in moral conduct be not the aim for which it strives, and the test by which its progress should be judged ? " In fine, the adherents to thio theory presumed that in some remote period the Frog race iiad been the improved development of the Human ; but that, from some causes which defied rational conjecture, they had not maintained their original position in the scale of nature ; while the Ana, though of inferior organisation, had, by dint leas of their virtues than their vices, such as ferocity and cun- ning, gradually acquired ascendancy, much as among the human race itself tribes utterly barbarous have, by superi- ority in similar vices, utterly destroyed or reduced into 1^ I 104 THE COMING RACE. insignificance tribes originally excelling them in mental gifts and culture. Unhappily these disputes became in- volved with the religious notions of that age; and as society was then administered under the government of the Koom-Posh, who, being the most ignorant, were of course the most inflammable class — the multitude took the whole question out of the hands of the philosophers ; political chiefs saw that the Frog dispute, so taken up by the populace, could become a most valuable instrument of their ambition ; and for not less than one thousand years war and massacre prevailed, during which period the philosophers on both sides were butchered, and the government of the Koom-Posh itself was happily brought to an end by the ascendancy of a family that cleaily established its descent from the aboriginal tadpole, and furnished despotic rulers to the various nations of the Ana. These despots Anally disappeared, at least from our communities, as the discovery of vril led to the tranquil institutions under which flourish all the races of the Vril-ya." " And do no wranglers or philosophers now exist to revive the dispute ; or do they all recognise the origin of your race in the tadpole ?" " Nay, such disputes," ^aid Zee, with a lofty smile, '* be- long to the Pah-bodh of the dark ages, and now only serve for the amusement of infants. When we know the ele- ments out of which our bodies are composed, elements common to the humblest vegetable plants, can it signify whether the All- Wise combined those elements out of one ijim more than another, in order to create that in which 'I THE COMINQ BACE. 105 lental HQ in- nd as snt of ere of J took phers; up by umeot )usand p-rriod id the rought clearly e, and of the jmour •anquil of the ixist to igin of He has placed the capacity to receive the idea of Himself, and all the varied grandeurs of intellect to which that idea gives birth ? The An in reality commenced to exist as An with the donation of that capacity, and, with that capacity, the sense to acknowledge that, however through the countless ages his race may improve in wisdom, it can never combine the elements at its command into the form of a tadpole." " You speak well. Zee," said Aph-Lin ; " and it is enough for us shortlived mortals to feel a reasonable assurance that whether the origin of the An was a tadpole or not, he is no more likely to become a tadpole again than the institutions of the Vril-ya are likely to relapse into the heaving quagmire and certain strife-rot of a Koom-Posh." I 11* i it^li CI r-r, I \'^ ii ii I'**" 11 r^Mli^ B, " be- Y serve he ele- ements signify of one which h? * m Hi. t' w .4 CHAPTER XVII. The Vril-ya, being excluded from all sight of the heavenly bodies, and having .10 other difference between night and day than that which they deem it convenient to make for themselves, — do not, of course, arrive at their divisions of time by the same process that we do ; but I found it easy, by the aid of my watch, which I luckily had about me, to compute their time with great nicety. I reserve for a future work on the science and literature of the Vril-ya, should I live to complete it, all details as to the manner in which they arrive at their rotation of time ; and content myself here with saying, that, in point of duration, their year differs very slightly from ours, but that the divisions of their year are by no means the same. Their day (including what we call night) consists of twenty hours of our time, instead of twenty four, and of course their year comprises the correspondent increase in the number of days by which it is summed up. They subdivide the twenty hours of their day thus — eight hours,* called the " Silent Hours," for repose ; eight hours, called the " Earnest Time," for the pursuits and occupa- tions of life ; and four hours, called the " Easy Time" (with which what I may term their day closes), allotted * For the sake of convenience, I adopt the words hours, days, years, &c., in any general reference to subdivisions of time among the Vril-ya— those terms but loosely corresponding, however, with such subdivisions. ^ », THE COMING RACE. 107 ff' heavenly light and make for divisions found it ad about I reserve e of the as to the of time; point of 3urs, but the same, insists of r, and of crease in p. They IS — eight ^ht hours, i occupa- y Time" , allotted i, &c., in any IS but loosely to festivities, sport, recreation, or family converse, accord- ing to their several tastes and inclinations. But, in truth, out of doors there is no night. They maintain, both in the streets and in the surrounding count ry, to the limits of their territory, the same degree of light at all hours. Only, within doors, they lower it to a soft twilight during the Silent Hours. They have a great horror of perfect darkness, and their lights are never wholly extinguished. On occasions of festivity they continue the duration of full light, but equally keep note of the distinction be- tween night and day, by mechanical contrivances which answer the purpose of our clocks and watches. They are very fond of music ; and it is by music that these chrono- meters strike the principal division of time. At every one of their hours, during their day, the sounds coming from all the time- pieces in their public buildings, and caught up, as it were, by those of houses or hamlets scat- tered amidst the landscapes without the city, have an effect singularly sweet, and yet singularly solemn. But during the Silent Hours these sounds are so subdued as to be only faintly heard by a waking ear. They have no change of seasons, and, at least on the territory of this tribe, the atmosphere seemed to me very equable, warm as that of an Italian summer, and humid rather than dry ; in the forenu-^n usually very still, but at times invaded by strong blasts from the rocks that made the borders of their domain. But time is the same to them for sowing or reaping as in the Golden Isles of the ancient poets. At the same moment you see the younger plants in blade or bud, the older in ear or fruit. All fruit-bearing plants, Co ; *3 m r ■ 108 THE COMING RACE. however, after fruitage, either shed or change the colour of their leaves. But that which interested me most in reckoning up their divisions of time was the ascertain- ment of the average duration of life amongst tLeni. I found on minute inquiry that this very considerably ex- ceeded the term allotted to us on the upper earth. What seventy years are to us, one hundred years are to them. !Nor is this the only advantage they have over us in lon- gevity, for as few among us attain to the age of seventy, so, on the contrary, few among them die before the age of one hundred ; and they enjoy a general degree of health and vigour which makes life itself a blessing even to the last. Various causes contribute to this result : the absence of all alcoholic stimulants; temperance in food; more especially, perhaps, a serenity of mind undisturbed by- anxious occupations and eager passions. They are not tormented by our avarice or our ambition; they appear perfectly indifferent even to the desire of fame ; they are capable of great affection, but their love shows itself in a tender and cheerful complacence, and, while forming their happiness, seems rarely, if ever, to constitute their woe. As the Gy is sure only to marry where she herself fixes her choice, and as here, not less than above ground, it is the female on whom the happiness of home depends; so the Gy, having chosen the mate she prefers to all others, is lenient to his faults, consults his humoui*s, and does her best to secure his attachment. The death of a beloved one is of course with them, as with us, a cause of sorrow ; but not only is death with them so much more rare before that age in which it becomes a release, but, THE COMIXa RACE. 109 when it does occur, the survivor takes much more con- solation than, I am afraid, the generality of us do, in the certainty of reunion in another and yet happier life. All these causes, then, concur to their healthful and enjoyable longevity, though, no doubt, much also must be owing to hereditary organisation. According to their records, however, in those earlier stages of their society when they lived in communities resembling ours, agitated by fierce competition, their lives were considerably shorter, and their maladies more numerous and grave. They themselves say that the duration of life, too, has increased, aid is still on the increase, since their discovery of the invigorating and medicinal properties of vril, applied for remedial purposes. They have few professional and regular practitioners of medicine, and these are chiefly Gy-ei, who, especially if widowed and childless, find great delight in the healing art, and even undertake surgical operations in those cases required by accident, or, more rarely, by disease. They have their diversions and entertainments, and during the Easy Time of their day, they are wont to assemble in great numbers for those winged sports in the air which I have already described. They have also pub- lic halls for music, and even theatres, at which are per- formed pieces that appeared to me somewhat to resemble the plays of the Chinese-^dramas that are thrown back into distant times for their events and personages, in which all classic unities are outrageously violated, and the hero, in one scene a child, in the next is an old man, and so forth. These plays are of very ancient composition, f.i' m Co rr, h m ' m 'ji ' 1 kj^J 110 THE COMING RACE. Is* --■•' and their stories cast in remote times. They appeared to me very dull, on the whole, but were relieved by startling mechanical contrivances, and a kind of farcical broad humour, and detached passages of great vigour and power expressed in language highly poetical, but somewhat over- charged with metaphor and trope. In fine, they seemed to me very much what the plays of Shakespeare seemed to a Parisian in the time of Louis XV., or perhaps to an Englishman in the reign of Charles 11. The audience, of which the Gy-ei constituted the chief portion, appeared to enjoy greatly the representation of these dramas, which, for so sedate and majestic a race of females, surprised me, till I observed that all the perform- ers were under the age of adolescence, and conjectured truly that the mothers and sisters came to please their children and brothers. I have said that these dramas are of great antiquity. No new plays, indeed no imaginative works sufficiently important to survive their immediate day, appear to have been composed for several generations. In fact, though there is no lack of new publications, and they have even what may be called newspapers, these are chiefly devoted to mechanical scienc<3, reports of new inventions, announce- ments respecting various details of business — in short, to practical matters. Sometimes a child writes a little tale of adventure> or a young Qy vents her amorous hopes or fears in a poem; but these effusions are of very little merit, and are seldom read except by children and maiden Gy^ei. The most interesting works otf a purely literary character are those of explorations and travels into other THE COMINQ BACE. Ill regioDS of this nether world, which are generally written by young euiigranis, and aro read with great avidity by the relations and friends they have left behind. I could not help expressing to Alph-Lin my surprise that a community in which mechanical science had made so marvellous a progress, and in which intellectual civiliz- ation had exhibited itself in realizing those objects for the happiness of the people, which the political philoso- phers above ground had, after ages of struggle, pretty generally agreed to consider unattainable visions, should, nevertheless, be sc wholly without a contemporaneous literature, despite the excellence to which culture had brought a language at once rich and simple, vigorous and musical My host replied — " Do you not perceive that a literature such as you mean would be wholly incompatible with that perfection of social or political felicity at which you do us the honour to think we have arrived ? We have at last, after centuries of struggle, settled into a form of government with which we are content, and in which, as we allow no diflferences of rank, and no honours are paid to administrators distinguishing them from others, there is no stimulus given to individual ambition. No one would read works advocating theories that involved any political or social change, and therefore no one writes them* If now and then an An feels himself dissatisfied with our tranquil mode of life, he does not attack it ; he goes away. Thus all that part of literature (and to judge hy the ancient book^ in our public libraries, it Was once a very large part) which relates to speculative theories Si Co \ 112 THE GOMINO RACE. iii-. Mm Wd am':'. M'' lib, , 'ill: tf i"*' Et!f i: on society is become utterly extinct. Again, formerly there was a vast deal written respecting the attributes and essence of the All-Qood, and the arguments for and against a future state; but now we all recognize two facts, that there is a Divine Being, and there is a future state, and we all equally agree that if we wrote our fingers to the bone, we could not throw any light upon the nature and conditions of that future state, or quicken our apprehensions of the attributes and essence of that Divine Being. Thus another part of literature has become also extinct, happily for our race ; for in the times when so much was written on subjects which no one could determine, people seemed to live in a perpetual state of quarrel and contention. So, too, a vast part of our ancient literature consists of historical records of wars and revolutions during the times when the Ana lived in large and turbulent societies, each seeking aggrandize- ment at the expense of the other. You see our serene mode of life now ; such it has been for ages. We have no events to chronicle. What more of us can be said than that * they were born, they were happy, they died?' Coming next to that part of literature which is more under the control of the imagination, such as what we call Glaubsila, or colloquially 'Qlaubs,' and you call poetry, the reasons for its decline amongst us are abund' antly obvious. " We find, by referring to the great masterpieces in that department of literature which we all still read with pleasure^ but uf which none would tolerate imitations^ that they consist in the portraiture of passions which we J. THE COMING RACE. 113 no longer experience — ambition, veng^eance, unhallowed love, the thirst for wariike renown, and such like. The old poets lived- in an atmosphere impregnated with these passions, and felt vividly what they expressed glowingly. No one can express such passions now, for no one can feel them, or meet with any sympathy in his readers if he did. Again, the old poetry has a main element in it^ dissection of those complex mysteries of human character which conduce to abnormal vices and crimes, or lead to signal and extraordinary virtues. But our society, having got rid of temptations to any prominent vices and crimes, has necessarily rendered the moral average so equal, that there are no very salient virtues. Without its ancient food of strong passions, vast crimes, heroic excellences, poetry therefore is, if not actually starved to death, re- duced to a very meagre diet. There is still the poetry of description — description of rocks, and trees, and waters, and common household life ; and our young Gy-ei weave much of this insipid kind of composition into their love verses." '• Such poetry," said I, " might surely be made very charming ; and we have critics amongst us who consider ii a higher kind than that which depicts the crimes, or analyzes the passions, of man. At all events, poetry of the insipid kind you mention is a poetry that nowadays commands more readers than any other among the people I have left above ground." " Possibly ; but then I suppose the writers take great pains with the language they employ, and devote them- Co ::::d Cr t * i !i| 114 THE COMINa RACE. m I fiii' U selves to the culture and polish of words and rhythms as an art f " Certainly they do : all great poets must do that. Though the gift of poetry may be inborn, the gift requires as much care to make it available as a block of metal does to be made into one of your engines." "And doubtless your poets have some incentive to bestow all those pains upon such verbal prettinesses V " Well, I presume their instinct of song would make them sing as the bird does ; but to cultivate the song into verbal or artificial prettiness, probably does need an inducement from without, and our poets find it in the love of fame — perhaps, now and then, in the want of money." " Precisely so. But in our society we attach fame to nothing which man, in that moment of his duration which is called *life,' can perform. We should soon lose that equality which constitutes the felicitous essence of our commonwealth if we selected any indivi- dual for pre-eminent praise : pre-eminent praise would confer pre-eminent power, and the moment it were given, evil passions, now dormant, would awake; other men would immediately covet praise, then would arise envy, and with envy hate, and with hate calumny and perse- cution. Our history tells us that most of the poets and most of the writers who, in the old time, were favoured with the greatest praise, were also assailed by the greatest vituperation, and even, on the whole, rendered very unhappy, pai-tly by the attacks of jealous rivals, partly by the diseased mental constitution which an acquired sen- sitiveness to praise and to blame tends to engender. As THE COMING RACE. 115 ;bms afi that, •equires f metal tive to ses f d make he song need an the love money." fame to duration lid soon felicitous r indivi- B would re given, her men se envy, d perse- oets and favoured greatest ed very )artlyby Lred sen- er. As for the stimulus of want, in the first plaop, no man in our community knows the goad of poverty ; and, second- ly, if he did, almost every occupation would bo more lucrative than writing. " Our public libraries contain all the books of the past which time has preserved ; those books, for the reasons above stated; are infinitely better than any can write nowadays, and they are open to all to read without cost. We are not such fools as to pay for reading inferior books, when we can read superior books for nothing." " With us, novelty has an attraction ; and a new book, if bad, is read when an old book, though good, is ne- glected." " Novelty, to barbarous states of society struggling in despair for something better, has no doubt an attraction denied to us, who see nothing to gain in novelties ; but after all, it is observed by one of our great authors four thousand years ago, that * he who studies old books will always find in them something new, and he who reads new books will always find m them something old.' But to return to the question you have raised, there being then amongst us no stimulus to painstaking labour, whether in desire of fame or in pressure of want, such as have the- poetic temperament, no doubt, vent it in song, as you say the bird sings ; but for lack of elaborate culture it fails of an audience, dies out, of itself, amidst the ordinary avocations of life." "But how is it that these discouragements to the cultivation of literature do not operate against that of science?" CO ■ 'f tl '• • 'li| 110 THE COMING RACE. •ib' ■il " Your quQ^tion amazes me. The motive to science is the love of truth apart from all consideration of fame, and science with us too is devoted almost solely to prac- tical uses, essential to our social conversation and the comforts of our daily life. No fame is asked by the inventor, and none is given to him ; he enjoys an occupa- tion congenial to his tastes, and needing no wear and tear of the passions. Man must have exercise for his mind as well as body ; and continuous exercise, rather than vio- lent, is best for both. Our most ingenious cultivators of science are, as a general rule, the longest lived and the most free from disease. Fainting is an amusement to many, but the art is not what it was in former times, when the great painters in our various communities vied with each other for the prize of a golden crown, which gave them a social rank equal to that of the kings under whom they lived. You will thus doubtless have observed in our archaeological department how superior in point of art the pictures were several thousand years ago. Perhaps it is because music is, in reality, more allied to science than it is to poetry, that, of all the pleasurable arts, music is that which flourishes the most amongst us. Still, even in music the absence of stimulus in praise or fame has served to prevent any great superiority of one individual over another ; and we rather excel in choral music, with the aid of our vast mechanical instruments, in which we make great use of the agency of water,* than in single per- * This may remiud the student of Nero's invention of a musical machine, by which water was made to perform the part of au orchestra, and on which he was employed when the conspiracy against him brolce out. THE COMING RACE. 117 formers. We have had scarcely any original composer for some ages. Our favourite airs are very ancient in sub- stance, but have admitted many complicated variations by inferior, though ingenious, musicians." " Are there no political societies among the Ana which are animated by those passions, subjected to those crimes, and admitting those disparities in condition, in intellect, and in morality, which the state of your tribe, or indeed of the Vril-ya generally, has left behind in its progress to perfection ? If so, among such societies perhaps Poetry and her sister arts still continue to be honoured and to improve V « There are such societies in remote regions, tut we do not admit them within the pale of civilized communities; we scarcely even give them the name of Ana, and cer- tainly not that of Vril-ya. They are savages, living chiefly in that low stage of being, Koom-Fosh, tending necessarily to its own hideous dissolution in Glek-Nas. Their wrotched existence is passed in perpetual contest and perpetual change. When they do not fight with their neighbours, they fight among themselves. They are divided into sections, which abuse, plunder, and some- times murder each other, and on the roost frivolous points of difference that would be unintelligible to us if we had not read history, and seen that we too have passed through the same early state of ignorance and barbarism. Any trifle is sufficient to set them together by the ears. They pretend to be all equals, and the more they have struggled to be so, by removing old distinctions and starting afresh, the more glaring and intolerable the disparity becomes m mi'" — I rr-, Cr t I m ■I lit 118 THE COMING RACE. ^I»! !;■• ill ^ f < 'tips- .' because nothing in hereditary affections and associations is left to soften the one naked distinction between the many who have nothing and the few who have much. Of course the many hate the few, but without the few they could not live. The many are always assailing the few ; sometimes they exterminate the few ; but as soon as they have done so, a new few starts out of the many, and is harder to f^eal with than the old few. For where societies are large, and competition to have something is the predominant fever, there must be always many losers and few gainers. In short, they are savages groping their way in the dark towards some gleam of light, and would demand our commiseration for their infirmities, if, like all savages, they did not provoke their own destruction by their arrogance and cruelty. Can you imagine that crea- tures of this kind, armed only with such miserable wea- pons as you may see in our museum of antiquities, clumsy iron tubes charged with saltpetre, have more than once threatened with destruction a tribe of the Vril-ya, which dwells nearest to them, because they say they have thirty millions of population — and that tribe may have fifty thousand — if the latter do not accept their notions of Soc- Sec (money-getting) on some trading principles which they have the impudence to call a *law of civilization V " " But thirty millions of population are formidable odds against fifty thousand ! " My host stared at me astonished. " Stranger," said he, " you could not have heard me say that this threatened tribe belongs to the Vril-ya; and it only waits for these savages to declare war, in order to commission some half- THE COMING RACE. 119 a-dozen small children to sweep away their whole popula- tion." At these words I felt a thrill of horror, recognising much more affinity with " the savages " than I did with the Vril-ya, and remembering all I had said in praise of the glorious American institutions, which Aph-Lin stig- matised as Koom-Posh. Recovering my self-possession, I asked if there were modes of transit by which I could safely visit this temerarious and remote people. "You can travel with safety, by vril agency, either along the ground or amid the air, throughout all the range of the communities with which we are allied and akin ; but I cannot vouch for your safety in barbarous nations governed by different laws from ours ; nations, indecvl, so benighted, that there are among them large numbers who actually live by stealing from each other, and one could not with safety in the Silent Hours even leave the doors of one's own house open." Here our conversation was interrupted by- the entrance of Tae, who came to inform us that he, having been deputed to discover and destroy the enormous reptile which I had seen on my first arrival, had been on the watch for it ever since his visit to me, and had begun to suspect that my eyes had deceived me, or that the crea- ture had made its way through the cavities within the rocks to the wild regions in which dwelt its kindred race, — when it gave evidences of its whereabouts by a great devastation of the herbage bordering one of the lakes. "And," said Tae, "I feel sure that within that lake it is now hiding. So " (turning to me) " I thought it might us; «:: X nn IV. C.r I Mi h-'-f ■j 120 THE COMING RACE. amuse you to accompany me to see the way we destroy such unpleasant visitors." As I looked at the face of the young child, and called to mind the enormous size of the creature he proposed to exterminate, I felt myself shud- der with fear for him, and perhaps fear for myself, if I accompanied him in such a chase. But my curiosity to witness the destructive etfects of the boasted vril, and my unwillingness to lower myself in the eyes of an infant by betraying apprehensions of personal safety prevailed over my first impulse. Accordingly, I thanked Tae for his courteous consideration for my amusement, and professed my wiUingness to set out with him on so diverting an enterprize. \ and u CHAPTER XVIII. As Tae and myself, on quitting the town, and leaving to the left the main road which led to it, struck into the fields, the strange and solemn beauty of the landscape^ lighted up, by numberless lamps, to the verge of the horizon, fascinated my eyes, and rendered me for some time an inattentive listener to the talk of my companion. Along our way various operations of agriculture were being carried on by machinery, the forms of which were new to mo, and for the most part very graceful ; for among these people art, being so cultivated for the sake of mere utility, exhibits itself in adorning or refining the shaped of useful objects. Precious metals and gems are so pro- fuse among them, that they are lavished on things devoted to purposes the most commonplace ; and their love of uti- lity leads them to beautify its tools, and quickens their imagination in a way unknown to themselves. In all service, whether in or out of doors, they make great use of automaton figures, which are so ingenious, and so pliant to the operations of vril, that they actually seem gifted with reason. It was scarcely possible to dis- tinguish the figures I beheld, apparently guiding or supei- intending the rapid movements of vast engines, from human forms endowed with thought. By degrees, as we continued to walk on, my attention became roused by the lively and acute remarks of my Sl»» It ~:» as:* — .a» 3t:a. -■5. rr, 122 THE COMING EACE. pi Its ^ '4 .■ n m i\ >i I* :' companion. The intelligence of the children among this race is marvellously precocious, perhaps from the habit of having intrusted to them, at so early an age, the toils and responsibilities of middle age. Indeed, in conversing with Tae, I felt as if talking with some superior and ob- servant man of my own years. I asked him if he could form any estimate of the number of communities into which the race of the Vril-ya is subdivided. "Not exactly," he said, "because they multiply, of course, every year as the surplus of each community is drafted off. But I heard my father say that, according to the last report, there were a million and a half of com- munities speaking our language, and adopting our institu- tions and forms of life and government ; but, I believe, with some differences, about which you had better ask Zee. She knows more than most of the Ana do. An An cares less for things that do not concern him than a Gy does ; the Gy-ei are inquisitive creatures." " Does each community restrict itself to the same num- ber of families or ivmount of population that you do ? " " No ; some have much smaller populations, some have larger — varying according to the extent of the country they appropriate, or to the degree of excellence to which they have brought their machinery. Each community sets its own limit accordini? to circumstances, taking care always that there shall never arise any class of poor by the pressure of population upon the productive powers of the domain ; and that no state shall be too large for a government resembling that of a single well-ordered family. I imagine that no vril community exceeds thirty m ill [II I THE COMING RACE. 123 thousand households. But, as a. general rule, the smaller the community, provided there be hands enough to do justice to the capacities of the territory it occupies, the richer each individual is, and the larger the sum contri- buted to the general treasury, — above all, the happier a i the more tranquil is the whole political body, and the more perfect the products of its industry. The state which all tribes of the Vril-ya acknowledge to be the highest in civilization, and which has brought the vril force to its fullest development, is perhaps the smallest. It limits itself to four thousand families ; but every inch of its territ/ory is cultivated to »e utmost perfection of garden ground ; its machinery excels that of every other tribe, and there is no product of its industry : -; any de- partment which is not sought for, at extraordinary prices, by each community of our race. All our tribes make this state their model, considering that we should reach the highest state of civilization allowed to mortals if we could unite the greatest degree of happiness with the highest degree of intellectual achievement ; and it is clear that the smaller the society the less difficult that will be. Ours is too large for it." This reply set me thinking. I reminded myself of that little state of Athens, with only twenty thousand free citizens, and which, to this day, our mightiest na- tions regard as the supreme guide and model in all de- partments of intellect. But then Athens permitted fierce rivalry and perpetual change, and was certainly not hap- py. Rousing myself from the reverie into which these Si;. -.0 -iri =0 ::> IM 124 THE COMING RACE. reflections had plunged me, I brought back our talk to the subjects connected with emigration. '* But," said I, " when, I suppose yearly, a certain num- ber among you agree to quit home and found a new com- munity elsewhere, they must necessarily be very few, and scarcely sufficient, even with the help of the machines they take with them, to clear the ground, and build towns, and form a civilized state with the comforts and luxuries in which they had been reared." " You mistake. All the tribes of the Vril-ya are in constant communication with each other, and settle amongst themselves each year what proportion of one community will unite with the emigrants of another, so as to form a state of sufficient size ; and the place for emigration is agreed upon at least a year before, and pio- neers sent from each state to level rocks, and embank waters, and construct houses ; so that when the emigrants at last go, they find a city already made, and a country around it at least partially cleared. Our hardy life as children, makes us take cheerfully to travel and adven- ture. I mean to emigrate myself when of age." " Do the emigrants always select places hitherto unin- habited and ban^en ?" " As yet generally, because it is our rule never to de- stroy except when necessary to our well-being. Of course, we cannot settle in lands already occupied by the Vril-ya; and if we take the cultivated lands of the other races of Ana, we must utterly destroy the previous inhabitants* Sometimes, as it is, we take waste spots, and find that a troublesome, quarrelsome race of Ana, especially if under THE COMING RACE. 125 tho administration of Koom-Posh or Glek-Nas, resents our vicinity, and picks a quarrel with us ; then, of course, as menacing our welfare, we destroy it : theie is no coming to terms of peace with a race so idiotic that it is always changing the form of government which represents it. Koom-Posh," said the child, emphatically, **is bad en- ough, still it has brains, though at the back of its head, and is not without a heart ; but in Glek-Nas the brain and heart of the creatures disappeai, and they become all jaws, claws, and belly." " You express yourself strongly. Allow me to inform you that I myself, and I am proud to say it, am a citizen of a Koom-posh." " I no longer," answered Tae, " wonder to see you here so far from your home. What was the condition of your native community before it became a Koom-Posh ?" ''A settlement of emigrants — like those settlements which your tribes send forth — but so far unlike your settlements, that it was dependent on the state irom which it came. It shook off that yoke, and, crowned with eternal glory, became a Koom-Posh." " Eternal glory ! how long has the Koom-Posh lasted ?" " About 100 years." " The length of an An*s life — ^a very young community. In much less than another 100 years your Koom-Posh wDl be a Glek-Nas." " Nay, the oldest states in the world I come from have such faith in its duration, that they a^e all gradually Hhaping their institutions so as to melt into ours, and their most thoughtful politicians say that, whether they Si* -■2 I., 1 If"* 1 126 THE COMING RACE. m^ liko it or nofc, iho inovitablo tendency of those old tttatfOH is towards Koom-Posh-orie." " The old states ?" " Yes, the old states." " With populations very small in i>roportion to the area of productive land V " On the contrary, with populations very large in pro- portion to that area." I see 1 old states indeed ! — so old as to become drivol- hng if thoy don't pack ofl* that surplus population as wo do ours — very old states — very, very old I Pray, Tish, do you think it wise for very old men to try to turn head-over-heels as very young children do ? And if you ask them why they attempted such antics, should you not laugh if they answered that by imitating very young children they could become very young children them- selves ? Ancient history abounds with instances of this sort a great many thousand years ago— and in every in- stance a very old state that played at Koom-Posh soon tumbled into Glek-Nas. Then, in horror of its own self, it cried out for a master, as an old man in his dotage cries out for a nu^se ; and after a succession of masters or nurses, more or less long, that very old state died out of history. A very old state attempting Koom-Posh-erie is like a very old man who pulls down the house to which he has been accustomed, but he has so exhausted his vigour in pulling down, that all he can do in the way of rebuilding is to run up a crazy hut, in which himself and his successors whine out, *How the wind blows ? Kow the walls shake f" " My dear Ta6, 1 make all excuse for your unenlight- TIIK COMING RACK. 127 oned prejudices, which every schoolboy educated in a Koom-Posh could easily controvert, though he might not bo so precociously learned in ancient history as you ap* pear to be." " I learned 1 not a bit of it. But would a school-boy, educated in your Koom-Posh, ask his great-great-grand- father or great-great-grand-mother to stand on his or her head with the feet uppermost ? a^d if the poor old folks hesitated — say, 'What do you fear? — see how I do it!*" " TaS, I disdain to argue with a child of your age, I repeat, I make allowances for your want of that culture which a Koom-Posh alone can bestow." " I, in my turn," answered Ta<5, with an air of the suave but lofty good breeding which characterises his race, "not only make allowances for you as not educated among the Vril-ya, but I entreat you to vouchsafe me your pardon for insui^cient respect to the habits and opinions of so { amiable a — Tish !" I ought before to have observed that I was commonly called Tish by my host and his family, as being a polite and indeed a pet name, literally signifying a small bar- barian ; the children apply it endearingly to the tame species of Frog, which they keep in their gardens. We had now reached the banks of a lake, and Tae here paused to point out to me the ravages made in fields skirting it. "The enemy certainly lies within these waters," said Tae. "Observe what shoals of fish are crowded together at the margin. Even the great fishes with the small ones, who are their habitual prey, and who generally shun them, all forget their instincts in the -in -T-, 128 THE COMING RACE. presence of a common destroyer. This reptile, certainly, must belong to the class of Krek-a, which are more de- vouring than any other, and are said to be among the few surviving species of the world's dreadest inhabitants, before the Ana were created. The appetite of a Krek is insatiable — it feeds alike upon vegetable and animal life ; but for the swift-footed creatures of the elk species it is too slow in its movements. Its favourite dainty is an An, when it car catch him unawares; and hence the Ana destroy it relentlessly whenever it enters their do- minion. I have heard that, when our forefathers first cleared this country, these monsters, and others like them, abounded, and, vril being then undiscovered, many of our race were devoured. It was impossible to exter- minate them wholly till that discovery which constitutes the power and sustains the civilization of our race. But after the uses of vril became familiar to us, all creatures inimical to us were soon annihilated. Still, once a year or so, one of these enormous creatures wanders from the unreclaimed and savage districts beyond, and within ray li^mory one seized upon a young Gy who was bathing in thfi very lake. Had she been on land and armed with htm stafi^ it would not have dared even to show ii»^if ; for, like all savage creatures, the reptile has a mar- y^ll^us instinct, which warns it against the bearer of the vi^ wand. How they teach their young to avoid him, though seen for the first time, is one of those mysteries which you may ask Zee to explain, for I cannot.* So long as * The reptile in this instinct does but resemble our wtld birds and animals, which will not come in reach of a man armed with a guu. When the electric wires were first put uy, partridges struck against them in their flight, and fell down wour.ded. Ko younger generations of partridges meet with a shnilar accident. THE COMING RACE. 129 ertainly, aore de- long the abitants, Krek is imal life ; (cies it is ;ty ia an enoe the their do- hers first ike them, many of to exter- onstitutes ' ice. But creatures ;e a year from the ithin my ^thing in ned with to show las a mar- •er of the ,void him, mysteries 3o long as minuJs, which ires were first wow.ded. No I stand here, the monster will not stir from its lurking- place ; but we must now decoy it forth." « Will not that be difficult t " *• Not at all. Seat yourself yonder on that crag (about one hundred yards from the bank), while I retire to a distance. In a short time the reptile will catch sight or scent of you, and, perceiving that you are no ^ril-bearer, will come forth to devour you. As soon as it is fairly out of the water, it becomes my prey.** " Do you mean to tell me that I am to be the decoy to that horrible monster, which could engulph me within its jaws in a second ! I beg to decline." The child laughed. "Fear nothing," said he; "only sit still." Instead of obeying this command, I made a bound, and was about to take fairly to my heels, when Tag touched me lightly on the shoulder, and, fixing his eyes steadily on mine, I was rooted to the spot. All power of volition left me. Submissive to the infant's gesture, I followed him to the crag he had indicated, and seated myself there in silence. Most readers have seen something of the effects of electro-biology, whether genuine or spurious. No professor of that doubtful craft had ever been able to influence a thought or a movement of mine, but I was a mere machine at the will of this terrible child. Mean- while he expanded his wings, soared aloft, and alighted amidst a copse at the brow of a hill at some distance. I was alone ; and turning my eyes with an indescribable sensation of horror towards the lake, I kept them fixed on its water, spell -bound. It might be ten or fifteen I ;0 ;;20 ii:i^ if 'ii 1 *^ rsir THE COMINO race: §> minutes, to me it seemed ages, before the still surface, gleaming under the lamplight, began to be agitated to- wards the centre. At the same time the shoals of fish near the tnargin evinced their sense of the enemy's ap- proach by splash and leap, and bubbling circle. I could detect their hurried flight hither and thither, some even casting themselves ashore. A long, dark, undulous fur- row came moving along the waters, nearer and nearer, till the vast head of the reptile emerged — its jaws bristling with fangs, and its dull eyes fixing themselves hungrily on the spot where I sat motionless. And now its forefeet were on the strand — now its enormous breast, scaled on either side an in ariiiour, in the centre showing its corru- gated skin of a dull venomous yellow ; and now its whole length was on the land, a hundred feet or more from the jaw to the tail. Another stride of those ghastly feet would have brought it to the spot where I sat. There was but a moment between me and this grim form of death, when what seemed a flash of lightning shot through the air, smote, and, for ?. space of time briefer than that in which a man can draw his breath, enveloped the monster ; and then, as the flash vanished, there lay before me a black- ened, charred^ smouldering mass, a something gigantic, but of which even the outlines of form were burned away, and rapidly crumbling into dust and ashes. I re- mained still seated, still speechless, ice-cold with a new sensatioi of dread: what had beea horror was now awe. I felt '«he child's hand on my head — fear left me — the spell was broken — I rose up. " You see with what ease the Vril-ya destroy their enemies," said Ta^ : and then, ^ «r tHE COMIKO RACE. ISl moving towards the bank, he contemplated the smoulder- ing relics of the monster, and said quietly, "I have destroyed larger creatures, but none with so much plea- sure. Yes, it ta a Krek; what suffering it must have inflicted while it lived!" Then he took up the poor fishes that had flung themselves ashore, and restored them mercifully to their native element 'r .f •^ '•-J' '--«i ••''' ' ' \ '■■'' ' 'i f$ ; I i [I I riHi i Hi to i\ i il •#■ ■■! 4 134 THE COMING RACE. I .' • the disparity of fortune in the parents, all the children must equally serve, so all are equally paid according to their several ages or the nature of their work. Where the parents or friends choose to retain a child in their own service, they must pay into the public fund in the same ratio as the state pays to the children it employs ; and this sum is handed over to the child when the period of service expires. This practice serves, no doubt, to render the nodon of social equality familiar and agreeable ; and if it may be said thp.t all the children form a democracy, no less truly it may be said that all the adults form an aristocracy. The exquisite politeness and refinement of manners among the Vril-ya, the generosity of their senti- ments, the absolute leisure they enjoy for following out their own private pursuits, the amenities of their domes- tic intercourse, in which they seem as members of one noble order that can have no distrust of each other's word or deed, all combined to make the Vril-ya the most perfect nobility which a political disciple of Plato or Sidney could conceive for the ideal of an aristocratic re- public. .i.:^ira CHAPTER XX. From the date of the expedition with Tae* which I have just narrated, the child paid me frequent visits. He had taken a liking to me, which I cordially returned. Indeed, as he was not yet twelve years old, and had not com- menced the course of scientific studies with which child- hood closes in that country, my intellect was less inferior to his than to that of the elder members of his race, especially of the Gy-ei, and most especially of the accom- plished ."^ee. The children of the Vril-ya, hti-ving upon their minds the weight of so many active duties and grave responsibilities, are not generally mirthful ; but Tae, with all his wisdom, had much of the playful good- humour one often finds the characteristic of elderly men of genius. He felt that sort of pleasure in my society which a boy of a similar age in the ui)per world has in the company of a pet dog or monkey. It amused him to try and teach me the ways of his people, as it amuses a nephew of mine to make his poodle walk on his hind legs or jump through a hoop. I willingly lett myself to such experiments, but I never achieved the success of the poodle. I was very much interested at first in the at- tempt to ply the wings which the youngest of the Vril-ya use as nimbly and easily as ours do their legs and arms ; but my efforts were attended with contusions seiious enough to make me abandon them in despair. f :» (r»i I O C! r tM k f ll'Sii M'"i 136 THE COMING RACE. These wings, as I before said, are very large, reacLiog to the knee, and in repose thrown back so as to form a very graceful mantle. They are composed from the feathers of a gigantic bird that abounds in the rocky heights of the country — the colour mostly white, but sometimes with reddish streaks. They are fastened round the shoulders with light but strong springs of steel ; and, when expanded, the arms slide through loops for that purpose, forming, as it were, a stout central membrane. As the arms are raised, a tubular lining beneath the vest or tunic becomes, by mechanical contrivance, inflated with dr, increased or diminished at will by the movement of ohe arms, and serving to buoy the whole form as on blad- ders. The wings and the balloon-like apparatus are high- ly charged with vril ; and when the body is thus wafted upward, it seems to become singularly lightened of its weight. I found it easy enough to soar from the ground ; indeed, when the wings were spread it was scarcely possi- ble not to soar, but then came the difficulty and the dan- ger. I utterly failed in the power to use and direct the pinions, though I am considered among my own race un- usually alert and ready in bodily exercises, and am a very practised swimmer. I could only make the most confus- ed and blundering efforts at flight. I was the servant of the wings ; the wings were not my servants — they were beyond my control ; and when by a violent strain of muscle, and, I must fairly own, in that abnormal strength which is given by excessive fright, I curbed their g>Ta- tions and brought them near to the body, it seemed as if I lost the sustaining power stored in them and the con- THE COMING BACE. 137 necting bladders, as when air is let out of a balloon, and found myself precipitated again to the earth ; saved, in- deed, by some spasmodic flutterings, from being dashed to pieces, but not saved from the bruises and the stun of a heavy fall. I would, however, have persevered in my at- tempts, but for the advice or the commands of the scien- tific Zee, who had benevolently accompanied my flutter- ings, and, indeed, on the last occasion, flying just under me, received my form as it fell on her own expanded wings, and preserved me from breaking my head on the roof of the pyramid from which we had ascended. " I see," she said, " that your trials are in vain, not from the fault of the wings and their appurtenances, nor frr-m any imperfectness and malformation of your own corpus- cular system, but from irremediable, because organic, de- fect in your power of volition. Learn that the connection between the will and the agencies of that fluid which has been subjected to the control of the Vril-ya was never established by the first discoverers, never achieved by a single generation ; it has gone on increasing, like other properties of race, in proportion as it has been uniformly transmitted from parent to child, so that, at last, it has become an instinct ; and an infant Aa of our race wills to fly as intuitively and unconsciously as he wills to walk. He thus plies his invented or artificial wings with as much safety as a bird plies th(>se with which it is bom. I did not think sufiiciently of this when I allowed you to try > n experiment which allured me, for I longed to have in you a companion. I shall abandon the experiment now. Your life is becoming dear to me." Herewith the m m r ■* '% 138 THE COMING RACE. Gy's voice and face softened, and I felt more seriously alarmed than I had been in my previous flights. Now that I am on the subject of wings, I ought not to omit mention of a custom among the Gy-ei which seems to me very pretty and tender in the sentiment it implies. A Gy wears wings habitually while yet a virgin — she joins the Ana in their aerial sports — she adventures alone and afar into the wilder regions of the sunless world : in the boldness and height of her soarings, not less than in the grace of her movements, she excels the opposite sex. But from the day of marriage she wears wings no more, she suspends them with her own willing hand over the nuptial couch, never to be resumed unless the marriage tie be severed by divorce or death. Now when Zee's voice and eyes thus softened— and at that softening I prophetically recoiled and shuddered — Tae, who had accompanied us in our flights, but who* child-like, had been much more amused with my awk- wardness than sympathizing in my fears or aware of my danger, hovered over us, poised amidst the still radiant air, serene and motionless on his out-spread wings, and hearing the endearing words of the young Gy, laughed aloud. Said he, "If the Tish cannot learn the use of wings, you may still be his companion, Zee, for you can suspend your own." CHAPTER XXI. I HAD for some time observed iu my host's highly in- formed and powerfully proportioned daughter that kindly and protective sentiment which, whether above the earth or below it, an all-wise Providence has bestowed upon the feminine division of the ^ man race. But until very lately I had ascribed it to that affection for ' pete' which a human female at every age shares with a human child. I now became painfully aware that the feeling v,ith which Zee deigned to regard me was different from that which I had inspired in Tae. But this conviction gave me none of that complacent gratification which the vanity of man ordinarily conceives from a flattering appreciation of his personal merits on the part of the fair sex ; on the con- trary, it inspired me with fear. Yet of all the Gy-ei in the community, if Zee were perhaps the wisest and the strongest, she was, by common repute, the gentlest, j d she was certainly the most popularly beloved. The desire to aid, to succour, to protect, to comfort, to bless, seemed to pervade her whole being. Though the complicated miseries that originate in penury and guilt are unknown to the social system of the Vril-ya, still, no sage had yet discovered in vril an agency which could banish sorrow from life ; and wherever amongst her people sorrow found its way, there Zee followed in the mission of comforter. Did some sister Gy fail to secure the love she sighed for? ■»■* I C! ^r 140 THE COMING RACE. m Zee sought her out, and hi ^ht all the resources of her lore, and all the consolations of her sympathy, to bear upon a giief that so needs the solace of a confidant. la the ra 'e cases, when grave illness seized upon childhood or youth, and the cases, less rare, when, in the hardy and adventurous probation of infants, some accident, attended with pain and injury occurred, Zee forsook her studies and her sports, and became the healer and the nurse. Her favourite flights were towards the extreme boundaries of the domain where children were stationed on guard against outbreaks of warring forces in nature, or the in- vasions of devouring animals, so that she might warn them of any peril which her knowledge detected or foresaw, or be at hand if any harm had befallen. Nay, even in the exercise of her scientific acquirements there was a concur- rent benevolence of purpose and will. Did she learn any novelty in invention that would be useful to the practi- tioner of some special art or craft ? she hastened to com- municate and explain it. Was soiie veteran sage of the College perplexed and wearied with the toil of an abstruse study ? she would patiently devote herself to his aid, work out details for him, sustain his spirits with her hopeful smile, quicken his wit with her luminous suggestion, be to him, as it were, his own good genius made visible as the strengthener and inspirer. The same tenderness she exhibited to the inferior creatures. I have often known her bring home some sick and wounded animal, and tend and cherish it as a mother would tend and cherish her stricken child. Many a time when I sat in the balcony, or hanging garden, on which my window opened, I have THE COMING RACE. 141 watched her rising in the air on her radiant wings, and in a few moments groups of infants below, catching sight of her, would soar upward with joyous sounds of greet- ing ; clustering and sporting around her, so that she aeeraed a very centre of innocent delight. When I have walked with her amidst the rocks and valleys without the city, the elk-deer would scent or see her from afar, come bounding up, eager for the caress of her hand, or follow her footsteps, till dismissed by some musical whis- per that the creature had learned to comprehend. It is the fashion among the virgin Gy-ei to wear on their fore- heads a circlet, or coronet, with gems resembling opals, arranged in four points or rays like stars. These are lus- treless in ordinary use, but if touched by the vril wand they take a clear lambent flame, which illuminates, yet not burns. This serves as an ornament in their festivities, and as a lamp, if, in their wanderings beyond their artifi- cial lights, they have to traverse the dark. There are times, when I have seen Zee's thoughtful majesty of face lighted up by this crowning halo, that I could scarcely believe her to be a creature of mortal birth, and bent my head before her as the vision of a being among the celes- tial orders. But never once did my heart feel for this lofty type of the noblest womanhood a sentiment of human love. Is it that, among the race I belong to, man*s pride so far influences his passions that woman loses to him her special charm of woman if he feels her to be in all things eminently superior to himself ? But by whet strange infatuation could this peerless daughter of a race which, in the supremacy of its powers and the felicity of 1 "••' ■i ■' 1 ■ 142 THK COMINQ RACK I H^ m JKHMp ' its conditions, ranked all other races in the category of barbarians, have deigned to honour me with her prefer- ence? In personal qualifications, though I passed for good-looking amongst the people I came from, the hand- somest of my countrymen might have seemed insignificant and homely beside the grand and serene type of beauty which characterised the aspect of the Vril-ya. That novelty, the very difiereneo between myself and those to whom Zee was accustomed, might serve to bias her fancy was probable enough, and, as the reader will see later, such a cause might suffice to account for the pre- dilection with which I was distinguished by a young Gy scarcely out of her childhood, and very inferior in all respects to Zee. But whoever will consider those tender characteristics which I have just ascribed to the daughter of Aph-Lin, may readily conceive that the main cause of my attraction to her was in her instinctive desire to cherish, to comfort, to protect, and, in protecting, to sus- tain and to exalt. Thus, when I look back, I account for the only weakness unworthy of her lofty nature, which bowed the daughter of the ^. ril-ya to a woman's affection for one so inferior to herself as was her father s guest. But be the cause what it may, the consciousness that I had inspired such affect' shrilled me with awe — ^a moral awe of her very perfeci .ons, of her mysterious powera, of the inseparable distinctions between her race and my own ; and with that awe, i must confess to my shame, there combined the more material and ignoble dread of the perils to which her preference would expose me. Gould it be supposed for a moment tliat the parents THE COMING RACE. 143 m and fnends of this exalted being could view without in- dignation and disgust the possibility of an alliance be- tween herself and a Tish ? Her they could not punish, her they could not confine nor restrain. Neither in domestic nor in political life do they ac. nowledge any law of force amongst themselves ; but they could effectu- ally put an end to her infatuation by a flash of vril in- flicted upon me. Under these anxious circumstances, fortunately, my conscience and sense of honour were free from reproach. It became clearly my duty, if Zee's preference continued manifest, to intimate it to my host, with, of course, all the delicacy which is ever to be preserved by a well-bred man in confiding to another any degree of favour by which one of the fair sex may condescend to distinguish him. Thus, at all events, I should be freed fiom responsibility or suspicion of voluntary participation in the sentiments of Zee ; and the superior wisdom of my host might pro- bably suggest some sage extrication from ny perilous dilemma. In this resolve I obeyed the ordinary instinct of civilized and moral man, who, erring though he be, still generally prefers the right course in those cases where it is obviously against his inclinations, his interests, and his safety to elect the wrong one. ; fii r'l' ?i:'r 11 [U CHAPTER XXII. As the reader has seen, Aph-Lin had not favoured my general and unrestricted intercourse with his countiywo- mea Though relying on my promise to abstain from giv- ing any information as to the world I had left, and still more on the promise of those to whom had been put the same request, not to question me, which Zee had exacted from Tae, yet he did not feel sure that, if I were allowed to mix with the strangers whose curiosity the sight of me had aroused, I could sufficiently guard myself against their inquiries. When I went out therefore, it was never alone ; I was always accompanied either by one of my host's family, or my child-friend Tae. Bra, Aph-Lin's wife, seldom stirred beyond the gardens which surround- ed the house, and was fond of reading the ancient litera- ture, which contained something of romance and adven* ture not to be found in the writings of recent ages, and presented pictures of a life unfamiliar to her experience and interesting to her imagination ; pictures, indeed, of a life more resembling that which we lead every day above ground, coloured by our sorrows, sins, and passions, and much to her what the Tales of the Genii or the Arabian Nights are to us. But her love of reading did not pre- vent Bra from the discharge of her duties as mistress of the largest household in the city^ She went daily the round of the chambers^ and saw that the automata and THE COMING RACE. 145 oured my ountrywo- i from giv- and still Q put the id exacted re allowed sight of me gainst their was never one of my Aph-Lin's surround- ent litera- nd adven- ages, and experience ideed, of a day ahove ssions, and le Arabian i not pre- nistress of , daily the Dinata and other mechanical contrivances were in order, that the nu- merous children employed by Aph-Lin, whether in his pri- vate or public capacity, were carefully tended. Bra also inspected the accounts of the whole estate, and it was her great delight to assist her husband in the business con- nected with his office as chief administrator of the Light- ing Department, so that her avocations necessarily kept her much within doors. The two sons were both com- pleting their education at the College of Sages ; and the elder, who had a strong passion for mechanics, and especi- ally for works connected with the machinery of time- pieces and automata, had decided in devoting himself to these pursuits, and was now occupied in constructing a shop, or warehouse, at which his inventions could be ex- hibited and sold. The younger son preferred farming and rural occipations ; and when not attending the College, at which he chiefly studied the theories of agriculture, was much absorbed by his practical application of that science to his father's lands. It will be seen by this how completely equality of ranks is established amono^ this people — a shop-keeper being of exactly the same grade in estimation as the large landed proprietor. Aph-Lin was the wealthiest member of the community, and his eldest son preferred keeping a shop to any other avocation ; nor was this choice thought to show any want of elevated no- tions on his part. This young man had been much interested in examin- ing my watch, the works of which were new to him, and was greatly pleased when I made him a present of it. Shortly after, he returned the gift with interest, by a :> z\ w ■ ■:■ ]^i^ "J iliii 146 THE COMING BACE. lit i watch of his own construction, marking both the time as in my watch and the time as kept among the Vril-ya. I have that watch still, and it has been much admired by many among the most eminent watchmakers of London and Paris. It is of gold, with diamond hands and figures, and it plays a favourite tune among the Vril-ya in strik- ing the hours : it only requires to be wound up once in ten months, and has never gone wrong since I bad it. These young brothers being thus occupied, my usual com- panions in that family, when I went abroad, were my host or his daughter. Now, agreeably with the honorable con- clusions I had come to, I be'gan to excuse myself from Zee's invitations to go out alone with her, and seized an occasion when that learned Gy was delivering a lecture at the College of Sages, to ask Aph-Lin to show me his country-seat. As this was at some little distance, and as Aph-Lin was not fond of walking, while I had discreetly relinquished all attempts at flying, we proceeded to our destination in one of the aerial boats belonging to my host. A child of eight years old, in his employ, was our conductor. My host and myself reclined on cushions, and I found the movement very easy and luxurious. "Aph-Lin," said I, "you will not, I tru&t, be displeased with me, if I ask your permission to travel for a short time, and visit other tribes or communities of your illus- trious race. I have also a strong desire to see those na- tions which do not adopt your institutions, and which you consider as savages. It would interest me greatly to notic what are the distinctions between them and the races whom we consider civilized in the world I have left." \ I THE COMING RACE. 14.7 " It is utterly impossiblo that you should go hence alone," said Aph-Lin. " Even among the Vril-ya you would be exposed to great dangers. Certain peculiarities of formation and colour, and thcj extraoidinary phenome- non of hirsute bushes upon your cheeks and chin, denot- ing in you a species of An distinct alike from our race and any known race of barbarians yet extant, would at- tract, of course, the special attention of the College of Sages in whatever community of Vril-ya you visited, and it would depend upon the individual temper of some indi- vidual sage whether you would be received, as you have been here, hospitably, or whether you would not be at once dissected for scientific purposes. Know that when the Tur first took you to his house, and while you were there put to sleep by Tag in order to recover from your previous pain or fatigue, the sages summoned by the Tur were divided in opinion whether you were a harmless or an obnoxious animal. During your unconscious state your teeth were examined, and they clearly showed that you were not only graminivorous but carnivorous. Car- nivorous animals of your size are always destroyed, as being of dangerous and savage nature. Our teeth, as you have doubtless observed,* are not those of the creatures who devour flesh. It is, indeed, maintained by Zee and other philosophers, that as, in remote ages, the Ana did prey upon living beings of the brute species, their teeth must have been fitted for that purpose. But, even if so, they have been modified by hereditary transmission, and * 1 had uever observed it ; uid, if I had, am not ph}'siologist enough to have dis- tlnguiihed th« difference. i m i'.i 148 THE COMING RACE. suited to the food on which we now exist ; nor are even the barbarians, who adopt the turbulent and ferocious in- stitutions of Glek-Nas, devourers of flesh like beasts of prey. " In the course of this dispute it was proposed to dis- sect you ; but Ta6 begged you oflf, and the Tur being, by oflSce, averse to all novel experiments at variance with our custom of sparing life, except where it is clearly proved to be for the good of the community to take it, sent to me, whose business it is, as the richest man of the state, to afford hospitality to strangers from a distance. It was at my option to decide whether or not you were a stranger whom I could safely admit. Had I declined to receive you, you would have been handed over to the College of Sages, and what might there have befallen you I do not like to conjecture. Apart from this danger, you might chance to encounter some child of four years old, just put in possession of his vril staff; and who, in alarm at your strange appearance, and in the impulse of the mo- ment, might reduce you to a cinder. Tae himself was about to do so when he first saw you, had his father not checked his hand. Therefore I say you cannot travel alone, but with Zee you would be safe ; and I have no doubt that she would accompany you on a tour round the neighbouring communities of Vril-ya (to the savage states, No 1) : I will ask her." Now, as my main object in proposing to travel was to escape ifeom Zee, I hastily exclaimed, " Nay, pray do not! I relinguish my design. You have said enough as to its dangers to deter me from it; and I can scarcely i THE CCHING RACE. 149 think it right that a young Gy of the personal attractions of your lovely daughter should travel into other regions without a better protector than a Tish of my insignificant strength and stature." Aph-Lin emitted the soft sibilant sound which is the nearest approach to laughter that a full-grown An permits to himself, ere he replied : " Pardon my discourteous but momentary indulgence of mirth at any observation seri- ously made by my guest. I could rot but be amused at the idea of Zee, who is so fond of protecting others that children call her * the guardian,' needing a protector herself against any dangers arising from the audacious admiration of males. Know that our Gy-ei, while un- married, are accustomed to travel alone among other tribes, to see if they find there some An who jaay please them more than the Ana they find at home. Zee has aheady made three such journeys, but hitherto her heart has been untouched." Here the opportunity which I sought was afforded to me, and I said, looking down, and with faltering voice, " Will you, my kind host, promise to pardon me, if what I am about to say gives you offence ?" " Say only the truth, and I cannot be offended ; or, could I be so, it would not be for me, but for you, to pardon." - "Well, then, assist me to quit you, and, much as I should have liked to witness more of the wonders, and enjoy more of the felicity, which belongs to your people, let me return to my own." " I fear there are reasons why I cannot do that ; at all 1 :t '" 150 THE COMING RACE. events, not without permission of the Tur, and he, proba- bly, would not grant it. You are not destitute of intelli- gence ; you may (though I do not think so) have concealed the degree of destructive powers possessed by your people ; you might, in short, bring upon us some danger ; and if the Tur entertains that idea, it would clearly be his dut}- either to put an end to you, or enclose you in a cage for the rest of your existence. But why should you wish to leave a state of society which you so politely allow to be more felicitous than your own ?" " Oh, Aph-Lin ! my answer is plain. Lest in aught, and unwittingly, I should betray your hospitality ; lest, in that caprice of will which in our world is proverbial among the other sex, and from which even a Gy is not free, your adorable daughter should deign to regard me, though a Tish, as if I were a civilized An, and — ^and — and " ** Court you as her spouse," put in Aph-Lin, gravely, and without any visible sign of surprise or displeasure. " You have said it." " That would be a misfortune," resumed my host, after a pause, " and I feel that you have acted as you ought in warning me. It is, as you imply, not uncommon for an un wedded Gy to conceive tastes as to the object she covets which appear whimsical to others ; but there is no power to compel a young Gy to any course opposed to that which she chooses to pursue. All we can do is to reason with her, and experience tells us that the whole College of Sages would find it vain to reason with a Gy in a matter that concerns her choice in love. I giieve for you, THE COMING RACE. 151 le, proba- of intelli- concealed ir people ; ' ; and if his duty cage for 1 wish to low to be n aught, ity ; lest, roverbial ry is not jgard me, i — ^and — 1, gravely, leasure. tiost, after . ought in on for an she covets no power 1 to that to reason e College t Gy in a re for you, because such a marriage would be against the A-glauran, or good of the community, for the children of such a mar- riage would adulterate the race : they might even come into the world with the teeth of carnivorous animals ; this could not be allowed : Zee, as a Gy, cannot be con- trolled ; but 3 ou, as a Tish, can be destroyed. I advise you, then, to resist her addresses ; to tell her plainly that you can never returr her love. This happens constantly. Many an An, however ardently wooed by one Gy, rejects her, and puts an end to her persecution by wedding another. The same course is open to you." " No ; for I cannot wed another Gy without equally injuring the community, and exposing it to the chance of rearing carnivorous children." " That is true. All I can say, and I say it with the tenderness due to a Tish, and the respect due to a guest^ is frankly this — if you peld, you will become a cinder. I must leave it to you to take the best way you can to defend yourself. Perhaps you had better tell Zee that she is ugly. That assurance on the lips of him she woos gen- erally suffices to chill the most ardent Gy. Here we are ai my country-house." i .In ■ in I' ^ I' 'I ■' ii'l ^r|f n ^:il ,'(: CHAPTER XXIIL I CONFESS that my conversation with Aph-Lin, and the extreme coolness with which he stated his inability to control the dangerous caprice of his daughter, and treated the idea of the reduction into a cinder to which her amor- ous flame might expose ray too seductive person, took away the pleasure I should otherwise have had in the contemplation of my host's country seat, and the astonish- ing perfection of the machinery by which his farming operations were conducted. The house differed in appearance from the massive and sombre building which Aph-Lin inhabited in the city, and which seemed akin to the rocks out of which the city itself had been hewn into shape. The walls of the country-seat were composed by trees placed a few feet apart from each other, the interstices being filled in with the transparent metallic substance which serves the purpose of glass among the Ana. These trees were all in flower, and the effect was very pleasing, if not in the best taste. We were received at the porch by life-like automata, who conducted us into a chamber, the like to which I never saw before, but have often on summer days dreamily imagined. It was a bower — ^half room, half garden. The walls were one mass of climbing flowers. The open spaces, which we call windows, and in which, here, the metallic surfaces were slided back, com- manded various views ; some, of the wide landscape with lit /j THE COMING RACE. 153 its lakes and rocks ; some, of small limited expanse answering to our conservatories, filled with tiers of flowers. Along the sides of the room were flower-beds, interspersed with cushions for repose. In the centre of the floor was a cistern and a fountain of that liquid light which I have presumed to be naptha. It was luminous and of a roseate hue ; it sufficed without lamps to light up the room with a subdued' radiance. All around the fountain was carpet.ed with a soft blue lichen, not green (I have never seen that colour in the vegetation of this country), but a quiet brown, on which ^he eye reposes with the same sense of relief as that with which in the upper world it reposes on green. In the outlets upon flowers (which I have com- pared to our conservatories) there were singing-birds innumerable, which, while we remained in the room, sang in those harmonies of tune to which they are, in these parts, so wonderfully trained. The roof was open. The whole scene had charms for every sense — music from the birds, fragrance from the flowers, and varied beauty to the eye at every aspect. About all was a voluptuous repose. What a place, methought, for a honeymoon, if a Gy bride were a little less formidably armed not only with the rights of woman, but with the powers of man ! but when one thinks of a Gy, so learned, so tall, so stately, so much above the standard of the creature we call woman as was Zee, no ! even if I had felt no fear of being reduced to a cinder, it is not of her I should have dreamed in that bower so constructed for dreams of poetic love. The automata reappeared, serving one of those delicious liquids which form the innocent wines of the Yril-ya. !!■!!! I ; m 154 THE COMING RACE. m' " Truly," said I, " this is a charming residence, and I can scarcely conceive why you. do not settle yourself here instead of amid the gloomier abodes of the city. " As responsible to the community for the administra- tion of light, I am compelled to reside chiefly in the city, and can only come hither for short intervals." " But since I understand from you that no honours are attached to your office, and it involves some trouble, why do you accept it ? " Each of us obeys without question the command of the Tur. He said, ' Be it requested that Aph-Lin shaP be Commissioner of Light,' so I had no choice ; but having held the office now for a long time, the cares, which were at first unwelcome, have become, if not pleasing, at least endurable. We are all formed by custom — even the difference of our race from the savage is but tLe trans- mitted continuance of custom, which becomes, through hereditary descent, part and parcel of our nature. You see there are Ana who even reconcile themselves to the re- sponsibilities of chief magistrate, bnt no one \70uld do so if his duties had not been rendered so light, or if there were anj^ questions as to compliance with his request. " Not even if you thought the request unwise or un- just?" "We do not allow ourselves to think so, and, indeed, evex'ything goes on as if each and all governed themselves according to immemorial custom." " When the chief magistrate dies or retires, how do you provide for his succeesor V " The An who has discharged the duties of chief magis- THE COMING RACE. 155 trate for many years is the best person to choose one by whom those duties may be understood, and he generally names his successor." " His son, perhaps ?" " Seldom that ; for it is not an office any ouo desires or seeks, and a father naturally hesitates to constrain his son. But if the Tur himself decline to make a. choice, for fear it might be supposed that he owed some grudge to the person on whom his choice would settle, then there are three of the College of Sages who draw lots among them- selves which shall have the power to elect the chief We consider that the judgment of one An of ordinary capacity is better than the judgment of three or .nore, however wise they may be ; for among three there would probably be disputes, and where there are disputes, passion clouds judgment. The worst choice made by one, who has no motive in choosing wrong, is better than the best choice made by many who have many motives for not choosing right." " You reverse in your policy the maxinis adopted in my country." "Are you all, in your country, satisfied with your governors V " All ! certainly not ; the governors that most please some are sure to be those most displeasing to others." " Then our system is better than yours." " For you it may be ; but, according to our system, a Tish could not be reduced to a cinder if a female com- pelled him to marry her ; and as a Tish I sigh to return to my native world." m m 1*1 IiBjl 156 THE COMING RACE. I'Vt.. ;.= ; ■^v ;r m A' i " T^/ke courage my dear little guest ; Zee can*t compel you to marry her. She can only entice you to do so. Don'1 be enticed. Come and look round my domain." "We went forth into a close, bordered with sheds ; for thc»ugh the Ana keep no stock for food, there are some a/^^.mals \'^hich they rear for milking and others for shear- ing. The former have no resemblance to our cows, nor the latter to our sheep, nor do I believe such species exist amongst them. They use the milk of three varieties of animal : one resembles the antelope, but is much larger, being as tall as a camel ; the other two are smaller, and, though differing somewhat from each other, resemble no creature I ever saw on earih. They are very sleek and of rounded proportions ; their colour that of the dappled deer, with very mild countenances and beautiful dark eyes. The milk of these three creatures differs in rich- ness and in taste. It is usually diluted with water, and flavoured with the juice of a peculiar and perfumed fruit, and in itself is very nutritious and palatable. The animal whose fleece serves them for clothing and many other pur- poses, is more like the Italian she-goat than any other creature, but is considerably larger, has no horns, and is free from the displeasing odour of our goats. Its fleece is not thick, but very long and fine ; it varies in colour, buf is never white, more generally of a slate-like or lavender hue. For clothing it is usually worn dyed to suit the taste of the vearer. These animals were exceedingly tame, and were treated with extraordinary care and affec- tion by the children (chiefly female) who attended them. We then went through the vast storehouses filled with THE COMING RACK. 157 grains and fruits. I may here observe that the main staple of food among these people consists — firstly, of a kind of corn irsed, saying, " Among the Tish-a the rights of your sex do not appear to be estab- lished, and, at all events, my guest may converse with you more freely, if unchecked by the presence of others." To this remark Zee made no reply, but, darting on me a tender reproachful glance, agitated her wings, and fled homeward. " I had counted, at least, on some aid from my host," said I, bitterly, " in the perils to which his own daughter exposes me." " I gave you the best aid I could. To contradict a Gy in her love affairs is to confirm her purpose. She allows no counsel to come between her and her affections." CHAPTER XXIV. On alighting from the air-boat, a child accosted Aph Lin in the haU, with a request that he would be present at the funeral obsequies of a relation who had recently de- parted from that nether world. Now, I had never seen a burial-place or cemetery amongst this people, and, glad to seize even so melancholy an occasion to defer an encounter with Zee, I asked Aph Lin if I might be permitted to witness with him the interment of his relation ; unless, indeed, it were regarded as one of those sacred ceremonies to which a stranger to their race might not be admitted. " The departure of an An to a happier world," answered my host, "when, as in the case of my kinsman, he has lived so long in this as to have lost pleasure in it, is rather a cheerful, though quiet, festival, than a sasred ceremony, and you may accompany me if you will." Preceded by the child messenger, we walked up thl\ main street to a house at some little distance, and, enter- ^ ing the hall, were conducted to a room on the ground floor, where we found several persons assembled round a couch, on which was laid the deceased. It was an old man, who had, as I was told, lived beyond his 130th year. To judge by the calm smile on his countenance, he had passed away without suffering. One of the sons, who was now the head of the family, and who seemed in II km Ml 164 THE COMING BACE. P'^rl 4 f»*' 'I' vigorous middle life, though he was considerably more than seventy, stepped forward with a cheerful face, and told Aph Lin " that the day before he died his father had seen in a dream his departed Gy, and was eager to be reunited to her, and restored to youth beneath the nearer smile of the All-Good." While these two were talking, my attention was drawn to a dark metallic substance at the farther end of the room. It was about twenty feet in length, narrow in proportion, and all closed round, save, near the roof, there were small round holes through which might be seen a red light. Froia the interior emanated a rich and sweet perfume ; and while I was conjecturing what purpose this machine was to serve, all the time-pieces in the town struck the hour with their solemn musical chime ; and as that sound ceased, music of a more joyous character, but still of a joy subdued and tranquil, rang throughout the chamber, and from the walls beyond, in a choral peal. Symphonious with the melody, those present lifted their voices in chant. The words of this hymn were simple. They expressed no regret, no farewell, but rather a greet- ing to the new world whither the deceased had preceded the living. Indeed, in their language, the funeral hymn is called the * Birth Song.' Then the corpse, covered by a long cerement, was tenderly lifted up by six of the nearest kinsfolk and borne towards the dark thing I have described. I pressed forward to see what happened. A sliding door or panel at one end was lifted up — the body deposited within, on a shelf — the door reclosed — a spring at the side touched — a sudden whisking, sighing sound THE COMING RACE. 165 heard from within ; and lo ! at the other end of the ma- chine the lid fell down, and a small handful of smoulder- ing dust dropped into a patera placed to receive it. The son took up the patera and said (in what I understood afterwards was the usual form of words), " Behold how great is the Mako.r ! To this little dust He gave form and life and soul. It needs not this little dust for Him to re- new form and life and soul to the beloved one we shall soon see again." Each present lowed his head and pressed his hand to his heart. Then a young female child opened a small door within the \vall, and I perceived, in the recess, shelves on which were placed many paterae like that which the son held, save that tt ey all had covers. With such a cover a Gy now approached the son, and placed it over the cup, on which it closed with a spring. On the lid were en- graven the name of the deceased, and these words : — "Lent to us" (here the date of birth). "Recalled from us" (here the date of death). The closed door shut with a musical sound, and all was over. '0 !l Hi I '111 m m m ft. Hm CHAPTER XXV. *And this," said I, with my mind full of what I had wit- nessed — " this, I presume, is your usual form of burial ?" " Our invariable form," answered Aoh-Lin. " What is it amongst your people ?" " We inter the body whole within the earth." " What ! to degrade the form you have loved and hon- oured, the wife on whose breast you have slept, to the loathsomeness of corruption ?" " But if the soul lives again, can it matter whether the body waste within the earth or is reduced by that awful mechanism, worked, no doubt by the agency of vril, into a pinch of dust ?" " You answer well," said my host, " and there is no arguing on a matter of feeling ; but to me your custom is horrible and repulsive, and would serve to invest death with gloomy and hideous associations. It is something, too, to my mind, to be able to preserve the token of what has been our kinsman or friend within the abode in which we live. We thus feel more sensibly that he still lives, though not visibly so to us. But our sentiments in this, as in all things, are created by custom. Custom is not to be changed by a wise An, any more than it is changed by a wise Community, without the gravest deliberation, followed by the most earnest conviction. It is only thus I THE COMING RACE. 167 that change ceases to be changoability, an 1 once made is made for good. When we regained the house, Aph-Lin summoned some of the children in his service and sent them round to sev- eral of his friends, requesting their attendance that day, during the Easy Hours, to a festival in honour of his kinsman's recall to the All-Good. This was the largest and gayest assembly I ever witnessed during my stay among the Ana, and wis prolonged far into the Silent Hours. The banquet was spread in a vast chamber reserved especiaUy for grand occasions. This differed from our en- tertainments, and was not without a certain resemblance to those we read of in the luxurious age of the Roman empire. There was not one great table set out, but nu- merous small tables, each appropriated to eight guests. It is considered that beyond that number conversatior^ languishes and friendship cools. The Ana never laugh loud, as I have before observed, but the cheerful ring of their voices at the various tables betokened gaiety of in- tercourse. As they have no stimulant drinks, and are temperate in food, though so choice and dainty, the ban- quet itself did not last long. The tables sank through the floor, and then came musical entertainments for those who liked them. Many, however, wandered away ; some of the younger ascended in their wings, for the hall was roofless, forming aerial dances ; others strolled through the various apartments, e::amining the curiosities with which they were stored, or formed themselves into groups for various games, the favourite of which is a complica- i 168 THE COMING RACE. m ■f:; mmm,. ^:A A. ted kind of chess played by eight persons. I mixed with the crowd, but was prevented joining in the convereat'on by the constant companionship of one or the other of my host's sons, appointed to keep me from obtrusive ques- tionings. The guests, however, noticed me but slightly ; they had grown accustomed to my appearance, seeing me 30 often in the streets, and I had ceased to excite much curiosity. To my great delight Zee avoided me, and evidently sought to excite my jealousy by marked attentions to a YP^y hand&ome young An, who (though, as is the modest custom of the males when addressed by females, he answered with downcast eyes and blushing cheeks, and was demure 8.nd shy a.s young ladies new to the world are in most civilized countries, except England and America) was evidently much charmed by the tall Gy, and ready to falter a bashful " Yes " if she had actually proposed. Fervently hoping that she would, and more and more averse to the idea of reduction to a cinder, after I had seen the rapidity with which a human body can be hurried into a pinch of dust, I amused myself by watching the manners of the other young people. I had the satisfaction of observing that Zee was no singular assertor of a female's most valued rights. Wherever I turned my eyes, or lent my ears, it seemed to me that the Gy was the wooing party, and the An the coy and reluctant one. The pretty innocent airs which an An gave himself on being thus courted, the dexterity with which be evaded direct an- swers to professions of attachment, or turned into jest the flattering compliments addressed to him, would have done THE COMING RACE. 169 xed with trei'sat'on er of my Lve ques- slightly ; eeing me lie much jvidently lions to a le modest nales, he eeks, and world are America) nd ready proposed, and more ier I had )e hurried ching the tisfaction i female's }S, or lent e wooing he pretty eing thus irect an- o jest the lave done honour to the most accomplished coquette. Both my male chaperons were subjected greatly to these seductive influences, and both acquitted themselves with wonderful honour to their tact and self-control. I said to the elder son, who preferred n chanical em- ployments to the management of a grea. property, and who was of an eminently philosophical temperament,— " I find it difScult to conceive how at your age, and with all the intoxicating effects on the senses, of music and lights and perfumes, you can be so cold to that impas- sioned Qy who has just left you with tears in her eyes at your cruelty." The young An replr d \ ';h a sigh, "Gentle Tish, the greatest misfortune ir i'fe is to marry one Gy if you are in love with another *' " Oh I you are in kvc with another 1 " "Alas! yes." i " And she does not return your love ?" " I don't know. Sometimes a look, a tone, makes me hope so ; but she has never plainly told me that she loves me." "Have you not whispered in her own ear that you love her ?" " Fie ! what are you thinking of? What world do you come from ? Could I so betray the dignity of ray sex ? Could I be so un-Anly — so lost to shame, as to own love to a Gy who has not first owned hers to me ?" "Pardon: I was not quite aware that you pushed the modesty of your sex so far. But does no An ever say to a Gy, ' I love you,' till she says it first to him V m n 1 p i i 170 THE COMING RACE. " I can't say that no An has ever done so, but if he ever does, he is disgraced in the eyes of the Ana, and secretly despised by the Gy-ei. No Gy, well brought up, would listen to him ; she would consider that he audaciously infringed on the rights of her sex, while outraging the modesty which dignifies his own. It is very provoking," continued the An, " for she whom I lovo has certainly courted no one else, and I cannot but think she likes me. Sometimes I suspect that she does not court me because she fears I would ask some unreasonable settlement as to the surrender of her rights. But if so, she cannot really love me, for where a Gy really loves she foregoes all rights." " Is this young Gy present ?" " Oh yes. She sits yonder talking to my mother." I looked in the direction to which my eyes were thus guided, and saw a Gy dressed in robes of bright red, which among this people is a sign that a Gy as yet prefei-s a single state. She wears grey, a neutral tint, to indicate that she is looking about for a spouse ; dark purple if she wishes to intimate that she has made a choice; purple and orange when she is betrothed or married ; light blue when she is divorced or a widow, and would marry again. Light blue is of course seldom seen. Among a people where all are of so high a type of beauty, it is difficult to single out one as peculiarly hand- some. My young friend's choice seemed to me to possess the average of good looks ; but there was an expression in her face that pleased me more than did the faces of the young Gy-ei generally, because it looked less bold — less THE COMING RACE. 171 conscious of female rights. I observed that, while she talked to Bra, she glanced, from time to time, sidelong at my young friend. " Courage," said I : " that young Gy loves you." " Ay, but if she will not say so, how am I the better for her love V " Your mother is aware of your attachment ?" " Perhaps so. I never owned it to her. It would be un-Anly to confide such weakness to a mother. I have told my father; he may have told it again to his wife." " Will you permit me to quit you for a moment and glide behind your mother and your beloved ? I am sure they are talking about you. Do not hesitate. I promise that I will not allow myself to be questioned till I rejoin you." The young An pressed his hand on his heart, touched me lightly on the head, and allowed me to quit his side. I stole unobserved behind his mother and his beloved. I overheard their talk. Bra was speaking ; said she, " There can be no doubt of this : either my son, who is of marriageable age, will be decoyed into marriage with one of his many suitors, or he will join those who emigrate to a distance and we shall see him no more. If you really care for him, my dear Lo, you should propose." " I do care for him. Bra ; but I doubt if I could really ever win his affections. He is fond of his inventions and timepieces ; and I am not like Zee, but so dull that I fear I could not enter into his favourite pursuits, and then he would get tired of me; and at the end of three years divorce me, and I could never many another — never." fil Hi r.* ■ 1^ 172 THE COMING RACE. 11 I* i?' !■■' i ** It is not necessary to kno\7 about timepieces to know how to be so necessary to the happiness of an An, who cares for timepieces, that he would rather give up the timepieces than divorce his Qy. You see, my dear Lo," continued Bra, " that precisely because we are the stronger sex, we rule the other, provided we never show our strength. If you were superior to my son in making timepieces and automata, you should, as his wife, always let him suppose you thought him superior in that art to yourself. The An tacitly allows the pre-eminence of the Gy in all except his own special pursuit. But if she either excels him in that, or affects not to admire him for his proficiency in it, he will not love her very long ; per- haps he may even divorce her. But where a Gy really loves, she soon learns to love all that the An does." The young Gy made no answer to this address. She looked down musingly, then a smile crept over her lips, and she rose, still silent, and went through the crowd till she paused Ijy the young An who loved her. I followed her steps, but discreetly stood at a little distance while I watched them. Somewhat to my surprise, till I recollected the coy tactics among the Ana, the lover seemed to receive her advances with an air of indiflference. He even moved away, but she pursued his steps, and, a little time after, both spread their wings and vanished amid the lumin us space above. Just then I was accosted by the chief magistrate, who mingled with the crowd distinguished by no signs of de- ference or homage. It so happened that I had not seen this great dignitary since the day I had entered his THE COMING RACE. 173 dominions, and recalling Aph-Lin's words as to his terrible doubt whether or not I should be dissected, a shudder crept over me at the sight of his tranquil countenance. " I hear much of you, stranger, from my mm Tae," said the Tur, laying his hand politely on my ber)ded head. " He is very fond of your society, and I trust you are not displeased with the customs of our people." I muttered some unintelligible answer, which I intended to be an assurance of my gratitude for the kindness I had received from the Tur, and my admiration of his country- men, but the dissecting-knife gleamed before my mind's eye and choked my utterance. A softer voice said, " My brother's friend must be dear to me." And looking up I saw a young Gy, who might be sixteen years old, stand- ing beside the magistrate and gazing at me with a very benignant countenance. She had not come to her full growth, and was scarcely taller than myself (viz., about 5 feet 10 inches), and, thanks to that comparatively diminu- tive stature, I thought her the loveliest Gy I had hitherto seen. I suppose something in my eyes revealed that im- pression, for her countenance grew yet more benignant. "Tae tells me," she said, " that you have not yet learned to accustom yourself to wings. That grieves me, for I should have liked to fly with you." " Alas !" I replied, " I can never hope to enjoy that hap- piness. I am assured by Zee that the safe use of wings is a hereditary gift, and it would take generations before one of my race could poise himself in the air like a bird." " Let not that thought vix you to'> much," replied this i:;i i *'■' ill «l fc \ \ 174 THE COMING BACK amiable Princess, " for, after all, there must come a day when Zee and myself must resign our wings for ever. Perhaps when that day comes we might be glad if the An we chose was also without wings." The Tur had left us, and was lost amongst the crowd. I began to feel at ease with Tae's charming sister, and rather startled her by the boldness of my compliment in replying " tliat no An she could choose would ever use his wings to fly away from her." It is so against custom for an An to say such civil things to a Gy till she has declared her pasgion for him, and been accepted as his betrothed, that the young maiden stood quite dumbfounded for a few moments. Nevertheless she did not seem displeased. At last recovering hei*self, she invited me to accompany her into one of the less crowded rooms and listen to the songs of the^birds. I followed her steps as she glided jfore me, and she l(jd me into a chamber almost deserted. A iWntain of napKtha was playing in the centre of the room ; round it were ranged soft divans, and the walls of the room were open on one side to an aviary in which the birds were chanting their artful chorus. The Gy seated herself on one of the divans, and I placed myself at her side. " Tae tells me," she said, " that Aph-lin has made it the law* of his house that you are not to be questioned as to the country you came from or the reason why you visit us. Is it so ?" "It is." * Literally "has said, In this house he it requested." Words synonymous with law, as implying forcible obligation, are avoided by this singular people. Even had it been decreed by the Tur that his College of Sages should dissect me, the decree would have ^ran blandly thus,—" Be it requested that, for the good of the community, the car- livorous Tish be requested to submit Itimself to dissection." THE COMING RACE. 175 " May I, at least, without sinning against that law, ask at least if the Gy-ei in your country are of the same pale colour as yourself and no taller ?" " I do not think, beautiful Gy, that I infringe the law of Aph-Lin, which is more binding on myself than any one, if I answer questions so innocent. The Gy-ei in my country are much fairer of hue than I am, and their average height is at least a head shorter than mine." " They cannot then be so strong as the Ana amongst you? But I suppose their superior vril force > ^akes up for such extraordinary disadvantage of size ?" " They do not profess the vril force as you know it. Btit still they are very powerful in my country, and an An has small chance of a happy life if he be not more or less governed by his Gy." "You speak feelingly," said Tae's sister, in a tone of voice half sad, half petulant. "You are married, of course ?" " No — certainly not ! " " Nor betrothed ? " " Nor betrothed ! " " Is it possible that no Gy has proposed to you ? " "In my country the Gy does not propose; the An speaks first." " What a strange reversal of the laws of nature," said the maiden, " and what want of modesty in your sex ! But have you never proposed, never loved one Gy more than another ? " I felt embarrassed by|these ingenuous questionings, and said, " Pardon me, but I think we are beginning to in- i 14 p j?i [ill W 176 THE COMING BACE. fringe upon Aph-Lin*8 injunction. This much only will I say in answer, and then, I implore you, ask no more. I did once feel the preference you speak of; I did propose, and the Gy would willingly have accepted me, but her parents refused their consent." "Parents! Do you mean seriously to tell me that parents can interfere with the choice of their daughters?" " Indeed they can, and do very often." " I should not like to live in that country," said the Gy, simply ; " but I hope you will never go back to it." I bowed my head in silence. The Gy gently raised my face with her right hand, and looked into it tenderly. " Stay with us," she said ; " stay with us, and be loved." What I might have answered, what dangers of becom- ing a cinder I might have encountered, I still tremble to think, when the light of the naphtha fountain was ob- scured by the shadow of wings ; and Zee, flying through the open roof, alighted beside us. She said not a word, but taking my arm with her mighty hand, she drew me away, as a mother draws a naughty child, and led me through the apartments to one of the corridoi's, on which, by the mechanism they generally prefer to stairs, we as- cended to my own room. This gained. Zee breathed on my forehead, touched my breast with her staff, and I was instantly plunged into a profound sleep. When I awoke some hours later, and heard the song of the birds in the adjoining aviary, the remembrance of Tae's sister, her gentle looks and caressing words, vividly returned to me ; and so impossible is it for one born and reared in our upper world's state of society to divest him- THE COMING RACE. 177 self of ideas dictated by vanity and ambition, that I found myself instinctively building proud castles in the air. " Tish though I be," thus ran my meditations — " Tish though I be, it is then clear that Zee is not the only Gy whom my appearance can captivate. Evidently I am loved by a Princess, the first raaiden of this land, the daughter of the absolute Monarch whose autocracy they so idly seek to disguise by the republican title of chief magistrate. But for the sudden swoop of that horrible Zee, this Royal Lady would have formally proposed to me ; and though it may be very well for Aph-Lin, who is only a subordinate minister, a mere Commissioner of Light, to threaten me with destruction if I accept his daughters hand, yet a Sovereign, whose word is law, could compel the community to abrogate any custom that forbids intermarriage with one of a strange race, and which in itself is a contradiction to their boasted equality of ranks. " It is not to be supposed that his daughter, who spoke with such incredulous scorn of the interference of parents, would not have sufficient influence with her Royal Father to save me from the combustion to which Aph-Lin would condemn my form. And if I were exalted by such an alliance, who knows but what the Monarch might elect me as his successor ? Why not ? Few among this indo- • lent race of philosophers like the '^ ./den of such great- ness. All might be 'pleased to see the supreme power lodged in the hands of an accomplished stranger, who has experience of other and livelier forms of existence ; and. W; ffy^-i 178 THE COMING RACE. r< once chosen, what reforms T would institute ! "What ad- ditions to the really pleasant, but too monotonous, life of this realm my familiarity with the civilized nations above ground would effect ! I am fond of the sj>orts of the field. Next to war, is not the chase a king's pastime ? In what varieties of strange game does this nether world abound ? How interesting to strike down creatures that were known above ground before the Deluge ! But how ? By that terrible vril, in which, from want of hereditary transmission, I could never be a proficient ? No, but by a civilized handy breech-loader, which these ingenious mechanicians could not only make, but, no doubt, im- prove ; nay, surely I saw one in the Museum. Indeed, as absolute king, I should discountenance vril altogether, except in cases of war. Apropos of war, it is perfectly absurd to stint a people so intelligent, so rich, so well armed, to a petty limit of territory sufficing for 10,000 or 12,00) families. Is not this restriction a mere philosophi- cal crotchet, at variance with the aspiring element in hu- man nature, such as has been partially, and with complete failure, tried in the upper world by the late Mr. Robert Owen ? Of course o.ie would not go to war with neighbour- ing nations as well armed as one's own subjects ; but then, what of those regions inhabited by races unacquainted with vril, and apparently resembling, in their democratic institutions, my American countrymen ? One might in- vade them without offence to the vril nations, our allies, appropriate their territories, extending, perhaps, to the most distant regions of the nether earth, and thus rule over an empire in which the sun never sets. (I forgot, in THE COMING RACE. 179 What ad- US, life of lons above f the field. In wliat i abound ? that were bow 1 By hereditary ^o, but by ingenious doubt, ira- Indeed, as altogether, s perfectly h, so well 10,000 or philosophi- lent in hu- 1 complete Mr. IU)bert neighbour- ; but then, acquainted democratic might in- cur allies, ps, to the thus rule I forgot, in my enthusiasm, that over those regions there was no sun to set.) As for the fantastical nooiun against conceding fame or renown to an eminent individual, becau.se, for- sooth, bestowal of honours insures contest in the pursuit of them, stimulates angry passions, and mars the felicity of peace — it is opposed to the very elements, not only f f the human, but the brute, creation, which are all, if tam- able, participators in the sentiment of praise and emula- tion. What renown would be given to a king who thus extended his empire ! I should be deemed a demi-god." Thinking of that, the other fanatical notion of regulating this life by reference to one which, no doubt, we Christ- ians firmly believe in, but never take into consideration, I resolved thai, enlightened philosophy compelled me to abolish a heathon religion so superstitiously at variance with modern thought and practical action. Musing over these various pi'ojects, I felt how much I should hnve liked at that moment to brighten my w4ts by a good glass of whisky and water. Not that I am h a-bitually a spirit drinker, but certainly there are times when a little stimulant of alccholic nature, taken with a cigar, enlivens the imagination. Yes j c ainly among the.* > herbs and fruits there would be a V lid from which one could ex- tract a pleasant "S'inous a ohol; and, with a steak cut off one of those elks (ah ' what offence to science to reject the animal food whic >ur first medical men agree in recommending to the gastric juices of mankind !) one would certainly pass a more exhilarating hour of repast. Then, too, instead of those antiquated dramas performed by childish amateurs, ceii inly, when I am king, I will il: i ■ i 180 THE COMING RACE. introduce our modern opera and a coi^s cle ballet, for which one might find, among the nations I shall conquer, yourg females of less formidable height and thews than the Gy-ei — not armed with vril, and not insisting upon one's marrying them. I was so completely rapt in these and similar reforms, political, social, and moral, calculated to bestow on tlio people of the nether world the blessings of a civilization known to the races of the upper, that I did not perceive that Zee had entered the chamber till I heard a deep sigh, and, raising my eyes, beheld her standing by my couch. I need not say that, according to the manners of this people, a Gy can, without indecorum, visit an An in his chamber, though an An would be considered forward and immodest to the last degi*ee if he entered the chamber of a Gy without previously obtaining her permission to do so. Fortu jjitely I was in the full habiliments I had worn when Zee had deposited me on the couch. Nevertheless I felt much irritated, as well as shocked, by her visit, and asked in a rude tone what she wanted. " Speak gently, beloved one, I entreat 3''0u/' said she, "for I am very unhappy. I have not slept since we parted." " A due sense of your shameful conduct to me as your father's guest might well suflSice to banish sleep from your eyelids. Where was the affection you pretend to have for me, where was even that politeness on which the Vril-ya pride themselves, when, taking advantage alike of that physical strength in which your sex, in this extra- ordinary region, excels our own, and of those detestable 1 THE COMING RACE. 181 and unhallowed powers which the agencies of vril invest in your eyes and finger-ends, you exposed me to humilia- tion before your assembled visitors, before Her Royal Highness — I mean, the daughter of your own chief mag- istrate, — carrying me off to bed like a naughty infant, and plunging me into sleep, without asking my consent?" " Ungrateful ! Do you reproach me for the evidences of my love ? Can you think that, even if unstung by the jealousy which attends upon love till it fades away in blissful trust when we know that the heart we have wooed is won, I could be indifferent to the perils to which the audacious overtures of that silly little child might expose you T " Hold ! Since you introduce the subject of perils, it perhaps does not misbecome me to say that my most im- minent perils com' from yourself, or at least would come if I believed in >our love and accepted your addresses. Your father has told nie plainly that in that case I should be consumed into a cinder with as little compunction as if I were the rei)tile whom Tae blasted into ashes with the flash of his wand." " Do not let that fear chill your heart to me," exclaimed Zee, dropping on her knees and absorbing my right hand in the space of her ample palm. " It is true, indeed, that we two cannot wed aj those of the same race wed ; true that the love between us must be pure as that which, in our belief, exists between lovers who reunite in the new life beyond that boundary at which the old life ends. But is it not happiness enough to be together, wedded in mind and in heart ? Listen : I have just left my father. I II Uin II ■ ^:* * c-M i ik i; k'W^^^H If:' ''*wa^^B' I' J ■11 |Hi "Hi'' 182 THE COMING RACE. a :^i He consents to our union on those terms. I have suffi- cient influence with the College of Sages to insure their request to the Tur not to interfere with the free choice of a Gy, provided that her wedding with one of another race be but the wedding of souls. Oh, think you that true love needs ignoble union ? It is not that I yearn only to be by your side in this life, to be part and parcel of your ioys and sorrows here : I ask here for a tie which will bind us for ever and for ever in the world of immortals. Do you reject me V As she spoke, she knelt, and the whole character of her face was changed ; nothing of sternness left to its grand- eur ; a divine light, as that of an immortal, shining out from its human beauty. But she rather awed me as an angel than moved me as a woman, and after an embar- rassed pause, I faltered forth evasive expressions of grati- tude, and sought, as delicately as I could, to point out how humiliating would bo my position amongst her race in the light of a husband who might never be permitted the name of father. " But," said Zee, " this community does not constitute the whole world. No ; nor do all the populations com- prised in the league of the Vril-ya. For thy sake I will renounce my country and my people. We will fly toge- ther to some region where thou shalt be safe. I am strong enough to bear thee on my wings across the deserts that intervene. I am skilled enough to cleave open, amidst the rocks, valleys in which to build our home. Solitude and a hut with thee would be to me society and the uni- verse. Or wouldst thou return to thine own world, above THE COMING RACE. 183 the surface of this, exposed to the uncertain seasons, and lit but by the changeful orbs which constitute by thy description the fickle character of those savage regions ? If so, speak the word, and I will force the way for thy return, so that I am thy companion there, though, there as here, but partner of thy soul, and fellow-traveller with thee to the world in which there is no parting and no death." I could not but be deeply affected by the tenderness, at once so pure and so impassioned, with which these words were uttered, and in a voice that would have rendered musical the roughest sounds in the rudest tongue. And for a moment it did occur to me that I might avail myself of Zee's agency to effect a safe and speedy return to the upper world. But a very brief space for reflection sufficed to show me how dishonourable and base a return for such devotion it would be to allure thus away, from her own people and a home in which I had been so hospitably treated, a creature to whom our world would be so abhor- rent, and for whose barren if spiritual, love, I could not reconcile myself to renoun ^e the more human affection of mates less exalted above my erring self With this sen- timent of duty towards the Gy combined another of duty towards the whole race I belonged to. Could T venture to introduce into the upper world a being so formidably gifted — a being that with a movement of her staff" could in less than an hour reduce New York and its glorious Koom-Posh into a pinch of snuff"? Rob her of one staff, with her science she could easily construct another; and with the deadly lightnings that armed the slender engine 184 THE COMING RACE. ■,\f ^m her whole frame was charged. If thus dangerous to the cities and populations of the whole upper earth, could she be a safe companion to myself in case her affection should be subjected to change or embittered by jealousy ? These thoughts, which it takes so many words to express, passed rapidly through my brain and decided my answer. "Zee," I said, in the softest tones I could command, and pressing respectful lips on the hand into whose clasp mine had vanished — " Zee, I can find no words to say how deeply I am touched, and how highly I am honoured, by a love so disinterested and self-immolating. My best return to it is perfect frankness. Each nation has its customs. The customs of yours do not allow you to wed me ; the customs of mine are equally opposed to such a union be- tween those ,of races so widely differing. On the other hand, though not deficient in courage among my own people, or amid dangers with which I am familiar, I cannot, without a shudder of horror, think of constructing a bridal home in the heart of some dismal chaos, with all the elements of nature, fire and water and mephitic gases, at war with each other, and with the probability that at some moment, while you were busied in cleaving rocks or conveying vril into lamps, I should be devoured by a krek which your operations disturbed from its hiding-place. I, a mere Tish, do not deserve the love of a Gy, so brilliant, so learned, so potent as yourself Yes, I do not deserve that love, for I cannot return it." Zee released my hand, rose to her feet, and turned her face away to hide her emotions ; then she glided noise- lessly along the room, and paused at the threshold : THE COMING RACE. 185 Suddenly, impelled as by a new thought, she returned to my side and said, in '^ whispered tone, — " You told me you would speak with perfect frankness. With perfect frankness, then, answer me this question. If you cannot love mo, do you love another ?" " Certainly, I do not." " You do not love Tab's sister ?" " I never saw her before last night.'* " That is no answer. Love is swifter than vril. You hesitate to tell me. Do not think it is only jealousy that prompts me to caution you. If the Tur's daughter should declare love to you — if in her ignorance she confides to her father any preference that may justify his belief that she will woo you, he will have no option but to request your immediate destruction, as he is specially charged with the duty of consulting the good of the community, which could not allow a daughter of the Vril-ya to wed a son of the Tish-a, in that sense of marriage which does not confine itself to union of the souls. iUas ! there would then be for you no escape. She has no strength of wing to uphold you through the air ; she has no science wherewith to make a home in the wilderness. Believe that here my friendship speaks, and that my jealousy is silent." With those words Zee left me. And recalling those words, I thought no more of succeeding to the throne of the Vril-ya, or of the political, social, and moral reforms I should institute in the capacity of Absolute Sovereign. M IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) m y/ {./ ^ .^. Ax* ^ Y' 7 ^ ^ Mp ^ ^ / 1.0 1.1 11.25 ■tflM 125 ttUU ill ^1^ 6" V Photographic _Sdences Corporation 23 WIST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) S72-4503 r ^^ w ■ i CHAPTER XXVI. After the conversation with Zee just recorded, I fell into a profound melancholy. The curious interest with which I had hitherto examined the life and habits of this marvel- ous community was at an end. I could not banish from my mind the consciousness that I was among a people who, however kind and courteous, could destroy me at any moment without scruple or compunction. The virtu- ous and peaceful life of the people which, while new to me, had seemed so holy a contrast to the contentions, the passions, the vices of the upper world, now began to oppress me with a sense of dulness and monotony. Even the serene tranquillity of the lustrous air preyed on ray spirits. I longed for a change, even to winter, or storm, or darkness. I began to feel that, whatever our dreams of perfectibility, our restless aspirations towards a better, and higher, and calmer, sphere of being, we, the mortals of the upper world, are not trained or fitted to enjoy for long the very happiness of which we dream or to which we aspire. Now, in this social state of the Vril-ya, it was singular to mark how it contrived to unite and to harmonise into one system nearly all the objects which the various phi- losophers of the upper world have placed before human hopes as the ideals of a Utopian future. It was a state in which war, with all its calamities, was deemed THE COMING RACE. 187 impossible, — a state in which the freedom of all and each was secured to the uttermost degree, without one of those animosities which make freedom in the upper world de- pend on the perpetual strife of hostile parties. Ilere the corruption which debases democracies was as unknown as the discontents which undermine the thrones of mon- archies. Equality here was not a name ; it w«as a reality. Riches were not persecuted, because they were not envied. Here those problems connected with the labours of a working class, hitherto insoluble above ground, and above ground conducing to such bitterness between classes, were solved by a process the simplest, — a distinct and separate working class was dispensed with altogether. Mechani- cal inventions, constructed on principles that baffled my research to ascertain, worked by an agency infinitely more powerful and infinitely more easy of management than aught we have yet extracted from electricity or steam, with the aid of children whose strength was never overtasked, but who loved their employment as sport and pastime, sufficed to create a Public-wealth so devoted to the general use that not a grumbler was ever heard of. The vices that rot our cities here had no footing. Amuse- ments abounded, but they were all innocent. No merry- makings conduced to intoxication, to riot, to disease. Love existed, and was ardent in pursuit, but its object, once secured, was faithful. The adulterer, the profligate, the harlot, were phenomena so unknown in this common- wealth, that even to find the words by which they were designated one would have had to search throughout an obsolete literature composed thousands of years before. l\ >] i 9^ m i^ -li < ' 188 THE COMING RACE. They, who have been students of theoretical philosophies above groiind, know that all these strange departures from civilized life do but realise ideas which have been broached, canvassed, ridiculed, contested for; sometimes partially tried, and still put forth in fantastic books, but have never come to practical result. Nor were these all the steps towards theoretical perfectibility which this community had made. It had been the sober belief of Descartes that the life of man could be prolonged, not, indeed, on this earth, to eternal duration, but to what he called the age of the patriarchs, and modestly defined to be from 100 to 150 years average length, \yell, even this dream of sages was here fulfilled — nay, more than ful- filled ; for the vigour of middle life was preserved even ^er the term of a century was passed. With this long- evity was combined a greater blessing than itself — that of continuous health. Such diseases as befell the race were removed with ease by scientific applications of that agency — life-giving as life destroying — which is inherent in vril. Even this idea is not unknown above ground, though it has generally been confined to enthusiasts or charlatans, and emanates from confused notions about mesmerism, odic force, &c. Passing by such trivial con- trivances as wings, which every schoolboy knows has been tried and found wanting, from the mythical or pre- historical period, I proceed to that very delicate question, urged of late as essential to the perfect happiness of our human species by the two most disturbing and potential influences on upper-ground society, — Womankind and Philosophy. I mean, the Rights of Women. < ll THE COMING RACE. 189 Now, it is allowed by jurisprudists that it is idle to talk of rights where tliere are not corresponding powers to enforce them ; and above ground, for some reason or other, man, in his physical force, in the use of weapons offensive and defensive, when it comes to positive per- sonal contest, can, as a rule of general application, master women. But amongst this people there can be no doubt about the rights of women, because, as I have before said, the Gy, physically speaking, is bigger and stronger than the An ; and her will being also more resolute than his, and will being essential to the direction of the vril force, she can bring to bear upon him, more potently than he on herself, the mystical agency which art can extract from the occult properties of nature. Therefore all t^at our female philosophers above ground contend for aa^ rights of women, is conceded as a matter of course in this happy commonwealth. Besides such physical powers, the Gy-ei have (at least in youth) a keen desire for ac- complishments and learning which exceeds that of the male ; and thus they are the scholars, the professors — the learned portion, in short, of the community. Of course, in this state of society the female estab- Ushes, as I have shown, her most valued principles, that of choosing and courting her wedding partner. Without that privilege she would despise all the others. Now, above ground, we should not unreasonably apprehend that a female, thus potent and thus privileged, when she had fairly hunted us down and married us, would be very im- perious and tyrannical. Not so with the Gy-ei : once married, the wings once suspended, and more amiable, 190 THE COMING RACE. ¥A&: !K"f complacent, docile mates, more sympathetic, more sinking their loftier capacities into the study of their husbands' comparatively frivolous tastes and whims, no poet could conceive in his visions of conjugal hliss. Lastly, among the more important characteristics of the Vril-ya, as dis- tinguished from our mankind — lastly, and most important on the bearings of their life and peace of their common- wealths, is their universal agreement in the existence of a merciful beneficent Deity, and of a future world to the duration of which a century or two are moments too brief to waste upon thoughts of fame and power and avarice ; while with that agreement is combined another — viz., since they can know nothing as to the nature of that Deity beyond the fact of His supreme goodness, nor of that future world beyond the fact of its felicitous exis- tence, so their reason forbids all angry disputes on inso- luble que tions. Thus they secure for that stats in the bowels of the earth what no community ever secured under the light of the stars — ^all the blessings and consolations of a religion without any of the evils and calamities which are engendered by strife between one religion and another. It would be, then, utterly impossible to deny that the state of existence among the Vril-ya is thus, as a whole, immeasurably more felicitous than that of super-terres- trial races, and, realising the dreams of our most sanguine philanthropists, almost approaches to a poet's conception of some angelical order. And yet, if you would take a thousand of the best and most philosophical of human be- ings you could find in London, Paris, Berlin, New York, or THE COMING RACE. 191 even Boston, and place them as citizens in this beatified community, my belief is, that in less than a year they would either die of ennuis or attempt some revolution by which they would militate against the good of the com- munity, and be burnt into cinders at the request of ihi*. Tur. Certainly I have no desire to insinuate, through the medium of this narrative, any ignorant disparagement of the race to which I belong. I have, on the contrary, en- deavoured to make it clear that the princjiples which re- gulate the social system of the Vril-ya forbid them to produce those individual examples of human greatness which adorn the annals of the upper world. Where there are no wars there can be no Hannibal, no Washington, no Jackson, no Sheridan ; — where states are so happy that they fear no danger and desire no change, they cannot give biiwh to a Demosthenes, a Webster, a Sumner, a Wendell Holmes, or a Butler ; and where a society at- tains to a moral standard, in which there are no crimes and no sorrows from which tragedy can extract its ali- ment of pity and son*ow, no salient vices or follies on which comedy can lavish its mirthful satire, it has lost the chance of producing a Shakespeare, or a Moli^re, or a Mrs. Beecher Stowe. But if I have no desire to dispar- age my fellow^men above ground in showing how much the motives that impel the energies and ambition of indi- viduals in a society of contest and struggle — become dor- mant or annulled in a society which aims at riecuring for the aggregate the calm and innocent felicity which we presume to be the lot of beatified immortals ; neither, on 192 THE COMING KACE. ii.. Hi lf€ ^^Wi*" the other hand, have I the wish to reiwresent the common- wealths of the Vril-ya as an ideal form of political socipt}^ to the attainment of which our own efforts, of reform should he directed. On the contrary, it is because we have so combined, throughout the series of ages, the ele- ments which compose human character, that it would be utterly impossible for us to adopt the modes of life, or to reconcile our passions to the modes of thought among the Vril-ya, — that I arrived at the conviction that this people — though originally not only of our human race, but, as seems to me clear by the roots of their language, descend- ed from the same ancestors as the Great Aryan family, from which in varied streams has flowed the dominant civilization of the world ; and having, according to their myths and their history, passed through phases of society iamiliar to ourselves, — ^had yet now developed into a dis- tinct species with which it was impossible that any com- munity in the upper world could amalgamate : and that if they ever emerged from these nether recesses into the light of day, they would, according to their own tradi- tional persuasions of their ultimate destiny, destroy and replace our existent varieties of man. It may, indeed, be said, since more than one Gy could be found to conceive a partiality for so ordinary a type of our super-terrestrial race as myself, that even if the Vril- ya did appear above ground, we might be saved from ex- termination by intermixture of race. But this is too san- guine a belief. Instances of such mesalliance would be as rare as those of interiuarriage between the Anglo-Saxon emigrants and the red Indians. Nor would time be al- ♦* THE COMING RACE. 193 lowed for the operation of familiar intercourse. The Vril- ya, on emerging, induced by the charm of a sunlit heaven to form their settlements above ground, would commence at onge the work of destruction, seize upon the territories already cultivated, and clear off, without scruple, all the inhabitants who resisted that invasion. And considering their contempt for the institutions of Koom-Posh or Popu- lar Government, and the pugnacious valour of my beloved countrymen, I believe that if the Vril-ya first appeared in free America — as, being the choicest portion of the habit- able earth, they would doubtless be induced to* do — and said, " This quarter of the globe we take ; Citizens of a Koom-Posh, make way for the development of .species in the Vril-ya," my brave compatriots would show fight, and not a soul of them would be left in this life, to rally round the Stars and Stripes, at the end of a week. I now saw but little of Zee, save at meals, when the family assembled, and she was then reserved and silent. My apprehensions of danger from an affection I had so little encouraged or deserved, therefore, now faded away, but my dejection continued to increase. I pined for es- cape to the upper world, but I racked my brains in vain for any means to effect it. I was never permitted to wan- der forth alone, so that I could not even visit the spot on which I had alighted, and see if it were possible to reas- cend to the mine. Nor even in the Silent Hours, when the household was locked in sleep, could I have let my- self down from the lofty floor in which my apartment was placed. I knew not how to command the automata who stood mockingly at my beck beside the wall, nor M .„. ll i' I i I i) 194 THE COMING RACE. could I ascertain the springs by which were set in move- ment the platforms that supplied the place of stairs. The knowledge how to avail myself of these contrivances had been purposely withheld from me. Oh, that T could but have learned the use of wings, so freely here at the service of every infant, then I might have escaped from the case- ment, regained the rocks, i^nd buoyed myself aloft through the chasm of which the perpendicular sides forbade place for human footing I I i:. :ii ..> CHAPTER XXVII. One day, as I sat alone and brooding in my chamber, Tae flew in at the open window and alighted on the couch beside me. I was always pleased with the visits of a child, in whose society, if humbled, I was less eclipsed than in that of Ana who had completed their education and matured their understanding. And as I was permitted to wander forth with him for my companion, and as I longed to revisit the spot in which I had descended into the nether world, I hastened to ask him if he were at leisure for a stroll beyond the streets of the city. His countenance seemed to me graver than usual as he replied, " I came hither on purpose to invite you forth." ' We soon found ourselves in the street, and had not got far from the house when we encountered five or six young Gy-ei, who were returning from the fields with baskets full of flowers^ and chanting a song in chorus as they walked. A young Gy sings more often than she talks. They stopped on seeing us, accosting Tae with familiar kindness, and me with the courteous gallantry which dis- tinguishes the Gy-ei in their manner towards our weaker sex. And here I may observe that, though a virgin Qy is so frank in her courtship to the individual she favours, there is nothing that approaches to that general breadth and loudness of manner which those young ladies of the n '■ .1 ■1 TTT"' 196 THE COMING RACE. "?■• Anglo-Saxon race, to whom the distinguished epithet of ' fast ' is accorded, exhibit towards young gentlemen whom they do not profess to love. No : the bearing of the Oy- ei towards males in ordinary is very much that of high- bred men in the gallant societies of the upper world to- wards ladies whom they respect but do not woo ; deferen- tial, complimentary, exquisitely polished — what we should call * chivalrous.* Certainly I was a little put out by the number of civil things addressed to my aniour propre, which were said to me by these courteous young Gy-ei. In the world I came from, a man would have thought himself aggrieved, treated with irony, * chaffed ' (if so vulgar a slang word may be allowed on the authority of the popular novelists who use it so freely), when one fair Gy complimented me on the freshness of my complexion, another on the choice of colours in my dress, a third, with a sly smile, on the conquests I had made at Aph-Lin's entertainment But I knew already that all such language was what the French call banal, and did but express in the female mouth, below earth, that sort of desire to pass for amiable with the opposite sex which, above earth, arbitrary cus- tom and hereditary transmission demonstrate by the mouth of the male. And just as a high-bred young lady, above earth, habituated to such compliment!, feels that she cannot, without impropriety, return them, nor evince any great satisfaction at receiving them ; so I who had learned polite manners at the house of so wealthy and dignified a Minister of that nation, could but smile and try to look pretty in bashfully disclaiming the compli- THE COMING RACE. 197 ments showered upon me. While we were thus talking, Tae's sister, it seems, had seen us from the upper roor ^4 of the Royal Palace at the entrance of the town, and, precipitating herself on her wings, alighted in the midst of the group. Singling me out, she said, though still with the inimit- able deference of manner which I have called * chivalrous/ yet not without a certain abruptness of tone which, as ad- dressed to the weaker sex, Sir Philip Sidney might have termed ' rustic,' " Why do you never come to see us ?" While I was. deliberating on the right answer to give to this unlooked-for question, Tae said quickly and sternly, "Sister, you forget— the stranger is of my sex. It is not for persons of my sex, having due regard for reputation and modesty, to lower themselves by running after the society of yours." This speech was received with evident approval by the young Gy-ei in general ; but Tae's sister looked greatly abashed. Poor thing ! — and a Princess too ! ' Just at this moment a shadow fell on the space between me and the group ; and, turning round, I beheld the chief magistrate coming close upon us, with the silent and stately pace peculiar to the Vril-ya. At the sight of his countenance, the same terror which had seized me when I first beheld it returned. On that brow, in those eyes, there was that same indefinable something which marked the being of a race fatal to our own — that strange ex- pression of serene exemption from our common cares and passions, of conscious superior power, compassionate and inflexible as that of a judge who pronounces doom. I 198 THE COMING RACE. shivered, and, inclining low, pressed the arm of my child- friend, and drew him onward silently. The Tur placed himself before our path, regarded me for a moment with- out speaking, then turned his eye quietly on his daughter's face, and, with a grave salutation to her and the other Gy-ei, went through the midst of the group, — still with- out a word. CHAPTER XXVIir. When Tae and I found ourselves alone on the broad road that lay between the city and the chasm through which I had descended into this region beneath the light of the stars and sun, I said under my breath, " Child and friend, there is a look in your father's face which appals me. I feel as if, in its awful tranquillity, I gazed upon death." Tae did not immediately reply. He seemed agitated, and as if debating with himself by what words to soften some unwelcome intelligence. At last he said, " None of the Vril-ya fear death : do you ?" " The dread of death is implanted in the breasts of the race to which I belong. We can conquer it at the call o^ duty, of honour, of love. We can die for a truth, for a native land, for those who are dearer to us than ourselves. But if death do really threaten me now and here, where are such counteractions to the natural instinct which in- vests with awe and terror the contemplation of severance between soul and the body ?" Ta^ looked surprised, but there was great tenderness in his voice as he replied, " I will tell my father what you say. I will entreat him to spare your life." " Ho has, then, already decreed to destroy it ?" " 'Tis my sister's fault or folly," said TaS, with some petulance. " But she spoke this morning to my father ; and, after she had spoken, he summoned me, as a chief Mm 200 THE COMING KACE. t't among the children who are commissioned to destroy such lives as threaten the community, and he said to me, "Take thy vril staff, and seek the stranger who has made him- self dear to thee. Be his end painless and prompt." " And," I faltered, recoiling from the child — " and it is then, for my murder that thus treacherously thou hast in- vited me forth ? No, I cannot believe it. I cannot think thee guilty of such a crime." " It is no crime to slay those who threaten the good of the community ; it would be a crime to slay the smallest insect that cannot harm us." " If you mean that I threaten the good of the commu- nity because your sister honours me with the sort of pref- erence which a child may feel for a strange plaything, it is not necessary to kill me. Let me return to the people I have left, and by the chasm through which I descended. With a slight help from you, I might do so now. You, by the aid of your wings, could fasten, to the rocky ledge within the chasm, the cord that you found, and have no doubt preserved. Bo but that ; assist me but to the spot from which I alighted, and I vanish from your world for ever, and as surely as if I were among the dead." "The chasm through v^hich you descended! Look round ; we stand now on the very place where it yawned. What see you ? Only solid rock. The chasm was closed, by the orders of Aph-Lin, as soon as communication be- tween him and yourself was established in your trance, and he learned, from your own lips, the nature of the world from which you came. Do you not remember when Zee bade me not question you as to yourself or your race THE COMING RACE. 201 On quitting you that day, Aph-Lin accosted me, and said, ' No path between the stranger's home and ours should be left unclosed, or the sorrow and evil of his home may descend to ours. Take with thee the children of thy oand, smite the sides of the cavern with your vril staves, till the fall of their fragments fills up every chink through which a gleam of our lamps could force its way.* " As the child spoke, I stared aghast at the blind rocks before me. Huge and irregular, the granite masses, show- ing by charred discoloration where they had been shat- tered, rose from footing to roof-top ; not a cranny ! " All hope, then, is gone," I murmured, sinking down on the craggy wayside, " and I shall nevermore see the sun." I covered my face with my hands, and prayed to Him whose presence I had so often forgotten when the heavens had declared His handiwork. I felt His presence in the depths of the nether earth, and amidst the world of the grave. I looked up, taking comfort and courage from my prayers, and gazing with a quiet smile into the face of the child, said, " Now, if thou must slay me, strike." Tae shook his head gently. " Nay," he said, " my fath- er's request is not so formally made as to leave me no choice. I wiU speak with him, and T may- prevail to save thee. Strange that thou shouldst have the fear of death which we thought was only the instinct of the inferior creatures, to whom the conviction of another life has not been vouchsafed. With us, not an infant knows such a fear. Tell me, my dear Tish," he continued, after a little pause, " would it reconcile thee more to departure from this form of life to that form which lies on the other sid^ ' } ^l 502 THE COMING RACE. #ii'! i ; m I of the moment called * death/ did I share thy journey ? If so, I wilt ask my father whether it be allowable for me to go with thee. I am one of our generation destined to emigrate, when of age for it, to some regions unkno stti within this world. I woidd just as soon emigrate now to regions unknown, in another world. The All-Good is no less there than here. Where is He not V ** Child," said I, seeing by Tae's countenance iihat he .spoke in serious earnest, " it is crime in thee to slay me ; it were a crime not less in me to say, * Slay thyself.' The All-Good chooses His own time to give us life, and His own time to take it away. Let us go back. If, on speak- ing with thy father, he decides on my death, give me the longest warning in thy power, so that I may pass the in- terval in self-preparation." We walked back to the city, conversing but by fits and .starts. We could not understand each other's reasonings, and I felt for the fair child, with his soft voice and beau- tiful face, much as a convict feels for the executioner who walks beside him to the place of doom. CHAPTER XXIX. ^1 In the midst of those hours set apart for sleep, and con- stituting the night of the Vril-ya, I was awakened from the disturbed slumber into which I had not long fallen, by a hand on my shoulder. I started and beheld Zee standing beside me. " Hush," she said, in a whisper ; " let no one hear us* Dost thou think that I have ceased to watch over thy safety because I could not win thy love ? I have seen Tae. He has not prevailed with his father, who had meanwhile conferred with the three sages, who, in doubt- ful matters, he takes into council, and, by their advice, he has ordained thee to perish when the world re-awakens to life. I will save thee. Rise and dress." Zee pointed to a table by the couch, on which I saw the clothes I had worn on quitting the upper world, and which I had exchanged subsequently for the more pictur- esque garments of the Vril-ya. The young Gy then moved towards the qj^sement and stepped into the bal- cony, while hastily and wonderingly I donned my own habiliments. When I joined her on the balcony, her face was pale and rigid. Taking me by the hand, she said softly, "See how -brightly the art of the Vril-ya has lighted up the world in which they dwell. To-morrow that world will be dark to me." She drew me back into the room without waiting for my answer, thence into the * ■■», 204 THE COMING RACE. I I conidor, from which we descended into the hall. We passed into tLe deserted streets and along the broad up- ward road which wound beneath the rocks. Here, where there is neither day nor night, the Silent Hours are unutterably solemn, — the vast space illumined by mortal skill is so wholly without the sight and stir of mortal life. Soft as were our footsteps, their sounds vexed the ear, as out of harmony with the uuiversal repose. I was aware in my own mind, though Zee said it not, that she had decided to assist my return to the upper world, and that we were bound towards the place from which I had descended. Her silence infected me, and commanded mine. And now we approached the chasm. It had been reopened; not presenting, indeed, the same aspect as when I had emerged from it, but, through that closed wall of rock before which I had last stood with Tae, a new cleft had been riven, and along its blackened sides still glimmered sparks and smouldered embers. My up- ward gaze could not, however, penetrate more than a few feet into the darkness of the hollow void, and I stood dis- mayed, and wondering how that grim ascent was to be made. Zee divined my doubt. " Fear not," said she, with a faint smile ; " your return is assured. I began this work when the Silent Hours commenced, and all else were asleep ; believe that I did not pause till the path back into thy world was clear, I shall be with thee a little while yet. We do not part until thou sayest, ' Go, for I need thee no more.' " My heart smote me with remorse at these words. THE COMING RACE. 205 "Ah!" I exclaimed, "would that thou wert of my race or I of thine, then I should never say, * I need thee no > » ihese words. more. " I bless thee for those words, and I shall remember them when thou art gone," answered the Qy, tenderly. During this brief interchange of words. Zee had turned away from me, her form bent and her head bowed over her breast. Now, she rose to the full height of her grand stature, and stood fronting me. While she had been *;hus averted from my gaze, she had lighted up the circlet that she wore round her biow, so that it blazed as if it were a crown of stars. Not only her face and her form, but the atmosphere around, were illumined by the effulgence of the diadem. • " Now," said she, " put thine arms around me for the first and last time. Nay, thus ; courage, and cling firm," As she spoke her form dilated, the vast wings expanded. Clinging to her, I was borne aloit through the terrible chasm. The starry light from her forehead shot around and before us through the darkness. Brightly and stead- fastly, and swiftly as an angel may soar heavenward with the soul it rescues from the grave, went the flight of the Gy, till I heard in the distance the hum of human voices, the sounds of human toil. We halted on the flooring of one of the galleries of the mine, and beyond, in the vista, burned the dim, rare, feeble lamps of the miners. Then I released my hold. The Gy kissed me on my forehead passionately, but as with a mother's passion, and said, as the tears gushed from her eyes, " Farewell for ever. Thou wilt not let me go into thy world — thou canst never re- 'p % m ' r / 206 THE COMING RACE. turn to mine. Ere our household shake off slumber, the rocks wDl have again closed over the chasm, not to be re- opened by me, nor perhaps by others, for ages yet un- guessed. Think of me sometimes, and with kindness. When I reach the life that lies beyond this speck in time, I shall look round for thee. Even there, the world con- signed to thyself and thy people may have rocks and gulfs which divide it from that in which I rejoin those of my race that have gone before, and 1 may be powerless to cleave way to regain thee as I have cloven way to lose." Her voice ceased. I heard the swan-like sough of her wings, and saw the rays of her starry diadem receding far and farther through the gloom. I sate myself down for some time, musing sorrowfully ; then I rose and took my way with slow footsteps towards the place in which I heard the sounds of men. The miners I encountered were strange to me, of another nation than my own. They turned to look kt me ^Itti some surprise, but finding that I could not answer their brief questions in their own language, they' returned to their work and suffered me to pass on unmolested. In fine, I regained the mouth of the mine, little troubled by other interrogatories; — save those of a friendly ofiicial to whom I was known, and luckily he was too busy to talk much with me. I took care not to. return to my former lodging, but hastened that very day to quit a neighbour- hood where I could not long have escaped inquiries to which I could have given no satisfactory answers. I re- gained in safety my own country, in which I hav) been ong peacefully settled, and engaged in practical bos^ess^ .y .^ "^, b- slumber, the , not to be re- ' ages yet un- ith kindness, ipeck in time, le world con- >cks and gulfs those of my powerless to way to lose." sough of her dem receding 5*5 C ^^7 THE COMING RACE. ; sorrowfully; [steps towards af men. The Q, of another >kiBtt me^th b answer their y' returned to molested. In le troubled by dly official to busy to talk to my former ; a neighbour- ed inquiries to iswers. I re- L I hav^ been stical btti^Qess» kV^ till I retired on a competent fortune, three years ago. I V have been little invited and little tempted to talk of the •/rovings and adventures of my youth. Somewhat disap- pointed, as most men are, in matters connected with house- hold love and domestic life, I often think of the young: Gy as I sit alone at night, and wonder how I could have rejected such a love, no matter what dangers attended it> or by what conditions it was restricted. Only, the more 1 think of a ( ;ople calmly developing, in regions excluded from our sight and deemed uninhabitable by our sages, powers surpassing our most disciplined modes of force, 4nd virtues to which our life, social and political, becomes tagonistic in proportion as our civilization advances, — e more devoutly I pray that ages may yet elapse before there emerge into sunlight our inevitable destroyers. Being, however, frankly told by my physician that I am afflicted by a complaint which, though it gives little pain and no perceptible notice of its encroachments, may at any moment be fatal, I have thought it my duty to my <^iow«>inen to place on record these fore warnings of The a^Race. ■ ^ i HVKTIR, Rosi & Co., Prihtirs, Torohto. \ .«• . ** ..... \ - ■-?* . • ) H rr, if ^7 J^ ■^ A DELIGHTFJ^L BOOK FOR SUMMER READHK I " Fu// of wity wisdom^ (^servation^ and uncommon (ommot sense. If you Aave a gardeny material or fnoral^ read this booki if you haven* tf read it by all means — // is the next best thing ttr having one'* , . I ■ I ■A- JUST PUBLISHED, 'M Price 2$ Cents, 94 pages, Paper Edition, My Summer in a Gardfn ; BY ■Si~. CHARLES DUDLEY WARNERy ;., With introductory letter from the Rev. Henry Ward^^Bjbei Reprinted from the Third American Edition. "We advise all who wish to read a thoroughly clmmung book to procure ' My Summer in a Garden.' There is a riph, . hearty, delicious laugh in store for them there in every pgle, :|^d who does hot prize a genuine, generous laugh mojfe ma ^il^hing else to be had in the world ? But, besides the "ideep humor that is so irresistibly provocative of laught< is throughout the book an abundance of delicate fancy,] tie shrewdness, and genial wisdom, and a frequent d< into the most interesting digressions, and the most moralizings." — Chicago Post. m^ ADAM, STEVENSON & CO, Publishers and Wholesale BooksilUrs. TORONTO. ■4lA> FoR Sale by all Booksellers Aiil» K^vs