“Mohi, you are old: speak thou.”
“Let Vivenza speak,” said Mohi.
“Thus then we all agree; and weeping all but echo hard-hearted Nulli. Tears are not swords and wrongs seem almost natural as rights. For the righteous to suppress an evil, is sometimes harder than for others to uphold it. Humanity cries out against this vast enormity:— not one man knows a prudent remedy. Blame not, then, the North; and wisely judge the South. Ere, as a nation, they became responsible, this thing was planted in their midst. Such roots strike deep. Place to-day those serfs in Dominora; and with them, all Vivenza’s Past;— and serfs, for many years, in Dominora, they would be. Easy is it to stand afar and rail. All men are censors who have lungs. We can say, the stars are wrongly marshaled. Blind men say the sun is blind. A thousand muscles wag our tongues; though our tongues were housed, that they might have a home. Whose is free from crime, let him cross himself—but hold his cross upon his lips. That he is not bad, is not of him. Potters’ clay and wax are all, molded by hands invisible. The soil decides the man. And, ere birth, man wills not to be born here or there. These southern tribes have grown up with this thing; bond-women were their nurses, and bondmen serve them still. Nor are all their serfs such wretches as those we saw. Some seem happy: yet not as men. Unmanned, they know not what they are. And though, of all the south, Nulli must stand almost alone in his insensate creed; yet, to all wrong-doers, custom backs the sense of wrong. And if to every Mardian, conscience be the awarder of its own doom; then, of these tribes, many shall be found exempted from the least penalty of this sin. But sin it is, no less;—a blot, foul as the crater-pool of hell; it puts out the sun at noon; it parches all fertility; and, conscience or no conscience—ere he die—let every master who wrenches bond-babe from mother, that the nipple tear; unwreathes the arms of sisters; or cuts the holy unity in twain; till apart fall man and wife, like one bleeding body cleft:—let that master thrice shrive his soul; take every sacrament; on his bended knees give up the ghost;—yet shall he die despairing; and live again, to die forever damned. The future is all hieroglyphics. Who may read? But, methinks the great laggard Time must now march up apace, and somehow befriend these thralls. It can not be, that misery is perpetually entailed; though, in a land proscribing primogeniture, the first-born and last of Hamo’s tribe must still succeed to all their sires’ wrongs. Yes. Time—all-healing Time—Time, great Philanthropist!—Time must befriend these thralls!”
“Oro grant it!” cried Yoomy “and let Mardi say, amen!”
“Amen! amen! amen!” cried echoes echoing echoes.
We traversed many of these southern vales; but as in Dominora,—so, throughout Vivenza, North and South,—Yillah harbored not.
CHAPTER LIX.
They Converse Of The Mollusca, Kings, Toad-Stools And Other Matters
Once more embarking, we gained Vivenza’s southwestern side and there, beheld vast swarms of laborers discharging from canoes, great loads of earth; which they tossed upon the beach.
“It is true, then,” said Media “that these freemen are engaged in digging down other lands, and adding them to their own, piece-meal. And this, they call extending their dominions agriculturally, and peaceably.”
“My lord, they pay a price for every canoe-load,” said Mohi.