Another World: Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah

by Benjamin Lumley

If, during the five years succeeding that in which she won the "Matterode," this lady remains unaltered in greatness and goodness, she is entitled, in addition, to a decoration of considerable value, in which the "Mountain Supporter"—which gives its name to the Order, is faithfully copied in the purest and most beautiful metals. And as the "Matterode" is an intimation that the beauty of the wearer's actions justifies her in looking upwards to a future home in the celestial stars, so does the Mountain Supporter indicate her firmness, power, and strength, that nothing in Montalluyah can surpass.

When either of these decorations is worn, the greatest honour and respect are paid to the wearer. All know that none can possess it without having gained it by sterling merit and goodness of the highest order. The checks used in our system are of such a nature, that no favouritism, no accident—nothing but the wearer's years and conduct— can obtain this, or indeed any other Order.

If the conduct of the woman during the five years she wears the Matterode had been marked by any deviation from goodness, an occurrence scarcely heard of, a qualified decoration would be presented to her, which, though beautiful, and indicating the age and position beyond doubt, would give evidence that a little cloud had sometime during the past period, affected the vivid colours of the illumined sky! There are various ways of modifying the Order so as to show the estimate of conduct, all differing according to the degree of the offence. But if the wearer's conduct during the five years of the qualified term is unexceptionable, the decoration for the subsequent five years would be the same as though nothing had occurred in the meantime to interrupt the lady's title to the highest decoration.

Again, if any person, even one who had gained the Matterode, were to commit something—a decidedly wrongful act—the decoration, during the following five years, would perhaps consist of a Foot trampling on a hippopotamus or on a serpent, thus indicating the necessity for bearing down sin, which is symbolised by both of these creatures.

You will at once see how easily the two first decorations I have named are distinguishable from each other, and how the last is distinguishable from both; and so it is with all the others, too numerous to mention here.

However, by their education, and the laws and customs I introduced, Woman possesses so high a sentiment of honour, and so much becoming pride, that the instances of degradation from the two first orders has been remarkably rare—scarcely worth referring to except to show that we never hesitate to put the laws in force against the highest personages, even in those cases where, under another system, our sympathies might have led us, perhaps unconsciously, to screen the offenders. In my laws on this subject, it is declared, that whilst mercy and goodness are on one side, might and justice are no less on the other side of the celestial throne.

What I have said of these orders is applicable in a great degree to all the others.

In our world all particulars of conduct and goodness, as well as deviations from them, are known; nothing on these heads is, or indeed can be concealed. I am now speaking of an advanced period of my reign; for at first, and in what I may call the intermediate or transition period, it was otherwise. Then there were many laws and precepts established which are now all but obsolete,—for since, the occasion for appealing to them scarcely arises. As an example, the love and practice of truth are amongst the very first things inculcated in the child, and are now everywhere and by all classes practised in Montalluyah. Laws, then, which suppose the possibility of a deviation from truth are scarcely ever appealed to—such as, for instance, the precept, "Ask not your neighbour what you know he wishes to conceal, lest he lie," and the accompanying law preventing one person from annoying another with improper questions, and thus probably drawing forth untruths. These, like the laws and precepts enjoining all to industry, and many others, belong to a bygone age, and to another state of things, and were only needed in the intermediate epoch, just as particular remedies were then required to cure the diseases of those who, having been born before my reign, had in their childhood and youth been weakened by disease, or had received into their systems the germs of future intense suffering, which, had the child been born later, would have been completely eradicated in their incipiency. But as these maladies existed in the intermediate epoch in their virulence, we were for a time obliged to continue the principle formerly adopted,—that of expelling one poison by administering another.

The fact that everything belonging to women is now known and adequately recognised and rewarded makes them contented and happy. Under the system existing before my reign this was not so,—the most beautiful were often the most discontented; they were more easily acted upon by evil spirits, who assumed the fairest and most seductive appearances to lure their victims; they were often the most susceptible to flattery, and easiest led astray; and when once drawn from the proper path, they were the most cruelly persecuted by a class of inferior persons, who, had their own secret conduct been known to man as it is to a superior order of beings, would never have dared to throw even the smallest stone at their poor persecuted sister, who had, as was often the case, been led astray by the very excess of a virtue which defective education had left unbalanced by its regulating qualities.

Although it was one of the best known precepts of our religion that the fold should always be open to receive the strayed sheep, these piety-professors, with this precept on their lips, took care that the strayed ones should be cruelly worried and scared from the fold.