 | CHAPTER XIV. The monikins |  |
14. CHAPTER XIV.
Some explanations—A human appetite—A dinner, and a
bonne bouche.
The Brigadier and myself remained behind to
discuss the general bearings of this unexpected
event.
“Your rigid demand for motives, my good sir,”
I remarked, “reduces the Leaplow political morality
very much, after all, to the level of the social-stake
system of our part of the world.”
“They both depend on the crutch of personal
the difference of the interests of a part and of the
interests of the whole.”
“And could a part act less commendably than
the whole appear to have acted in this instance?”
“You forget that Leaplow, just at this moment,
is under a moral eclipse. I shall not say that these
eclipses do not occur often, but they occur quite as
frequently in other parts of the region, as they occur
here. We have three great modes of controlling
monikin affairs, viz. the one, the few, and the
many—”
“Precisely the same classification exists among
men!” I interrupted.
“Some of our improvements are reflected backwards;
twilight following as well as preceding the
passage of the sun,” quite coolly returned the Brigadier.
“We think that the many come nearest to
balancing the evil, although we are far from believing
even them to be immaculate. Admitting
that the tendencies to wrong are equal in the three
systems, (which we do not, however, for we think
our own has the least,) it is contended that the
many escape one great source of oppression and
injustice, by escaping the onerous provisions which
physical weakness is compelled to make, in order
to protect itself against physical strength.”
“This is reversing a very prevalent opinion
among men, sir, who usually maintain that the
tyranny of the many is the worst sort of all tyrannies.”
“This opinion has got abroad simply because the
lion has not been permitted to draw his own picture.
As cruelty is commonly the concomitant of cowardice,
so is oppression nine times out of ten the result
of weakness. It is natural for the few to dread the
many, while it is not natural for the many to dread
many rule, certain great principles that are founded
on natural justice, as a matter of course, are openly
recognized; and it is rare, indeed, that they do not,
more or less, influence the public acts. On the other
hand, the control of a few requires that these same
truths should be either mistified or entirely smothered;
and the consequence is injustice.”
“But, admitting all your maxims, Brigadier, as
regards the few and the many, you must yourself
allow that here, in your beloved Leaplow itself,
monikins consult their own interests; and this, after
all, is acting on the fundamental principle of the
great European social-stake system.”
“Meaning that the goods of the world ought to
be the test of political power. By the sad confusion
which exists among us, at this moment, Sir John,
you must perceive that we are not exactly under
the most salutary of all possible influences. I take
it that the great desideratum of society is to be
governed by certain great moral truths. The inferences
and corollaries of these truths are principles,
which come of heaven. Now, agreeably to the
monikin dogmas, the love of money is `of the earth,
earthy;' and, at the first blush, it would not seem
to be quite safe to receive such an inducement as
the governing motive of one monikin, and, by a
pretty fair induction, it would seem to be equally
unwise to admit it for a good many. You will
remember, also, that when none but the rich have
authority, they control not only their own property,
but that of others who have less. Your principle
supposes, that in taking care of his own, the elector
of wealth must take care of what belongs to the
rest of the community; but our experience shows
that a monikin can be particularly careful of himself,
and singularly negligent of his neighbor. Therefore
power.”
“You unsettle everything, Brigadier, without
finding a substitute.”
“Simply because it is easy to unsettle everything,
and very difficult to find substitutes. But, as respects
the base of society, I merely doubt the wisdom
of setting up a qualification that we all know depends
on an unsound principle. I much fear, Sir John,
that, so long as monikins are monikins, we shall
never be quite perfect; and as to your social-stake
system, I am of opinion that as society is composed
of all, it may be well to hear what all have to say
about its management.”
“Many men, and, I dare say, many monikins,
are not to be trusted even with the management of
their own concerns.”
“Very true; but it does not follow that other
men, or other monikins, will lose sight of their own
interests on this account, if vested with the right
to act as their substitutes. You have been long
enough a legislator, now, to have got some idea
how difficult it is to make even a direct and responsible
representative respect entirely the interests and
wishes of his constituents; and the fact will show
you how little he will be likely to think of others,
who believes that he acts as their master and not
as their servant.”
“The amount of all this, Brigadier, is that you
have little faith in monikin disinterestedness, in any
shape; that you believe he who is intrusted with
power will abuse it; and therefore you choose to
divide the trust, in order to divide the abuses; that
the love of money is an `earthy' quality, and not to
be confided in as the controlling power of a state;
and, finally, that the social-stake system is radically
out a principle that is in itself defective?”
My companion gaped, like one content to leave
the matter there. I wished him a good morning,
and walked up stairs in quest of Noah, whose carnivorous
looks had given me considerable uneasiness.
The Captain was out; and, after searching
for him in the streets, for an hour or two, I returned
to our abode fatigued and hungry.
At no great distance from our own door, I met
Judge People's Friend, shorn and dejected, and I
stopped to say a kind word, before going up the
ladder. It was quite impossible to see a gentleman,
whom one had met in good society and in better
fortunes, with every hair shaved from his body, his
apology for a tail still sore from its recent amputation,
and his entire mien expressive of republican
humility, without a desire to condole with him. I
expressed my regrets, therefore, as succinctly as
possible, encouraging him with the hope of seeing
a new covering of down before long, but delicately
abstaining from any allusion to the cauda, whose
loss I knew was irretrievable. To my great surprise,
however, the Judge answered cheerfully; discarding,
for the moment, every appearance of self-abasement
and mortification.
“How is this?” I cried; “you are not then miserable!”
“Very far from it, Sir John—I never was in
better spirits, or had better prospects, in my life.”
I remembered the extraordinary manner in which
the Brigadier had saved Noah's head, and was fully
resolved not to be astonished at any manifestation
of monikin ingenuity. Still I could not forbear demanding
an explanation.
“Why, it may seem odd to you, Sir John, to find
a politician, who is apparently in the depths of despair,
Such, however, is in fact my case. In Leaplow,
humility is everything. The monikin who will take
care and repeat sufficiently often that he is just
the poorest devil going, that he is absolutely unfit
for even the meanest employment in the land, and
in other respects ought to be hooted out of society,
may very safely consider himself in a fair way to
be elevated to some of the dignities he declares
himself the least fitted to fill.”
“In such a case, all he will have to do, then,
will be to make his choice, and denounce himself
loudest touching his especial disqualifications for that
very station?”
“You are apt, Sir John, and would succeed, if
you would only consent to remain among us!” said
the Judge, winking.
“I begin to see into your management—after
all, you are neither miserable nor ashamed?”
“Not the least in the world. It is of more importance
for monikins of my calibre to seem to be
anything than to be it. My fellow-citizens are
usually satisfied with this sacrifice; and, now Principle
is eclipsed, nothing is easier.”
“But how happens it, Judge, that one of your
surprising dexterity and agility should be caught
tripping? I had thought you particularly expert,
and infallible in all the gyrations. Perhaps the
little affair of the cauda has leaked out?”
The Judge laughed in my face.
“I see you know little of us, after all, Sir John.
Here have we proscribed cauda, as anti-republican,
both public opinions setting their faces against them;
and yet a monikin may wear one abroad a mile
long with impunity, if he will just submit to a new
dock when he comes home, and swear that he is
in a favorable word, too, touching the Leaplow
cats and dogs—Lord bless you, sir! they would
pardon treason!”
“I begin to comprehend your policy, Judge, if
not your polity. Leaplow being a popular government,
it becomes necessary that its public agents
should be popular too. Now, as monikins naturally
delight in their own excellencies, nothing so disposes
them to give credit to another, as his professions
that he is worse than themselves.”
The Judge nodded and grinned.
“But another word, dear sir—as you feel yourself
constrained to commend the cats and dogs of
Leaplow, do you belong to that school of philocats,
who take their revenge for their amenity to the
quadrupeds, by berating their fellow-creatures?”
The Judge started, and glanced about him as if
he dreaded a thief-taker. Then earnestly imploring
me to respect his situation, he added in a whisper,
that the subject of the people was sacred with him,
that he rarely spoke of them without a reverence,
and that his favorable sentiments in relation to the
cats and dogs were not dependent on any particular
merits of the animals themselves, but merely
because they were the people's cats and dogs.
Fearful that I might say something still more disagreeable,
the Judge hastened to take his leave, and
I never saw him afterwards. I make no doubt,
however, that in good time his hair grew as he
grew again into favor, and that he found the means
to exhibit the proper length of tail on all suitable
occasions.
A crowd in the street now caught my attention.
On approaching it, a colleague who was there was
kind enough to explain its cause.
It would seem that certain Leaphighers had been
liberty, they had actually written books concerning
things that they had seen, and things that they had
not seen. As respects the latter, neither of the public
opinions was very sensitive, although many of
them reflected severely on the Great National
Allegory and the sacred rights of monikins; but as
respects the former, there was a very lively excitement.
These writers had the audacity to say that
the Leaplowers had cut off all their cauda, and the
whole community was convulsed at an outrage so
unprecedented. It was one thing to take such a
step, and another to have it proclaimed to the
world in books. If the Leaplowers had no tails, it
was clearly their own fault. Nature had formed
them with tails. They had bobbed themselves
on a republican principle; and no one's principles
ought to be thrown into his face, in this rude
manner, more especially during a moral eclipse.
The dispensers of the essence of lopped tails
threatened vengeance; caricaturists were put in
requisition; some grinned, some menaced, some
swore, and all read!
I left the crowd, taking the direction of my door
again, pondering on this singular state of society,
in which a peculiarity that had been deliberately
and publicly adopted, should give rise to a sensitiveness
of a character so unusual. I very well
knew that men are commonly more ashamed of
natural imperfections than of those which, in a
great measure, depend on themselves; but then men
are, in their own estimation at least, placed by
nature at the head of creation, and in that capacity
it is reasonable to suppose they will be jealous of
their natural privileges. The present case was
rather Leaplow than generic; and I could only
account for it, by supposing that Nature had placed
anatomy.
On entering the house, a strong smell of roasted
meat saluted my nostrils, causing a very unphilosophical
pleasure to the olfactory nerves, a pleasure
which acted very directly, too, on the gastric
juices of the stomach. In plain English, I had very
sensible evidence that it was not enough to transport
a man to the monikin region, send him to parliament
and keep him on nuts for a week, to render
him exclusively ethereal. I found it was vain “to
kick against the pricks.” The odor of roasted
meat was stronger than all the facts just named,
and I was fain to abandon philosophy, and surrender
to the belly. I descended incontinently to the
kitchen, guided by a sense no more spiritual than
that which directs the hound in the chase.
On opening the door of our refectory, such a
delicious perfume greeted the nose, that I melted
like a romantic girl at the murmur of a waterfall,
and, losing sight of all the sublime truths so lately
acquired, I was guilty of the particular human
weakness which is usually described as having the
“mouth water.”
The sealer had quite taken leave of his monikin
forbearance, and was enjoying himself in a peculiarly
human manner. A dish of roasted meat was
lying before him, and his eyes fairly glared as he
turned them from me to the viand, in a way to render
it a little doubtful whether I was a welcome
visiter. But that honest old principle of seamen,
which never refuses to share equally with an ancient
messmate, got the better even of his voracity.
“Sit down, Sir John,” the Captain cried, without
ceasing to masticate, “and make no bones of it.
To own the fact, the latter are almost as good as
the flesh. I never tasted a sweeter morsel!”
I did not wait for a second invitation, the reader
may be sure; and in less than ten minutes the dish
was as clear as a table that had been swept by
harpies. As this work is intended for one in which
truth is rigidly respected, I shall avow that I do not
remember any cultivation of sentiment which gave
me half so much satisfaction as that short and hurried
repast. I look back to it, even now, as to the
very beau idéal of a dinner! Its fault was in the
quantity, and not in quality.
I gazed greedily about for more. Just then, I
caught a glimpse of a face that seemed looking at
me with melancholy reproach. The truth flashed
upon me in a flood of horrible remorse. Rushing
upon Noah like a tiger, I seized him by the throat,
and cried, in a voice of despair:—
“Cannibal! what hast thou done?”
“Loosen your gripe, Sir John—we do not relish
these hugs at Stunin'tun.”
“Wretch! thou hast made me the participator
of thy crime! We have eaten Brigadier Downright!”
“Loosen, Sir John, or human natur' will rebel.”
“Monster! give up thy unholy repast—dost not
see a million reproaches in the eyes of the innocent
victim of thy insatiable appetites?”
“Cast off, Sir John, cast off, while we are friends.
I care not if I have swallowed all the Brigadiers in
Leaplow—off hands!”
“Never, monster! until thou disgorgest thy unholy
meal!”
Noah could endure no more; but, seizing me by
the throat, on the retaliating principle, I soon had
some such sensations as one would be apt to feel
if his gullet were in a vice. I shall not attempt to
describe very minutely the miracle that followed.
Hanging ought to be an effectual remedy for many
under certainly did wonders in a very short time.
Gradually the whole scene changed. First came a
mist, then a vertigo; and finally, as the Captain relaxed
his hold, objects appeared in new forms, and instead
of being in our lodgings in Bivouac, I found myself
in my old apartment in the Rue de Rivoli, Paris.
“King!” exclaimed Noah, who stood before me,
red in the face with exertion; “this is no boy's
play, and if it's to be repeated, I shall use a lashing!
Where would be the harm, Sir John, if a
man had eaten a monkey?”
Astonishment kept me mute. Every object, just
as I had left it the morning we started for London,
on our way to Leaphigh, was there. A table, in
the centre of the room, was covered with sheets of
paper closely written over, which, on examination,
I found contained this manuscript as far as the last
chapter. Both the Captain and myself were attired
as usual; I à la Parisienne, and he à la Stunin'tun.
A small ship, very ingeniously made, and very
accurately rigged, lay on the floor, with “Walrus”
written on her stern. As my bewildered eye caught
a glimpse of this vessel, Noah informed me that,
having nothing to do except to look after my welfare,
(a polite way of characterizing his ward over
my person, as I afterwards found,) he had employed
his leisure in constructing the toy.
All was inexplicable. There was really the
smell of meat. I had also that peculiar sensation
of fullness which is apt to succeed a dinner,
and a dish well filled with bones was in plain view.
I took up one of the latter, in order to ascertain its
genus. The Captain kindly informed me that it
was the remains of a pig, which it had cost him a
great deal of trouble to obtain, as the French viewed
the act of eating a pig but very little less heinous
trouble me, and I now turned to look for the head
and reproachful eye of the Brigadier.
The head was where I had just before seen it,
visible over the top of a trunk; but it was so far
raised as to enable me to see that it was still planted
on its shoulders. A second look, enabled me to
distinguish the meditative, philosophical countenance
of Dr. Reasono, who was still in the hussar-jacket
and petticoat, though, being in the house, he had
very properly laid aside the Spanish hat with bedraggled
feathers.
A movement followed in the ante-chamber, and
a hurried conversation, in a low earnest tone, succeeded.
The Captain disappeared, and joined the
speakers. I listened intently, but could not catch
any of the intonations of a dialect founded on the
decimal principle. Presently the door opened, and
Dr. Etherington stood before me!
The good divine regarded me long and earnestly.
Tears filled his eyes, and, stretching out both hands
towards me, he asked:—
“Do you know me, Jack?”
“Know you, dear sir!—Why should I not?”
“And do you forgive me, dear boy?”
“For what, sir?—I am sure, I have most reason
to demand your pardon for a thousand follies.”
“Ah! the letter—the unkind—the inconsiderate
letter!”
“I have not had a letter from you, sir, in a twelvemonth:
the last was anything but unkind.”
“Though Anna wrote, it was at my dictation.”
I passed a hand over my brow, and had dawnings
of the truth.
“Anna?”
“Is here—in Paris,—and miserable—most miserable!—on
your account.”
Every particle of monikinity that was left in my
system instantly gave way to a flood of human sensations.
“Let me fly to her, dear sir—a moment is an
age!”
“Not just yet, my boy. We have much to say
to each other, nor is she in this hotel. To-morrow,
when both are better prepared, you shall meet.”
“Add, never to separate, sir, and I will be patient
as a lamb.”
“Never to separate, I believe it will be better to
say.”
I hugged my venerable guardian, and found a
delicious relief from a most oppressive burthen of
sensations, in a flow of tears.
Dr. Etherington soon led me into a calmer tone
of mind. In the course of the day, many matters
were discussed and settled. I was told that Captain
Poke had been a good nurse, though in a sealing
fashion; and that the least I could do was to send
him back to Stunin'tun, free of cost. This was
agreed to, and the worthy but dogmatical mariner
was promised the means of fitting out a new
“Debby and Dolly.”
“These philosophers had better be presented to
some academy,” observed the Doctor, smiling, as
he pointed to the family of amiable strangers, “being
already F.U.D.G.E's and H.O.A.X's. Mr.
Reasono, in particular, is unfit for ordinary society.”
“Do with them as you please, my more than
father. Let the poor animals, however, be kept
from physical suffering.”
“Attention shall be paid to all their wants, both
physical and moral.”
“And in a day or two, we shall proceed to the
rectory?”
“The day after to-morrow, if you have strength.”
“And to-morrow?
“Anna will see you.”
“And the next day?”
“Nay, not quite so soon, Jack; but the moment
we think you perfectly restored, she shall share
your fortunes for the remainder of your common
probation.”
| CHAPTER XIV. The monikins | |