When the visitors were about leaving, M. Hollydorf announced his intention of entering upon his microscopical investigations on the morrow, reminding Correliana of her promise to render him assistance.
“With life and health I shall most assuredly be present,” replied Correliana, “for I have a woman’s curiosity to test the wonderful magnifying powers of your instruments, which so far exceed our untutored conceptions of mechanical refinement. As we have some practical knowledge derived from the observations of animalculan life, we hope that our assistance in your department of science may eventuate in relieving your anxiety, occasioned by the delay incurred from the aid you have rendered our people.” With this enigmatical proposition, bespoken with the earnest zest of sincerity peculiar to all her variations, Correliana and her parents bade the members of the corps good-night. Long after the departure of their visitors, the members of the corps, puzzled and perplexed by Correliana’s seemingly frank intention, commingled with implied reservations, and a knowledge of the world incompatible with the complete isolation to which their people had been subjected for ages, endeavored to unravel the clew to her powers of premonition.
After listening in silence for a long time to the various suggestive expositions of others, the padre suddenly exclaimed, “You may reason and think what you please, but for my own part I know that I have not been myself since she first came on board of the Tortuga; and if everything was fair and above board, as they would have us believe by their words and actions, they would speak out at once, and not hold anything back to make us feel doubtful of our souls’ safety. For by the mouths of a cloud of witnesses, we know that the powers of darkness have wrought from the beginning of the world their designs for the temptation of souls, through the agency of woman’s allurements; and for myself I can truly say, that I can’t avoid doing as she wishes to have me without a word of direction. Besides I am altogether too happy to have it natural or lasting; and the method of educating their children separate from each other, and away from the example of their parents, is barbarous and unnatural.”
At the completion of this impulsive padric, Mr. Welson quietly observed,—“If we are to judge from appearances, we could not question the source of your improvement. But as appearances are deceptive, and the evil-disposed seek solitude for indulgence, the cloud of a witness rose from beneath the skirt of your coat, with the odor of tobacco from your suddenly concealed pipe, to confirm your shame in the presence of purity. If your soul has been tempted, it has been from gross indulgence to purity.”
The padre abashed relapsed into silence. But Dr. Baāhar, who had for a butterfly consideration furnished him with the means of indulgence, undertook his vindication, which he commenced with the syllogistic proposition: “We will certainly admit that your spasmodic sarcasms are poetical refinements upon fact, but I contend that you are neither scientific or logical in your deductions. If God created man with reasoning instincts, they were undoubtedly intended for invention and indulgence. Again, in depriving children of their natural protectors’ care and example, is in open controversion of Divine will. As for me, I do not assume to be more wise in my day, than my ancestors were in theirs. By the assumptions of your theory, founded upon the partial knowledge of these egotistical Heracleans, who have been shut out from a knowledge of the world from time immemorial, we should repudiate the transmitted experience of our ancestors. I shall not be guilty of so gross an act of ingratitude; my father the counselor, and his progenitors, ate their saur-kraut and sausages, drank their beer, smoked their pipes, and were excellent swordmen and genealogists, and I intend to do honor to the habits they inculcated.”
Pettynose the buzz recorder of sound, and Lindenhoff the genealogical curator of sound, with Viscouswitzs the photographic artist, sided with Dr. Baāhar, the latter sensuously remarking: “The women may be accounted puritanically beautiful, but they lack the bouquet of civilization, as well as the natural flavor peculiar to the creole variations; and as to pleasure, I could derive as much by an association with marble busts in the atélier of a sculptor. There is an air of repulsiveness about them that repels geniality, so that I never feel comfortable in their presence, and but for the encampment of the Vermejo Indians on the lake, I would, with the first opportunity, throw up my engagement and return to the haunts of civilization; for of all things I abhor pedantry in men and puritanism in women.”
“We are as yet novices in the ways of the Heracleans,” urged Mr. Dow, “and but imperfectly understand their motives of action or system of self government. To judge them from our partial impressions, which your personal opinions bespeak, is proof positive that the cavils of surmise, peculiar to individuals, originated the prejudices to which you have given voice. To me the addenda to their morning salutation and evening anthem of praise, as rendered by M. Hollydorf, bore advisory reference to the source of their happiness.” M. Hollydorf fully endorsed Mr. Dow’s views.
CHAPTER XI.
M. Hollydorf after morning salutation mustered his assistants for the inauguration of the legitimate duties entailed by his commission; as he had become fully impressed with the necessity of “working up” a sufficient number of experimental proofs for the basis of a preliminary despatch of intention. Selecting a retired portion of the latifundium for his field of operations they commenced their labors in good earnest. Of all the civilized nations of the world, we can claim for the Germans a just preëminence in those departments of science devoted to the investigations of the habits and associations of insect life. In truth, the enthusiasm shown for insect explorations has extended itself to every department of their national existence; from the palace to the cabin particular attention is devoted to hunting, impaling, and preserving their cadavers, arranged in order, genera, and species, in mausoleum cabinets for mummified exhibition as shrines for the enraptured gaze of Teutonic devotees. Even the mediæval Gael of the Scottish Highlands never possessed, in living endowment, an attritive iota of the associate luxurious zest imparted from their joint stock investments, or the Egyptian, of yore, in his necropolitan collections, a source of such vain-glorious gratification.
M. Hollydorf’s first day’s investigations were rewarded with the discovery of old species, familiar to his eye, under new and strange combinations, affording conclusive evidence of exotic transfusion in propagation at some remote period. In semi-meditation, with a disinclination for food and midday rest, he continued his preparatory investigations while his assistants refreshed themselves with their accustomed rations and siesta. Availing themselves of his invitation and leisure, the prætor, Correliana, Mr. Welson, and Dow made their appearance. Apologizing for interrupting his studies, Correliana requested the privilege of subjecting a flower from her garden to the magnifying power of the tympano-microscope? Assuring him, with its presentation, that she felt certain, from its extreme beauty and purity of fragrance, that it would attract a high order of animalculan existence capable of appreciating its rare combinations. After a close examination with his unaided eyes, he declared it to be of an unknown species and as peculiar in its rare beauty, novelty of its perfume, and delicate pungency of its impression, as the Heraclean representatives of woman kind were superior and distinct from their civilized genera in the purity of their habits and customs. With this combined pronunciamento of comparison as a vent to his enthusiastic admiration, he placed the flower in the field receptacle of the tympano-microscope for focal magnifying reflection of its parasitic habituary residents, for inspection and classification in substance and sound. With an exclamation of surprise, compounded of fear and amazement, he started back from the instrument exposing to view the petals and pistils peopled with a multitude of diminutive human beings, who were convulsed with sneezing spasms of laughter, which they tried in vain to suppress with expedients in common use by our kind. The tympanum in sound articulation reverberated their tiny cachinnations and sternutatory explosions with such comical effect, that the prætor and Correliana were compelled, notwithstanding all their efforts to avoid the impulsive sympathy of contagion, to join issue with this mirthful introduction of our savans to a kindred animalculan representation of our race. While equally subject to the uncontrollable spasms of mirthful laughter and dumb amazement, the spectators to this scene of apparent conjurement were held speechless.