Padrex. “I declare to gracious, never!”
Dosch. “But would you not relapse at the sight of a priest, as the converted Jew did at the chink of the shekels?”
Padre. (Scratching his head.) “Well, you know it’s a hard thing for one to abjure his religion, altogether?”
Dr. Baāhar. (Testily.) “He’s doomed to blind martyrdom in defense of his idols!”
Padre. “But I know those that belong to my own creed, and am not willing to be caught with mousetraps! Besides, when we were together on board of the Tortuga, after our good luck, I asked you to advise me about the education of my children; and you replied, ‘Let them glean all the knowledge they can from the schools of their country, until they arrive at the age of twenty; then send them to Germany, and they will then be able to appreciate the rudimentary principles of our philosophical course of study, if they are well posted in physical gymnastics and sword exercise.’ Of course the Manatitlans are well acquainted with the gigantic self-esteem of the French ideas of education, which is expressed in the proverb, ‘Live in Paris a year, and then die, content.’”
Dosch. “The philosophical self-complacency of the Germans with regard to the benefits of what they are pleased to style their system of education, is dependant upon habit rather than merit, even in the scale of civilized estimation. But when reduced from its superflage to reality, the course of study pursued in a German university, of sufficient celebrity to attract foreign students, commences with the majority,—from the boasting authority of their own statements,—by a test of the body’s capacity to hold beer, saur-kraut, and sausage, seasoned with tobacco smoke, for the encouragement of philosophical ruminations. When the freshman devotee’s body has become adequately distended, ethics and the art of disputatious war are inaugurated, with the premeditated intention of testing antagonistic skill in the gentle art of tattooing. Although lacking in the graceful designs of the more primitive races, the facial carvings in these friendly encounters indicate a nosological taste for depiction, characterized with boldness of touch on the part of the successful aspirant for honors. After having had his passions slaked by sword indenture indemnification, for the aggravations of guttural opprobriums, swilled at the collateral troughs of learning, the candidate for high collegiate honors, with his initiatory degree tattooed in autographic commendation of his skillful attainments, enters upon his second term. This completed, his body has become seasoned to saturation with the constituent elements of lager bier, schnapps, saur-kraut, pickled herring, sausage, and like condimental retainers, which are incorporated with tobacco-smoke in preparation for the study of the Oriental languages. At the expiration of three or more years employed in hard smoking, drinking,—or lageration, as it is classically termed,—with concomitant study, and wrangling, he reaches the acme of Teutonic elaboration; becoming to all intents and purposes as useless a casket of automatical movements and articulate sounds, as the feathered theologians educated in the Jesuit and Dominican Colleges of Chinandagua and Guatemala. His sympathetic impressibility can be truly likened to the saw of the surgical sawyer, in feeling for the suffering it imparts to the integuments and bone in separation. The French proverb, which you quoted, is certainly apt. For those who have engaged in the follies of Paris for a year, of self accord, we have found so utterly absorbed in the vanities of selfish gratification, that even the legendary memory of an instinctive soul has been lost, as well as all thoughts of purity and goodness in devisement for reciprocation. The real fact must now be apparent to your impressions, that the generations of your race have turned their backs to the realities of the future,—which could be secured for those that are to succeed them,—in pursuit of the will o’ wisp phantoms of the past. To-morrow, you will be able to realize how we preserve and improve the germs of purity and goodness for transmission, in freedom from the frivolous vanities of sense. In parting for the night all united in expressing their appreciation of the Dosch’s truthful portrayal.”
CHAPTER XXVI.
When the family of the prætor called in the morning to escort us to the scholia puellulitas, Correliana received the attentions of M. Hollydorf with marked pleasure; indeed, the happiness of the prætor and her mother was so joyfully exultant, that it attracted the attention of the Kyronese as well as our own. The temple on the north, occupying the esplanade of the second foræ, was the counterpart of the southern in architectural design. But its site was more commanding, embracing in the view obtained from the parapet walk, the latifundium, the grove of the temple beyond the cinctus gate, and the river expanse in the Bœotian vale below. On the south the terraced road could be traced in its upward windings to the brink of the basaltic cliff. To the north the view was in like manner circumscribed by the precipice and its outjutting flank of wooded hills. Within the enclosure of the temple walls the hill-slope to the north was more abrupt and shaded, and from its cooler temperature it was better adapted for the culture of fruitful shrubs and trees. The weissich of the falling water, and ring of the basaltic cubes, was much more distinctly impressed in their ever varying intonations, rendering hearing upon the parapet difficult, while in the colonnades of the eastern courts of the enclosure conversation became irksome and wearying. These effects were produced by the larger concavity in the southern face, by an inclination given to the main body of the water, from a northern curve in the direction of the river current above; a jutting columnar screen, without the falling water, formed a reverberating chamber that reflected the sound northward. Mr. Welson, remarking the effort required for speaking and hearing, asked the prætor the reason of the founder’s preferring the shady courts of the northern temple, for the tender female plants, with its greater disadvantages from the louder sound of the falls, when the warm mellow rays of the southern were so much better adapted for the development of the motherly germ of affection?
Before answering, the prætor turned his eyes upon the questioner with a quizzical glance, then replied,—“What you have observed is, from present appearances, true, and we learned that the prætor Indegatus made the selection in accordance with the judgment your discernment has expressed. But, in referring the reasons of his choice to the Dosch Giganteo, he reversed his decision, sustaining his judgment by urging the special adaptation of the supposed objections for counteracting the then prevalent disposition of the Heraclean women for invidious gossip, and their initiation into a staid, thoughtful mood, necessary for overcoming their hereditary inclinations for tongue talk. As I perceive that the question of Mr. Welson echoes your common curiosity to learn the influence of the choice, I will notice some of the effects in their course of development. Yesterday you remarked, while upon the temple walls of the boys’ enclosure, that the whirr of the falling water scarcely interfered with conversation, after you became accustomed to its counter resonance upon your voices, while here we are obliged to seek the screen of a turret, and then speak and hear with difficulty; not so much from the overwhelming loudness, as the confused blending of sound, that renders articulate modulation tiresome. Although partially overcome when the ear becomes accustomed to the impression, still the monotonous replication of variations in kind, without order in sequence, is too close, as the Dosch informs me, in its resemblance to the unmeaning plash of words, to distinguish in utterance those void of affectionate sympathy. This toning influence imposes a thoughtful silence upon those inclined to speak in freedom from the sympathetic direction of thought devisement, encouraging a mood for the study of individuality. The Dosch advises me that a prattling novice, from your race, would soon discover that expressionless words became involved in the wish-a-washy plash and whirr of the falling waters; and with repetition would feel the reflection, in burlesque effect, for the enlightenment of her understanding, when fully sensible of the vague implication, and of necessity would be obliged to limit her speech to the honest expression of affectionate emotions. This, he says, has rendered the cataracts of your country unpopular with your fashionable ladies, after the sight-seeing impression has been gratified; still springs being preferred as a place of fashionable sojourn, as they neither confuse or rival in noisy revel their tongues. In proof of what I wish to convey to your understanding, you will perceive that upon useful subjects of enlightenment, the Manatitlan voice is readily heard by our accustomed ears. But when I pronounce fashionable dress, society, public opinion, theatre, and like synonyms of multitudinous expression, the sound becomes confused with the noisy repetitions of the water, requiring labored and labiate vocalization to make you comprehend their import. Indeed, I perceive that your ears are at as great a loss to recognize the familiar words, as I am to judge of their meaning from the mimicry of sound. But how quickly your perceptive attention is attracted by the sympathetic tones of my voice when attuned in approximation to an affectionate wish! Our scholastic ninietas never turn a deaf ear, or a void eye from an expression in word or emotion prompted by kindly affection, during the heaviest roar of the winter’s flood. But folly invested with the blatant mechanism of Demosthenic oratory, or the rhyming jointure of poetical numbers, could not be distinguished in the faintest weish of a season of drouth. You will perceive from these hints that the elements favored the choice of Giganteo; and will now be able to test the wisdom of the preference that subjected our females to the restraining influence of this water power, so effectual for the suppression of a voiceful tongue, hollow in the resonant expression of truthful sincerity. We have been informed by Manatitlan auramentors, that your women are almost universally afflicted with a gabbling epidemic of the tongue, beyond which, and the ear, the impression of their utterances rarely reaches; and we are truly glad that you have an abundant supply of large waterfalls provided as successful aids for the inauguration of a thoughtfully silent era. The shades of the northern colonnades and courts have, by the reflection of this wise choice, been made luminous with the rays of affectionate goodness, for woman’s sympathy in its purity and brightness can illumine the darkest night with enduring warmth proof to the vicissitudes of time and place.”
Dr. Baāhar. “Since the days of Archimedes there has certainly never been a hydrostatic invention for the practical use of water, that can compare with the beneficial result you proclaim.”