M. Hollydorf after morning salutation mustered his assistants for the inauguration of the legitimate duties entailed by his commission; as he had become fully impressed with the necessity of “working up” a sufficient number of experimental proofs for the basis of a preliminary despatch of intention. Selecting a retired portion of the latifundium for his field of operations they commenced their labors in good earnest. Of all the civilized nations of the world, we can claim for the Germans a just pre?minence in those departments of science devoted to the investigations of the habits and associations of insect life. In truth, the enthusiasm shown for insect explorations has extended itself to every department of their national existence; from the palace to the cabin particular attention is devoted to hunting, impaling, and preserving their cadavers, arranged in order, genera, and species, in mausoleum cabinets for mummified exhibition as shrines for the enraptured gaze of Teutonic devotees. Even the medi?val Gael of the Scottish Highlands never possessed, in living endowment, an attritive iota of the associate luxurious zest imparted from their joint stock investments, or the Egyptian, of yore, in his necropolitan collections, a source of such vain-glorious gratification.
M. Hollydorf’s first day’s investigations were rewarded with the discovery of old species, familiar to his eye, under new and strange combinations, affording conclusive evidence of exotic transfusion in propagation 117at some remote period. In semi-meditation, with a disinclination for food and midday rest, he continued his preparatory investigations while his assistants refreshed themselves with their accustomed rations and siesta. Availing themselves of his invitation and leisure, the pr?tor, Correliana, Mr. Welson, and Dow made their appearance. Apologizing for interrupting his studies, Correliana requested the privilege of subjecting a flower from her garden to the magnifying power of the tympano-microscope? Assuring him, with its presentation, that she felt certain, from its extreme beauty and purity of fragrance, that it would attract a high order of animalculan existence capable of appreciating its rare combinations. After a close examination with his unaided eyes, he declared it to be of an unknown species and as peculiar in its rare beauty, novelty of its perfume, and delicate pungency of its impression, as the Heraclean representatives of woman kind were superior and distinct from their civilized genera in the purity of their habits and customs. With this combined pronunciamento of comparison as a vent to his enthusiastic admiration, he placed the flower in the field receptacle of the tympano-microscope for focal magnifying reflection of its parasitic habituary residents, for inspection and classification in substance and sound. With an exclamation of surprise, compounded of fear and amazement, he started back from the instrument exposing to view the petals and pistils peopled with a multitude of diminutive human beings, who were convulsed with sneezing spasms of laughter, which they tried in vain to suppress with expedients in common use by our kind. The tympanum in sound articulation reverberated their tiny cachinnations and sternutatory explosions with such comical effect, that the pr?tor and Correliana were compelled, notwithstanding all their efforts to avoid the impulsive sympathy of contagion, to join issue with this mirthful introduction 118of our savans to a kindred animalculan representation of our race. While equally subject to the uncontrollable spasms of mirthful laughter and dumb amazement, the spectators to this scene of apparent conjurement were held speechless.
The leader of the diminutive apparitions at length leaped lightly, as if propelled by a sneeze, upon the stage within the reflecting compass of the tympano-microscope. Then, after a few ineffectual attempts to regain his composure, he finally succeeded in obtaining sufficient control to offer the following apologetic address, which gradually recalled us to our senses; but not in sufficient degree for a realization of their actual existence as human beings, free from the magic attaint of fears conjured from superstitious instinct. He thrice repeated to attract our attention from the stupor of amazement: “Men of science, and deliverers of the Heracleans, our protogean affinities!” Our partial attention secured, he continued. “If through the disability of our Dosch, or chief advisor, our selection as Manatitlan ambassadors to welcome you, in our people’s behalf as the preservers of our co-affinities in affection, should prove a source of discredit from our undignified appearance on presentment, it would prove a source of lasting sorrow. But we feel certain that you will extend to us the favor of believing that we are not inclined to untimely mirth, notwithstanding the example we have given to the contrary. With the concerted desire to impress you at a suitable moment with the reality of our existence as a race, Mistress Correliana probably forgot the keen sensitiveness of our schneiderian membranes to pungent odors, and with the intention of giving as much eclat as possible to our introduction, selected from her garden the most beautiful and fragrant flower of its parterres. The novelty of our emprise withheld our attention from the flower until it was placed in your hand for examination, then too late 119to effect an exchange, we braced ourselves to resist its effects. Hence our humiliating condition when exposed to your view and hearing! Thrown off our guard by the transformation effected in our size and sound of our voices, and above all by the consternation manifested in the expression of your faces, we could not resist the impulse of our naturally mirthful dispositions. That the infection should reach and overpower the more staid humor of our cousins, you will not wonder, when you recall your own and our disordered extremes. If you will control your perturbed emotions for a moment’s reflection you will be able to realize the irresistible nature of our impressions under these combined effects. Withal, when our existence and presence in auramentation becomes familiar as a recognized reality, you will find in our joyous dispositions a ready explanation for these ante phases of our first personal introduction.”
Upon this hint, Correliana conquered sufficient composure to introduce the speaker as Manito, the Pr?tor of Manicul?, the chief city of Manatitla. Then with the accompaniment of a spasmodic inclination to sneeze, as they leaned over the serrated edges of the petals, the tribunes were introduced individually by name. This process was lengthened by occasional suppressed tendencies to mirthful outbreaks, which gave M. Hollydorf and his companions an opportunity for partial recovery from their dazed state of amazement. When sufficiently restored for intelligent comprehension, the flower was changed for one of less pungent odor, and Manito from the rostrum point of a petal continued his address.
“From our diminutive size we willingly subscribe to the designation your nomenclature bestows upon insect animalities which are but partially visible to your unaided eyes. Still we do not disdain our size, for with the Manatitlans it has received the compensating privilege of a perception that enabled them to 120distinguish the evident object of mankind’s intelligent endowment above the instincts of associate animality.
“Like individuals of your race, ours vary in size. Some among the Manatitlans have reached in stature a height approximating in a remote degree to your well formed dwarfs of a standard monstrosity in the diminutive extreme sufficient for the excitement of wondering surprise. Our own divisions are expressed in terms rating from the smallest in stature, which are called tits; these form the masses, but with a sensible diminution in numbers from an upward tendency to the second degree of elevation from the majority. The middle class are styled mediums. With every generation this grade has been increased in proportion with the decrease of the tits, and ranks in status with your “well to do” money grade of merchants and speculators. The giantesco enjoys the highest statutory standing in the ranks of size, representing your titled duke commanders, and subalterns of lordly and knightly degree. But these distinctions are only perceptible to the eye, and in no way arbitrary in the assumption of prerogative stature rights above those below. As our scholastic term of education commences with the infant at the age of two years: the first stage that directs and controls the infantile perceptions and cravings of instinct is styled pupillage, and is under the supervision of the censor and nurse, who hold the instinctive exaggerations of parental fondness in check from birth. This habilitative stage of matriculation is the most trying for direction, as upon it depends the matriculant’s after power of self-control. The second stage of nonage commences at seven, when the self-devising perceptions begin to expand into individuality, that require educated direction, and leading encouragement. At fourteen, or the pubertal stage, the first indications appear for the premonitory inauguration of status rank established for the distinctions of size. 121The initiatory discipline of the scholar entering upon his senior term, induces the tractor disposition of the censorial advisor, in association with his juniors; in place of your form system of “bullying” the nether “fag,” whose weakness makes submission a virtue, when subject to the classical distinctions of arbitrary power. The seniors become assistant tutors to the censors and teachers from the age of fourteen until the close of their twenty-third year, when they graduate; and after a probationary term of three months’ “courtship,” with the connubial censors’ selection of affiances, are married. This cursory glance will serve for an introductory insight into our natural system of education designed for the direction of our immortal endowment in perceptive flight above the body’s ephemeral gratification of instinctive desire.
“Of other matters, pertaining to our actual realization of an enduring happiness, you will be advised by our advisors; as our interview was designed solely for your recognition and realization of our existence as a race in diminuendo alliance with your own. Our associations with your race are of a privileged description, which from the concentrated acuteness of our sensitive perceptions, enables us to divine your thoughts by auramental espionage. If you will give a moment’s investigation to the impressions of thought, when free from the turmoil of suspicious doubts, which now assail and render your efforts for reasonable perception void, you will find that they are all distinctly enunciated in the thalmus auditorium, which is the focal centre for maturing sensorial observations. Our size, and practical knowledge of the sensitive departments of your ears, enables our giantescoes to gain the aural sinus without provoking titillation, and its proximity to the vibrating portal, or vellum auditorium, permits our sensitive perceptions of sound to realize your thought articulations 122before they are matured for retentive comparison, or the vocalized utterances of speech communication. So that in reality, we hold the gigas (the name word we use for the designation of your race in contradistinction to our own) subject to our direction, when free from the ruling habits of instinctive indulgence, which defy control. As the previous knowledge of our advisers has preferred you to their confidence, I will state that our means of direction are through thought substitution, which the giantesco is able to modulate with ventriloquial variations of voice for the receptive nullification of those derived from their own sensoriums. Of course, the effects vary with the intensity of the subject’s command over his own sensorium, and the absorbing influence of educated impressions imparted from habits and customs. As an example, I will now state that M. Hollydorf, in his turmoil of doubts, feels that Mistress Correliana has in some way imposed upon his confidence; but my informer says that his impressions are in no wise capable of assuming the power of self control, so that upon our own responsibility we will exonerate Correliana from all deceptive intentions; as she was subject to our control in withholding from you a knowledge of our presence, as the mysterious source of her guiding premonitions, and means of obtaining information of human affairs in the world beyond the inclosing walls of their isolated city. Now, in turn, we ask you to withhold from your companions the result of your day’s explorations, that you may observe the influence we are able to exert for their mystification, and the development of the intangible resources of instinct, which subserve for the delusive beguilement of reason from the intelligent direction of creative indications. This much, will prove sufficient for your night’s cogitations, but to-morrow the Dosch and his advisors will instruct you in the weightier matters pertaining to our educating system devised for self control. As 123you are still hovering in the clouds of doubt, we will regale your senses, for composure, with a musical olio. M. Hollydorf, at the period of our first introduction, was considered an excellent judge of music, and at times amused himself with amateur compositions, one of which pleased me, and on my return to Manatitla I presented it to our musical censor, who adopted and incorporated it with our salutations. We will now render it, that you may pass censure or commendation upon the accuracy of our version; for of all the selfish kleptomanias, that of stealing musical compositions, and mutilating them in transposition for an author’s reputation founded upon a lie, is the most contemptible within the range of barren instinct. Fortunately, only the younger branches of the Mouthpat tribes of our species have ever been guilty of a witless invention base enough to seek gratification from so mean a subterfuge.”
With this apologetic prelude Manito marshaled his choristers along the borders of the dependent curves of the petals facing his bewildered auditors and rendered the following stanzas with an effect that revived them from their superstitious fears:—
“From darkness dread, the dawn appears!
Mother of day, whose dewy tears,
Distilled from the labors of the night,
Greet with joy, the sun birth of light.
“Hail, glorious mother of morn!
Beautiful type of woman’s form,
When hallowed from instinctive night,
She hails, at birth, a son of light.”
M. Hollydorf recalling the occasion and source of inspiration, glanced at Correliana with a furtive look of anguish. For the prompting source of the stanzas, was a longing desire that woman’s beauty should be adorned with more lasting “graces” than those bestowed by the fashionable dressmaker, dancing master, and boarding-school mistress, in hopeful premonition 124of an immortality with joys exceeding the gossiping allurements of a heaven of sense. The look of sympathy he received in return banished from his thoughts doubts, and suspicions of supernatural agency. Manito, observing the confidence expressed in his glance, and the more ready belief of Mr. Welson and Dow, that the Manatitlans in reality represented a diminutive department of human mortality, said, that as his mission for the day had been fulfilled in degree beyond expectation, they would not prejudice their success by prolonging the interview, but would leave them with a new zest for the transmission of one of their best melodies. He then rearranged his choristers and rendered “Home, sweet home,” with an effect that caused them to join in thought sympathy with the affectionate harmony of Manatitlan expression. At the close the pr?tor and tribunes of Manicul? bid their first giga audience good-by, and disappeared from view. Correliana then signaled the stoop of her favorite falcon Merlin from his circling wafts above the latifundium; after a short perch of a few moments upon her wrist, he was despatched, as she announced, to Manicul?, bearing back the pr?tor, Manito, and tribunes.
Mr. Welson was the first to break silence after their departure, with a long drawn,—“Whew,” as a prelude to the exclamation, “Ah, ha! mistress Correliana, we have the secret now to all your mysterious enactments, which inclined those the least superstitiously prejudiced to credit you with an inheritance tinctured with the pretensions of your sibylline ancestry. But our wondering amazement is scarcely less than it would have been under the superstitious impression that you really possessed the power invoked by the ancient sibyl. Still the manifestation of a visible source, however small, is far more agreeable to our perceptions.”
Correliana answered, with a pleading smile, “You 125will surely forgive, and pardon me for retaining a secret of such importance, in the face of all your kind and confiding acts, now that you have learned that I received it in trust from a source so well qualified with the essentials of prudent direction? The Dosch, however, will more fully state the many causes that rendered its retention desirable. But of this you can rest assured, the Manatitlans are bona fide representatives of animalculan humanity; and when I state that we are solely indebted to them for our redemption from the bondage of instinct, you will understand the nature of our trust in their direction.”
Beckoning the stoop of a falcon, it alighted upon her wrist. She then exposed, beneath what they had supposed to be an ornamental attachment of designation, a howdah. Then taking from her pocket pouch a reel of filmy thread,—attenuated to a degree that rendered it almost imperceptible to the eye, she wound the free end around Mr. Welson’s finger, then asked him to try its strength. With his utmost exertion, tried with many devices for its separation, the thread remained unparted. She then explained that the materials, from which, in perfect combination, it was drawn, were mineralized with flexile and vis inertia substances in adaptation for a great variety of purposes, subserving for the protective furtherance of health, comfort, and personal purity. Also for protective defense, “as it is impenetrable to the swiftest fledged missiles when wrought into textile fabrics.” But its most esteemed peculiarities are repulsive resistance to uncleanly cohesion, combined with a nonconducting neutrality in the transmission of cold and heat, causing the refuse excretions of the body to evaporate without obstructing the rejecting orifices of the ducts, when used in its adaptation for raiment. In part, we have been able to imitate this valuable acquisition for the protective preservation of our persons from decomposing agencies, which are constantly 126in a fermentable and putrefactive state of conceptive action for the production of renewed vitality varied in degenerative series. But of these matters the Manatitlans will advise you in due time. In your present state of perturbation it will but little avail to extend our conversation into details that require for a complete understanding consecutive exposition.
After Correliana and her father had taken their leave of the four favored witnesses of the new grade revelation in the status of humanity, they remained standing in the same position, absorbed with contending emotions of doubt and belief, until aroused by the approach of Dr. Baāhar and the padre. Then, with a forced recovery, M. Hollydorf announced his intention of discontinuing his explorations for the time being; which afforded his assistants a desired relief, for with their few hours’ occupation they had discovered in themselves an unwonted dislike for the professional details of their occupation. While on their way to deposit the tympano-microscope in the house designated by Correliana as the one intended for the reception of the Dosch, the four maintained their thoughtful silence until after they had bestowed upon the instrument of revelation a careful disposal. Then M. Hollydorf sententiously remarked, “Although still perplexed, I am confident in the full integrity of Correliana’s assurance that these Manatitlans are bona fide embodiments of humanity, with intelligent capabilities superior to our own! But it is hard to reconcile them with any of the preconceived ideas of our race. They certainly advocate, with practical demonstration, a more direct and reasonable way for the attainment of present and prospective happiness, than that of redemption from sin by saving grace?”
“By all that there is in us, capable of assuming the control of judgment, we cannot avoid their own, Miss Correliana’s, and the confirmation of our own 127senses in attestation of the fact of their real presence,” added Mr. Welson.
“For my own part,” said Mr. Dow, “there is to me nothing more strange in their discovery, than in that of the Heracleans, now that we have recovered, in a measure, from the first startling effects. It has occurred to me frequently, of late, that there must have been some interior creative object in the gradations of instinct, and ultimate alliance of superhuman intelligence with the highest grade? It is certainly impossible for me to reason myself into the belief that we have been endowed with a perception of goodness, and the necessity of purity for its attainment, to have them dispensed with in life for the substitution of the instinctive greed of selfishness, with the accommodating proviso of repurification by an act of saving grace! Neither can we disguise the fact, that we now think and act quite unlike our former selves, with a sensible improvement in happiness, in freedom from the selfish accessories we formerly thought necessary for its assurance.”
At this point they were interrupted by the entrance of the pr?tor with his wife and daughter, who came to inquire if M. Hollydorf wished to suggest any change for the better accommodation of his instrument with regard to light? In the expression of his satisfaction, M. Hollydorf alluded not only to the wonderful preservation of the buildings, but furniture, which appeared, in style, to have been coeval in manufacture with the remnants seen in old Heraclea. In explanation the pr?tor said that it was much easier to preserve from decay than to restore ruins. But the means of preservation had been bestowed by Giganteo XVI., Dosch of the Manatitlans, as a legacy to the sons of Indegatus, associate pr?tors of Heraclea, who were the first of our race that became personally acquainted with animalculan humanity. “You will find all of the unoccupied houses of 128the city in like good condition with this, and equally free for your inspection and occupation.”
As the occasion was opportune, M. Hollydorf consulted with those present how he might prepare a statement of the day’s developments sufficiently credible for the acceptable belief of the Home Society? The pr?tor advised him to defer his cause of perplexity to the Dosch, who would resolve it readily, from a personal knowledge of the characteristic peculiarities of the members of the R. H. B. Society. Then Mr. Dow preferred his petition for their united aid in the advancement of his historical compendium of the Heracleans. This all were pleased to accord, as it was through his indomitable perseverance that the discovery was accomplished, before the City of the Falls had been reduced to the tenantless condition of its senior counterpart. As he was referred to me for special aid in compilation, from his lack of knowledge in the constructive use of the Heraclean idiom,—which was to us personally a source of mutual regret,—it will be well to state in anticipation of a similarity in diction of our separate labors, that I have been in no way beholden to him for the style I have adopted in recording the historiographical account of the corps investigations. I trust that this egoistic explanation will prove sufficient in efficacy to redeem me from plagiaristic odium?