CHAPTER X.
When a question as to the existence of social distinctions would beasked the citizens of Mizora, the invariable answer would be--there werenone; yet a long and intimate acquaintance with them assured me thatthere were. They had an aristocracy; but of so peculiar and amiable akind that it deserves a special mention. It took a long time for me tocomprehend the exact condition of their society in this respect. Thatthere were really no dividing lines between the person who superintendedthe kitchen and the one who paid her for it, in a social point of view,I could plainly see; yet there were distinctions; and rather sharplydefined ones too.
In order to explain more lucidly the peculiar social life of Mizora, Iwill ask you to remember some Charity Fair you have attended, perhapsparticipated in, and which had been gotten up and managed by women ofthe highest social rank. If in a country where titles and socialpositions were hereditary, it then represented the highest aristocracyof blood. Grand dames there departed from the routine of their dailylives and assumed the lowlier occupations of others. They stood behindcounters, in booths, and sold fancy articles, or dispensed ices andlemonade, or waited upon customers at the refreshment tables; bringingin trays of eatables, gathering up and removing empty dishes; performinglabor that, under the ordinary circumstances of life, they would notperform in their own homes, and for their own kindred. It was all donewith the same conscious dignity and ease that characterized thestatelier duties of their every day life. One fact was apparent to all:they were gentlewomen still. The refinement of their home education, andthe charm of nourished beauty were, perhaps, more prominent in contrastwith their assumed avocation.
The Charity Fair, with its clerks and waiter girls and flower sellerscalled from the highest society, was a miniature picture of the actualevery-day social life of Mizora. The one who ordered a dinner at theirfinest hotel, had it served to her by one who occupied the same socialstanding. Yet there _was_ a difference; but it was the difference ofmind.
The student in Sociology discovers that in all grades of society,congenial natures gravitate to a center. A differentiation of thehighest mental quality was the result of this law in Mizora, and itsco-ordinate part, their aristocracy.
The social organism did not need legislation to increase its benefits;it turned to Science, and, through Science, to Nature. The Laboratory ofthe Chemist was the focus that drew the attention of all minds. Mizoramight be called a great school of Nature, whose pupils studied her everyphase, and pried into her secrets with persistent activity, and obeyedher instructions as an imperative duty. They observed Nature to be aneconomist, and practiced economy with scrupulous exactness.
They had observed that in all grades of animal life, from the lowestform to the highest, wherever sociality had produced unity a leader wasevolved, a superiority that differed in power according to the grade ofdevelopment. In the earlier histories, the leaders were chosen for theirprowess in arms. Great warriors became rulers, and soldiers were thearistocracy of the land. As civilization progressed and learning becamemore widely disseminated, the military retired before the moreintellectual aristocracy of statemanship. Politics was the grandentrance to social eminence.
"But," said my friend, "_we_ have arrived at a higher, nobler, granderage. The military and political supremacies lived out their usefulnessand decayed. A new era arrived. The differentia of mind evolved anaristocracy."
Science has long been recognized as the greatest benefactor of our race.Its investigators and teachers are our only acknowledged superiors andleaders.
Generally the grandest intellects and those which retain their creativepower the longest, are of exceptionally slow development. Precocity isshort lived, and brilliant rather than strong. This I knew to be true ofmy own race.
In Mizora, a mind that developed late lost none of the opportunitiesthat belong exclusively to the young of my own and other countries ofthe outer world. Their free schools and colleges were always open:always free. For this reason, it was no unusual thing for a person inMizora to begin life at the very lowest grade and rise to its supremeheight. Whenever the desire awakened, there was a helping hand extendedon every side.
The distinction between the aristocracy and the lower class, or thegreat intellects and the less, was similar to the relative positions ofteacher and pupil. I recognized in this social condition the great mediaof their marvelous approach to perfection. This aristocracy was neverarrogant, never supercilious, never aggressive. It was what thephilosophers of our world are: tolerant, humane, sublime.
In all communities of civilized nations marked musical talent will formsocial relations distinct from, but not superior to, other socialrelations. The leader of a musical club might also be the leader ofanother club devoted to exclusive literary pursuits; and both clubspossess equal social respect. Those who possess musical predilections,seek musical associations; those who are purely literary, seek theircongenials. This is true of all other mental endowments or tastes; thatwhich predominates will seek its affinity; be it in science, literature,politics, music, painting, or sculpture. Social organizations naturallygrow out of other business pursuits and vocations of all grades andkinds. The society of Mizora was divided only by such distinctions. Thescientific mind had precedence of all others. In the social world, theyfound more congenial pleasure in one another, and they mingled morefrequently among themselves. Other professions and vocations followedtheir example for the same reason. Yet neither was barred by socialcaste from seeking society where she would. If the artisan sought socialintercourse with a philosopher, she was expected to have preparedherself by mental training to be congenial. When a citizen of Mizorabecame ambitious to rise, she did not have to struggle with everyspecies of opposition, and contend against rebuff and repulse. Correctlanguage, refined tastes, dignified and graceful manners were the commonacquirements of all. Mental culture of so high an order--I marveled thata lifetime should be long enough to acquire it in--was universal.
Under such conditions social barriers could not be impregnable. In aworld divided by poverty and opulence into all their intermediategrades, wealth must inevitably be pre-eminent. It represents refined andluxurious environments, and, if mind be there, intellectual pre-eminencealso. Where wealth alone governs society it has its prerogatives.
The wealth that affords the most luxurious entertainments must be thewealth that rules. Its privilege--its duty rather--is to ignore allapplicants to fraternization that cannot return what it receives. Wheremind is the sole aristocracy it makes demands as rigid, thoughdifferent, and mind was the aristocracy of Mizora. With them educationis never at an end. I spoke of having graduated at a renowned school foryoung ladies, and when I explained that to graduate meant to finishone's education, it elicited a peal of silvery mirth.
"_We_ never graduate," said Wauna. "There is my mamma's mother, twocenturies old, and still studying. I paid her a visit the other day andshe took me into her laboratory. She is a manufacturer of lenses, andhas been experimenting on microscopes. She has one now that possesses atruly wonderful power. The leaf of a pear tree, that she had allowed tobecome mouldy, was under the lens, and she told me to look.
"A panorama of life and activity spread out before me in such magnitudethat I can only compare it to the feeling one must possess who could besuspended in air and look down upon our world for a cycle of time.
"Immense plains were visible with animals grazing upon them, that foughtwith and devoured one another. They perished and sank away and immenseforests sprang up like magic. They were inhabited by insects and tinycreatures resembling birds. A sigh of air moved the leaf and a tiny dropof water, scarcely discernible to the naked eye rolled over the forestsand plains, and before it passed to the other side of the leaf a greatlake covered the spot. My great-great-grandmother has an acute conductorof sound that she has invented, so exquisite in mechanism as to revealthe voice of the tiniest insect. She put it to my ear, and the bellowingof the animals in battle, the chirp of the insects and the voices of thefeathered
mites could be clearly heard, but attenuated like the delicatenote of two threads of spun glass clashed together."
"And what good," I asked, "can all this knowledge do you? Yourgreat-great-grandmother has condensed the learning of two centuries toevolve this one discovery. Is it not so?"
"Yes," replied Wauna, and her look and tone were both solemn. "You askme what good it can do? Reflect! If the history of a single leaf is sovast and yet ephemeral, what may not be the history of a single world?What, after all, are we when such an infinitesimal space can containsuch wonderful transactions in a second of time."
I shuddered at the thought she raised in my mind. But inherited beliefsare not easily dissipated, so I only sought to change the subject.
"But what is the use of studying _all_ the time. There should be someperiod in your lives when you should be permitted to rest from yourlabors. It is truly irksome to me to see everybody still eager to learnmore. The artist of the kitchen was up to the National College yesterdayattending a lecture on chemistry. The artist who arranges my rooms is upthere to-day listening to one on air. I can not understand why, havinglearned to make beds and cook to perfection, they should not be contentwith their knowledge and their work."
"If you were one of us you would know," said Wauna. "It is a duty withus to constantly seek improvement. The culinary artist at the housewhere you are visiting, is a very fine chemist. She has a predilectionfor analyzing the construction of food. She may some day discover how_to_ produce vegetables from the elements.
"The artist who arranges your room is attending a lecture on air becauseher vocation calls for an accurate knowledge of it. She attends to theatmosphere in the whole house, and sees that it is in perfect healthsustaining condition. Your hostess has a particular fondness for flowersand decorates all her rooms with them. All plants are not harmlessoccupants of livingrooms. Some give forth exhalations that are reallynoxious. That artist has so accurate a knowledge of air that she cankeep the atmosphere of your home in a condition of perfect purity; yetshe knows that her education is not finished. She is constantly studyingand advancing. The time may come when she, too, will add a granddiscovery to science.
"Had my ancestors thought as you do, and rested on an inferioreducation, I should not represent the advanced stage of development thatI do. As it is, when my mind reaches the age of my mother's, it willhave a larger comprehensiveness than hers. She already discerns it. Mychildren will have intellects of a finer grade than mine. This is oursystem of mind culture. The intellect is of slower development than thebody, and takes longer to decay. The gradations of advancement from oneintellectual basis to another, in a social body, requires centuries tomark a distinct change in the earlier ages of civilization, but we havenow arrived at a stage when advancement is clearly perceptible betweenone generation and the next."
Wauna's mother added:
"Universal education is the great destroyer of castes. It is theconqueror of poverty and the foundation of patriotism. It purifies andstrengthens national, as well as individual character. In the earlierhistory of our race, there were social conditions that rendered manylives wretched, and that the law would not and, in the then state ofcivilization, could not reach. They were termed "domestic miseries," anddisappeared only under the influence of our higher intellectualdevelopment. The nation that is wise will educate its children."
"Alas! alas!" was my own silent thought. "When will my country rise toso grand an idea. When will wealth open the doors of colleges,academies, and schools, and make the Fountain of Knowledge as free asthe God-given water we drink."
And there rose a vision in my mind--one of those day dreams when fancyupon the wing takes some definite course--and I saw in my own land aTemple of Learning rise, grand in proportion, complete in detail, with abroad gateway, over whose wide-open majestic portal was the significantinscription: "ENTER WHO WILL: NO WARDER STANDS WATCH AT THE GATE."