After the letters of M. Baudois and Don Pedro had been read aloud to the Pr?tor’s family, the Dosch remarked that the Animalculan Mouthpats furnished confirmatory evidence of the provincialism of the Asiatic Heraclean emigrants, as they were undoubtedly parasitic companions of the involuntary voyage across the ocean. Their Scythio-Celtic jargonic idiom corresponds with the Latins’ incursive invasions into the Klappish and Celtic territories, while in habits and customs they show the marked impression of instinctive traits peculiar to the old Heracleans in their irruptive stages of progression. With the classical tendency of history to transmit evil, the Mouthpats have retained the traditional impressions of their ancestors’ instinctive association with the Gigas, in addition to those derived from direct inheritance in kind.
In compliance with Don Pedro’s request for Manatitlan aid and protection, the Dosch announced his intention of sending two giantescoes to act as auramental governantes for Lovieta and Lavoca, preparatory to their entrance into the Heraclean school, which were to be selected from the reserve maiden fund for the relief of widowers. In answer to Mr. Welson’s inquiry with regard to their age, the Dosch assured him that there was no need of anxiety on that score, for the funded maidens were not of the soured acrimonious kind represented as “old maids” by Giga bruits, whose passionate instincts of affection had been denied marriageable reciprocation, but of matured 278kindly dispositions to whom the controlling influence of animal passion was unknown. “Yet,” he continued, “they possess the common inheritance of womankind, which delights in making the tongue vocalize thoughtful inspirations of affection; but with our Manatitlan matrons and maidens its use for detraction is also unknown.”
Correliana’s usually quiet composure had shown evidences of happy transition to fluttering excitement, after an interview with the padre, which was heightened when the Dosch, after the preliminaries for Manatitlan correspondence with the family of Don Pedro had been arranged, asked her to show the material cause of her gratefully glad perturbation. Upon this hint she produced from her bosom the photographic likeness of Captain Greenwood. This he had presented to her on board of the Tortuga; but while engaged in packing, the day before their departure for Heraclea, it had mysteriously disappeared, and after thorough search it was supposed to be irretrievably lost. The wind was charged with its abstraction, and the waters of the river as its receiver, but Correliana was confident in the belief of their innocence from the absence of the first party, as the day was perfectly calm, and she recollected of placing it beneath a book when the Captain required the aid of her hands. The book, unfortunately, was the “Art of Confession Made Easy,” by Fray Manuel de Jaen; and belonged to Padre Simon, who in one of his “fits” of abstraction recovered it, and used the photograph as a mark, unobserved by Correliana; and as it contained his polemical stock of knowledge for quotation, he was guarded in withholding it from others, and immediately placed it in the transom locker of his stateroom, where it remained lost to his own memory until found by Antonio on the boat’s passage down the river. As the loss of the photograph had been the cause of continued anxiety to all, 279from the inconsolable regrets of the loser, the Captain determined to summons the padre to appear with the couriers at Amelcoy, to bear the treasure back to its owner, in penance for the sorrow he had caused by his heedlessness. Correliana’s conscious blush of happiness, as the semblance of her chosen was passed in review, imparted its impression to the invisible as well as the visible, for the Doschavita with her coterie of companions were anxious to judge of the selection made by their favorite.
The Dosch remarked that the odd fancy of the premeditated surroundings, was in kind characteristic of the jumble of gold, charity, and redeeming grace, as the barter conditions of salvation in the Giga mythology. Professional craftsmen, and mechanical members of societies and orders, parade their badges and insignia as the vain-glorious emblems of exclusive selfishness, while they preach a universal heaven free to all without distinction of persons. Your democratic orators, styled the “heaven born,” assume attitudes for portraiture suited to their special assumptions of vanity for self-inflation; but with the evident fear that the beholder’s perception will fail to engross the reflection of their eloquent ability, they hold in their hands appropriately labeled books or manuscripts. The doctor’s idiosyncratic pose is defiant, as if he recognized death in a successful rival. With his nose scornfully upturned he consults vacancy with his eyes, in search of prognostic symptoms for diagnostic antagonism; his left hand advanced, is raised aloft inclosing a vial wand labeled Nostratic Viaticum, while his right with feeling expression triumphantly grasps the skull of a patient who had tested the value of his prescriptive vise. The lawyer, brigand, and priest, assume attitudes as characteristically expressive of professional vanity. The vanity of the fashionable “lady,” with the mythological signification of intention, adverse to her impressions, 280rests with her hand, in studied negligence, placed upon a volume of popular sermons, allowing the gilt label, “Christian Virtues,” to appear with an array of ringed jewels upon her fingers.
Captain Greenwood in keeping with the advertising disposition of selfish vanity, in emblematic signification of vocation, but with a humorous variation, has perched himself upon a pile of bagged paddy (the Siamese apply the term paddy to everything unclean), while a companion with the evident design of expressing the gambling tendency of speculation, is engaged in dealing “hands” from a pack of cards. In the background of the photograph the religious view exposes a pagoda and mill for cleaning paddy. The face of the captain expresses an impression of saturnine and cynical appreciation of the rare combinations entering into the tout ensemble of the picture. His dress, of Siamese fashion, is also in alliance with the counterparts of the scene, and his cognomic designation of Truly Rural Greenwood. The portrait reveals, with all its incongruous constituents, the “sterling” qualities concealed beneath the acrid asperities of the outer husk. These were discovered by our waiftly Heraclean cousin; and her amused study of his germ, divested of the rough externals imposed by customary habits, attracted his attention to the cause, which led him to intrust the Kyronese to the care and direction of Mr. Dow, and the vessel to his subordinates, while he devoted himself to the removal of his civilized artificials, for the weft of his thoughts with the proffer of her own. His quick appreciation of her artless worth and purity directed his thoughts to self investigation, with a perceptible improvement in all that pertained to the ruling power of her influence. Notwithstanding the growing strength of the attraction was open for the observance of all, not a word of surprise was uttered, or a quizzical manifestation of instinct to insinuate motives 281other than those of the purest nature expressed in an alliance of the sexes. Even the “hands” and sailors’ tongues found no prompting encouragement for gossip, each rendering homage to her power with imposed reverence suited to their capabilities of perception, while in evidence of the controlling influence of her example, there was a marked change in their habits in all the essentials of purity.
Correliana submitted to the retrospective review of the Dosch, as a matter of fact relation, in freedom from other emotions than those of joyful gladness for the recovery of her treasure, and the appreciation bestowed by the Manatitlan matrons upon the wisdom of her choice. Then Mr. Dow smilingly offered the Dosch and Doschessa the privilege of reading the letter of his wife and children; but as it was one of reproof we will simply state, that in writing home he had been so much absorbed in the prospective grandeur of his elevation as the precentor of the discovery, that the remarkable traits of the Heracleans and Manatitlans had scarcely been noticed, but in a sufficient degree for the excitement of intense curiosity. This unpardonable oversight had caused, in the place of congratulations, a letter filled to overflowing with catechistic questions relating to the habits and customs of the Animalculans, to the entire exclusion of a remark touching his agency in the discovery, inasmuch as it would contribute to his personal fame. The reflex action of Mr. Dow’s omission greatly amused the Dosch and his wife. After the mirth had subsided, occasioned by the reading of Mr. Dow’s family letter, which left him as void of home information as he had left them in his letter communication with regard to the habits and customs of the Manatitlans, M. Hollydorf proposed to read aloud the reply of the R. H. B. Society to his letter.