 | CHAPTER IX. The monikins |  |
9. CHAPTER IX.
The commencement of wonders, which are the more extraordinary
on account of their truth.
I DARE say my head had been on the pillow fully
an hour, before sleep closed my eyes. During this
time, I had abundant occasion to understand the
activity of what are called the “busy thoughts.”—
Mine were feverish, glowing, and restless. They
wandered over a wide field;—one that included
Anna, with her beauty, her mild truth, her womanly
softness and her womanly cruelty; Captain Poke
and his peculiar opinions; the amiable family of
quadrupeds and their wounded sensibilities; the excellencies
of the social-stake system; and, in short,
most of that which I had seen and heard during
the last four-and-twenty hours. When sleep did
tardily arrive, it overtook me at the very moment
that I had inwardly vowed to forget my heartless
mistress, and to devote the remainder of my life to
the promulgation of the doctrine of the expansive-super-human-generalized-affection-principle,
to the
utter exclusion of all narrow and selfish views, and
in which I resolved to associate myself with Mr.
Poke, as with one who had seen a great deal of
this earth and its inhabitants, without narrowing
down his sympathies in favor of any one place or
person, in particular, Stunin'tun and himself very
properly excepted.
It was broad day-light when I awoke on the following
morning. My spirits were calmed by rest,
and my nerves had been soothed by the balmy
freshness of the atmosphere. It appeared that my
valet had entered and admitted the morning air,
of the bell, before he presumed to reappear. I lay
many minutes, in delicious repose, enjoying the periodical
return to life and reason, bringing with it,
the pleasures of thought and its ten thousand agreeable
associations. The delightful reverie into which
I was insensibly dropping, was, however, ere long
arrested by low, murmuring, and, as I thought,
plaintive voices, at no great distance from my own
bed. Seating myself erect, I listened intently, and with
a good deal of surprise; for it was not easy to imagine
whence sounds, so unusual for that place and
hour, could proceed. The discourse was earnest,
and even animated; but it was carried on in so low
a tone that it would have been utterly inaudible, but
for the deep quiet of the hotel. Occasionally a word
reached my ear, and I was completely at fault in endeavoring
to ascertain even the language. That it
was in neither of the five great European tongues, I
was certain, for all these I either spoke or read; and
there were particular sounds and inflexions that induced
me to think that it savored of the most ancient
of the two classics. It is true that the prosody
of these dialects, at the same time that is is a
shibboleth of learning, is a disputed point, the very
sounds of the vowels even being a matter of national
convention;— the Latin word dux, for instance,
becoming ducks in England, dooks in Italy,
and dukes in France: yet there is a `je ne sais quoi,'
a delicacy in the auricular taste of a true scholar,
that will rarely lead him astray, when his ears are
greeted with words that have been used by Demosthenes
or Cicero.[1] In the present instance, I distinctly
heard the word, my-bom-y-nos-fos-kom-i-ton,
and second person, of a Greek root, but of a signification
that I could not, on the instant, master, but
which, beyond a question, every scholar will recognize
as having a strong analogy to a well-known
line in Homer. If I was puzzled with the syllables
that accidentally reached me, I was no less
perplexed with the intonations of the voices of the
different speakers. While it was easy to understand
they were of the two sexes, they had no
direct affinity to the mumbling sibilations of the
English, the vehement monotony of the French,
the gagging sonorousness of the Spaniards, the
noisy melody of the Italians, the ear-splitting octaves
of the Germans, or the undulating, head-over-heels
enunciation of the countrymen of my
particular acquaintance, Captain Noah Poke. Of
all the living languages of which I had any knowledge,
the resemblance was nearer to the Danish
and Swedish, than to any other; but I much
doubted, at the time I first heard the syllables, and
still question, if there is exactly such a word as
my-bom-y-nos-fos-kom-i-ton to be found in even
either of those tongues. I could no longer support
the suspense. The classical and learned
doubts that beset me, grew intensely painful; and,
arising with the greatest caution, in order not to
alarm the speakers, I prepared to put an end to
them all, by the simple and natural process of
actual observation.
The voices came from the ante-chamber, the
door of which was slightly open. Throwing on a
dressing-gown, and thrusting my feet into slippers,
I moved on tiptoe to the aperture, and placed my
eye in such a situation as enabled me to command
a view of the persons of those who were still
earnestly talking in the adjoining room. All surprise
monkeys were grouped in a corner of the apartment,
where they were carrying on a very animated
dialogue, the two oldest of the party (a male
and a female) being the principal speakers. It was
not to be expected that even a graduate of Oxford,
although belonging to a sect so proverbial for
classical lore, that many of them knew nothing
else, could, at the first hearing, decide upon the
analogies and character of a tongue that is so little
cultivated even in that ancient seat of learning.
Although I had now certainly a direct clue to the
root of the dialect of the speakers, I found it quite
impossible to get any useful acquaintance with the
general drift of what was passing among them.
As they were my guests, however, and might possibly
be in want of some of the conveniences that
were necessary to their habits, or might even be
suffering under still graver embarrassments, I
conceived it to be a duty to waive the ordinary
usages of society, and at once offer whatever
it was in my power to bestow, at the risk of interrupting
concerns that they might possibly wish to
consider private. Using the precaution, therefore,
to make a little noise, as the best means of
announcing my approach, the door was gently
opened, and I presented myself to view. At first,
I was a little at a loss in what manner to address
the strangers; but, believing that a people who
spoke a language so difficult of utterance and so
rich as that I had just heard, like those who use
dialects derived from the Slavonian root, were
most probably the masters of all others; and remembering,
moreover, that French was a medium of
thought among all polite people, I determined to
have recourse to that tongue.
“Messieurs et mesdames,” I said, inclining my
peu convenable”—but, as I am writing in English,
it may be well to translate the speeches as I proceed;
although I abandon with regret the advantage
of going through them literally, and in the appropriate
dialect in which they were orginally spoken.
“Gentlemen and ladies,” I said, inclining my body
in salutation, “I ask a thousand pardons for this
inopportune intrusion on your retirement; but overhearing
a few of what I much fear are but too
well grounded complaints, touching the false position
in which you are placed, as the occupant of
this apartment, and in that light your host, I have
ventured to approach, with no other desire than
the wish that you would make me the repository
of all your griefs, in order, if possible, that they
may be repaired as soon as circumstances shall in
any manner allow.”
The strangers were very naturally a little startled
at my unexpected appearance, and at the
substance of what I had just said. I observed
that the two ladies were apparently, in some slight
degree, even distressed, the younger turning her
head on one side in maiden modesty, while the
elder, a duenna-sort-of-looking person, dropped
her eyes to the floor, but succeeded in better
maintaining her self-possession and gravity. The
eldest of the two gentlemen approached me with
dignified composure, after a moment of hesitation;
and, returning my salute, by waving his tail with
singular grace and decorum, he answered as follows.—I
may as well state in this place, that he
spoke the French about as well as an Englishman
who has lived long enough on the continent to
fancy he can travel in the provinces without being
detected for a foreigner. Au reste, his accent was
slightly Russian, and his enunciation whistling and
lower keys of their voices, made sounds not unlike
the sighing tones of the Eolian harp. It was really
a pleasure to hear them; but I have often had
occasion to remark that, in every country but one
which I do not care to name, the language, when
uttered by the softer sex, takes new charms, and
is rendered more delightful to the ear.
“Sir,” said the stranger, when he had done
waving his tail, “I should do great injustice to my
feelings, and to the monikin character in general,
were I to neglect expressing some small portion
of the gratitude I feel on the present occasion.
Destitute, houseless, insulted wanderers and captives,
fortune has at length shed a ray of happiness
on our miserable condition, and hope begins to
shine through the cloud of our distress, like a passing
gleam of the sun. From my very tail, sir, in
my own name and in that of this excellent and
most prudent matron, and in those of these two
noble and youthful lovers, I thank you—Yes! honorable
and humane being of the genus homo, species
Anglicus, we all return our most tail-felt
acknowledgments of your goodness!”
Here the whole party gracefully bent the ornaments
in question over their heads, touching their
receding foreheads with the several tips, and
bowed.—I would have given ten thousand pounds,
at that moment, to have had a good investment in
tails, in order to emulate their form of courtesy;
but naked, shorn and destitute as I was, with a
feeling of humility, I was obliged to put my head
a little on one shoulder, and give the ordinary
English bob, in return for their more elaborate
politeness.
“If I were merely to say, sir,” I continued,
when the opening salutations were thus properly
interview, the word would prove very insufficient
to express my delight. Consider this hotel as your
own; its domestics as your domestics; its stores
of condiments as your stores of condiments, and
its nominal tenant as your most humble servant
and friend. I have been greatly shocked at the
indignities to which you have hitherto been exposed,
and now promise you liberty, kindness, and
all those attentions to which, it is very apparent,
you are fully entitled by your birth, breeding, and
the delicacy of your sentiments. I congratulate
myself a thousand times for having been so fortunate
as to make your acquaintance. My greatest
desire has always been to stimulate the sympathies;
but, until to-day, various accidents have
confined the cultivation of this heaven-born property,
in a great measure, to my own species; I
now look forward, however, to a delicious career
of new-born interests in the whole of the animal
creation, I need scarcely say, in that of quadrupeds
of your family in particular.”
“Whether we belong to the class of quadrupeds
or not, is a question that has a good deal embarrassed
our own savans,” returned the stranger.
“There is an ambiguity in our physical action that
renders the point a little questionable; and therefore,
I think, the higher castes of our natural philosophers
rather prefer classing the entire monikin
species, with all its varieties, as caudæ-jactans,
or tail-wavers; adopting the term from the nobler
part of the animal formation. Is not this the better
opinion at home, my Lord Chatterino?” he asked,
turning to the youth, who stood respectfully at his
side.
“Such, I believe, my dear Doctor, was the last
classification sanctioned by the academy,” the
him to be both well-informed and intelligent, and,
at the same time, with a reserve of manner that
did equal credit to his modesty and breeding. “The
question of whether we are or are not bipeds has
greatly agitated the schools for more than three
centuries.”
“The use of this gentleman's name,” I hastily
rejoined, “my dear sir, reminds me that we are
but half acquainted with each other. Permit me to
waive ceremony, and to announce myself, at once,
as Sir John Goldencalf, Baronet, of Householder-Hall,
in the Kingdom of Great Britain, a poor admirer
of excellence wherever it is to be found, or
under whatever form, and a devotee of the system
of the `social-stake.”'
“I am happy to be admitted to the honor of this
formal introduction, Sir John. In return, I bag you
will suffer me to say that this young nobleman is, in
our own dialect, No. 6, purple; or, to translate the appellation,
my Lord Chatterino. This young lady is
No. 4, violet, or, my Lady Chatterissa. This excellent
and prudent matron is No. 4,626,243, russet, or,
Mistress Vigilance Lynx, to translate her appellation
also into the English tongue; and that I am
No. 22,817, brown-study-color, or, Dr. Reasono,
to give you a literal signification of my name,—a
poor disciple of the philosophers of our race, an
LL. D., and a F. U. D. G. E., the travelling tutor of
this heir of one of the most illustrious and the most
ancient houses of the island of Leaphigh, in the
monikin section of mortality.”
“Every syllable, learned Dr. Reasono, that falls
from your revered lips, only whets curiosity, and
adds fuel to the flame of desire, tempting me to inquire
further into your private history, your future
intentions, the polity of your species, and all those
interesting topics that will readily suggest themselves
acquirements. I dread being thought indiscreet;
and yet, putting yourself in my position, I
trust you will overlook a wish so natural and ardent.”
“Apology is unnecessary, Sir John, and nothing
would afford me greater satisfaction than to answer
any and every inquiry you may be disposed
to make.”
“Then, sir, to cut short all useless circumlocution,
suffer me to ask at once an explanation of the
system of enumeration, by which you indicate individuals?
— You are called No. 22,817, brown-study-color—”
“Or, Dr. Reasono. As you are an Englishman,
you will perhaps understand me better, if I refer to
a recent practice of the new London police. You
may have observed that the men wear letters in
red or white, and numbers on the capes of their
coats. By the letters, the passenger can refer to
the company of the officer, while the number indicates
the individual. Now, the idea of this improvement
came, I make no doubt, from our system,
under which society is divided into castes, for
the sake of harmony and subordination, and these
castes are designated by colors and shades of colors,
that are significant of their stations and pursuits—
the individual, as in the new police, being known
by the number. Our own language being exceedingly
sententious, is capable of expressing the most
elaborate of these combinations in a very few
sounds. I should add that there is no difference in
the manner of distinguishing the sexes, with the
exception that each is numbered apart, and each
has a counterpart-color to that of the same caste
in the other sex. Thus, purple and violet are both
noble, the former being masculine and the latter
brown-study-color.”
“And—excuse my natural ardor to know more
—and do you bear these numbers and colors marked
on your attire, in your own region?”
“As for attire, Sir John, the monikins are too
highly improved, mentally and physically, to need
any. It is known that in all cases, extremes meet.
The savage is nearer to nature than the merely
civilized being, and the creature that has passed
the mistifications of a middle state of improvement,
finds himself again approaching nearer to the habits,
the wishes, and the opinions of our common mother.
As the real gentleman is more simple in
manners than the distant imitator of his deportment;
as fashions and habits are always more exaggerated
in provincial towns than in polished
capitals; or, as the profound philosopher has less
pretensions than the tyro, so does our common
genus, as it draws nearer to the consummation of
its destiny, and its highest attainments, learn to reject
the most valued usages of the middle condition,
and to return, with ardor, towards nature, as
to a first love. It is on this principle, sir, that the
monikin family never wears clothes.”
“I could not but perceive that the ladies have
manifested some embarrassment ever since I entered,—is
it possible, that their delicacy has taken
the alarm, at the state of my toilet?”
“At the toilet itself, Sir John, rather than at its
state, if I must speak plainly. The female mind,
trained as it is with us, from infancy upward, in
the habits and usages of nature, is shocked by any
departure from her rules. You will know how to
make allowances for the squeamishness of the sex,
for I believe it is much alike, in this particular, let
it come from what quarter of the earth it may.”
“I can only excuse the seeming want of politeness
by my ignorance, Dr. Reasono. Before I ask
another question, the oversight shall be repaired. I
must retire into my own chamber for an instant,
gentlemen and ladies, and I beg you will find such
sources of amusement as first offer, until I can return.
There are nuts, I believe, in this closet; sugar
is usually kept on that table, and perhaps the
ladies might find some relaxation by exercising
themselves on the chairs. In a single moment I
shall be with you again.”
Hereupon, I withdrew into my bed-chamber, and
began to lay aside the dressing-gown, as well as
my shirt. Remembering, however, that I was but
too liable to colds in the head, I returned to ask
Dr. Reasono to step in where I was for an instant.
On mentioning the difficulty, this excellent person
assumed the office of preparing his female friends
to overlook the slight innovation of my still wearing
the night-cap and slippers.
“The ladies would think nothing of it,” the philosopher
good-humoredly remarked, by way of
lessening my regrets at having wounded their sensibilities,
“were you even to appear in a military
cloak and Hessian boots, provided, it was not
thought that you were of their acquaintance, and
in their immediate society. I think you must have
often remarked among the sex of your own species,
who are frequently quite indifferent to nudities
(their prejudices running counter to ours,) that appear
in the streets, but which would cause them
instantly to run out of the room, when exhibited in
the person of an acquaintance; these conventional
asides being tolerated everywhere, by a judicious
concession of punctilios that might otherwise become
insupportable.”
“The distinction is too reasonable to require another
word of explanation, dear sir. Now, let us
rejoin the ladies, since I am, at length, in some degree,
fit to be seen.”
I was rewarded for this bit of delicate attention,
by an approving smile from the lovely Chatterissa,
and good Mistress Lynx no longer kept her eyes
riveted on the floor, but bent them on me, with
looks of admiration and gratitude.
“Now that this little contre-tems is no longer an
obstacle,” I resumed, “permit me to continue those
inquiries which you have hitherto answered with
so much amenity, and so satisfactorily. As you
have no clothes, in what manner is the parallel between
your usage and that of the new London police
practically completed?”
“Although we have no clothes, Nature, whose
laws are never violated with impunity, but who is
as beneficent as she is absolute, has furnished us
with a downy covering to supply their places,
wherever clothes are needed for comfort. We have
coats that defy fashions, require no tailors, and
never lose their naps. But it would be inconvenient
to be totally clad in this manner; and, therefore,
the palms of our hands are, as you see, ungloved;
the portions of the frame on which we seat
ourselves are left uncovered, most probably lest
some inconvenience should arise from taking accidental
and unfavorable positions. This is the part
of the monikin frame the best adapted for receiving
paint, and the numbers of which I have spoken are
periodically renewed there, at public offices appointed
for that purpose. Our characters are so minute as
to escape the human eye; but by using that opera-glass,
I make no doubt that you may still see some
of my own enregistration, although, alas! unusual
friction, great misery, and, I may say, unmerited
well as in various other, particulars.”
As Dr. Reasono had the complaisance to turn
round, and to use his tail like the index of a black
board, by aid of the glass, I very distinctly traced
the figures to which he alluded. Instead of being
in paint, however, as he had given me reason to
anticipate, they seemed to be branded, or burnt
in, indelibly, as we commonly mark horses, thieves,
and negroes. On mentioning the fact to the philosopher,
it was explained with his usual facility
and politeness.
“You are quite right, sir,” he said; “the omission
of paint was to prevent tautology, an offence
against the simplicity of the monikin dialect, as
well as against monikin taste, that would have
been sufficient, under our opinions, even to overturn
the government.”
“Tautology!”
“Tautology, Sir John; on examining the background
of the picture, you will perceive that it is
already of a dusky, sombre hue; now, this being
of a meditative and grave character, has been
denominated by our academy the `brown-study-color;'
and it would clearly have been supererogatory
to lay the same tint upon it. No, sir; we
avoid repetitions even in our prayers, deeming
them to be so many proofs of an illogical and of
an anti-consecutive mind.”
“The system is admirable, and I see new beauties
at each moment. You enjoy the advantage,
for instance, under this mode of enumeration, of
knowing your acquaintances from behind, quite as
well as if you met them face to face!”
“The suggestion is ingenious, showing an active
and an observant mind; but it does not quite reach
the motive of the politico-numerical-identity-system
this arrangement are altogether of a higher and
more useful nature; nor do we usually recognize
our friends by their countenances, which at the
best are no more than so many false signals, but
by their tails.”
“This is admirable! What a facility you possess
for recognizing an acquaintance, who may
happen to be up a tree! But may I presume to
inquire, Dr. Reasono, what are the most approved
of the advantages of the politico-numerical-identity-system?
For impatience is devouring my vitals.”
“They are connected with the interests of government.
You know, sir, that society is established
for the purposes of governments, and governments,
themselves, mainly to facilitate contributions
and taxations. Now, by the numerical system,
we have every opportunity of including the whole
monikin race in the collections, as they are periodically
checked off by their numbers. The
idea was a happy thought of an eminent statician
of ours, who gained great credit at court by the
invention, and, in fact, who was admitted to the
academy in consequence of its ingenuity.”
“Still it must be admitted, my dear Doctor,”
put in Lord Chatterino, always with the modesty,
and perhaps I might add, with the generosity of
youth, “that there are some among us who deny
that society was made for governments, and who
maintain that governments were made for society;
or, in other words, for monikins.”
“Mere theorists, my good Lord; and their
opinions, even if true, are never practised on.
Practice is every thing in political matters; and
theories are of no use, except as they confirm
practice.”
“Both theory and practice are perfect,” I cried;
or castes, enables the authorities to commence
the imposts with the richest, or the `purples.”'
“Sir, monikin prudence never lays the foundation-stone
at the summit; it seeks the base of the
edifice; and as contributions are the walls of
society, we commence with the bottom. When
you shall know us better, Sir John Goldencalf,
you will begin to comprehend the beauty and
benevolence of the entire monikin economy.”
I now adverted to the frequent use of this word
“monikin;” and, admitting my ignorance, desired
an explanation of the term, as well as a more
general insight into the origin, history, hopes, and
polity of the interesting strangers; if they can be
so called who were already so well known to me.
Dr. Reasono admitted that the request was natural
and was entitled to respect; but he delicately suggested
the necessity of sustaining the animal functions
by nutriment, intimating that the ladies had
supped but in an indifferent way the evening
before, and acknowledging that, philosopher as he
was, he should go through the desired explanations
after improving the slight acquaintance he had
already made with certain condiments in one of
the armoires, with far more zeal and point, than
could possibly be done in the present state of his
appetite. The suggestion was so very plausible
that there was no resisting it; and, suppressing
my curiosity as well as I could, the bell was rung,
I retired to my bed-chamber to resume so much
of my attire as was necessary to the semi-civilization
of man, and then the necessary orders were
given to the domestics, who, by the way, were
suffered to remain under the influence of those
ordinary and vulgar prejudices that are pretty
generally entertained by the human, against the
monikin family.
Previously to separating from my new friend
Dr. Reasono, however, I took him aside, and
stated that I had an acquaintance in the hotel, a
person of singular philosophy, after the human
fashion, and a great traveller; and that I desired
permission to let him into the secret of our intended
lecture on the monikin economy, and to bring
him with me as an auditor. To this request, No.
22,817, brown-study-color, or Dr. Reasono, gave
a very cordial assent; hinting delicately, at the
same time, his expectation that this new auditor,
who, of course, was no other than Captain Noah
Poke, would not deem it disparaging to his manhood,
to consult the sensibilities of the ladies, by
appearing in the garments of that only decent and
respectable tailor and draper, nature. To this
suggestion I gave a ready approval; when each
went his way, after the usual salutations of bowing
and tail-waving, with a mutual promise of being
punctual to the appointment.
| CHAPTER IX. The monikins | |