CHAPTER X—SECOND DOCUMENT. DR. ULSWATER'S NARRATIVE CONTINUES: SUSANNAH
Malay Peninsula, June.
FOREVER shall my voice bear testimony to Mrs. Ulswater. She has gathered the races about her knee. The races didn't all stay there, but it's just as well they didn't. She has faced the hoary wisdom of the East, and subdued it. At the present writing Wisdom still acts as if he felt subdued.
Mrs. Ulswater was impatient to reach the far eastern mission field. She wished to see in action the process by which people, whose souls were naturally darkened by the opaqueness of their skins, become enlightened. This opinion as to the origin of idolatry I drew from Mrs. Ulswater with some difficulty. She held the theory, indeed, dimly, subconsciously. It was new to me. It is a theory worth examining for its latent mysticism. To what does it logically lead? If intelligence tends to increase with the transparency of the fleshly integument, wouldn't I be cleverer if not so fat? C'est un grand peut-être. But I'm getting thinner. Bismillah!
I have in my life pursued many ideals. I have hitched my wagon to certain stars. Some of the blanked things were comets, and some of them went out as unregretted as a bad cigar. Now I cling henceforward to this domestic light and floating fireside of the Violetta. No man has so entire a footing in the universe as he whose stockings are darned by a woman with a logical mind. I am not myself a vertebrate. Mrs. Ulswater is my complement. I am complete. I am satisfied. I am at rest.
My family has increased. It now consists of Mrs. Ulswater, an orphan girl, and an orphan pundit. But I go too fast.
On the 13th of last April, we put in at the island of Clementina, which lies to the north of Mozambique Channel.
“Now,” said I to Mrs. Ulswater, “I am complete. I am satisfied. I am at rest. But why Clementina?”