After the first course of maize and banana-bread,—styled by the padre crumpets, while under the moulding pressure of Luocuratia’s fair hands,—the elder maidens seated themselves beside their parents, the little ones taking their places, their busy eyes watchful for an opportunity to render aid in supplying the wants of their parents and guests. So well versed were they in the language of eyes, tongues were rarely used. Our most skillful performer with the knife and fork caused them to stand on tiptoe with wonder, in view of their rapid alternations in the transfer of food to his mouth, although himself unmindful of special notice. Whether the pantomimic expressions evoked from their symmetrical hands, arms, and questioning eyes, were elicited from the quantity or facile speed in the disposal of food, we could not judge. At the close of the refection, the prætor remarked, that the impression of their debt of gratitude was accumulating so fast from an increase in happiness, they felt sensitively the poverty of their resources for making suitable returns. “But if you will only wait with confidence, our dispositions will find some method of recompense that will prove more acceptable than metallic gold?”
Mr. Welson assured him if true happiness could be considered a meed for equivalent reciprocation, the Heracleans had conferred far more by their example than they had received.
Dosch. “Then you must fain remain content with each other, and bestow your mutual aid upon the less favored for the recognition of your source of happiness. As the day is drawing to a close, perhaps Dr. Baāhar will favor us, and the other children, with his impressions and ideas derived from his associations of the day?”
The doctor, without apology, responded as follows: “During the day I have been so enchanted with the harmonizing voices of the parents and children, free from chiding, whining importunities and reproachful bitterness, common to our schools, both male and female, that I was often prompted to speak to you of the effect that has ever been accorded to harmony in musical concord, from the remotest antiquity; but checked myself from reverting to classical fables in view of the brighter reality of your example, which has impressed me with the reflection of a future, made glorious with the realization of your true affection, as the only abiding source of happiness. We feel ourselves novices in appreciation and capacity for reciprocation, as well as in the power of self-command, but will treasure your loving example for a clearer perception of our faults of omission and commission. Notwithstanding our gratitude has but recently emerged from its cocoon of selfishness, we feel that its rays are brighter, warmer, and more kindly in their influence and extension, and truly hope that we shall be able to reflect your example for the lasting good of the well disposed. If the possibility or probability of reducing a woman’s tongue, young or old, of any race, to the limits of useful, witty, or consoling speech, dictated from thoughtful impressions for kindly reciprocation, had been advocated in my presence by the members of the royal scientific societies of London, Paris, or Berlin, I should have given less heed to their arguments in support of feasibility, than to the babblings of a brook. Or if in prophecy, the scenes of to-day had been foretold as a probable event likely to occur by any transition, I should have attributed its source to the fantastical chimeras of a fool. Moreover, if in thought suggestion the Manatitlan auramentors had substituted the idea that I could improve upon ancestral precedents, I should have thought myself, when free from their influence, subject to the freaks of insanity. Albeit not much given to respect in following advice, or imitating parental example in my youth, still both law and gospel forbade one to think himself wiser in his generation than his antecedents; from this prevailing authority we expected that our men would wield their swords, and the women their tongues, in opposition to their own promulgated ways and means of salvation, to the end. From the light of this morning’s example I can realize, in view of the past, that inconsistency is the soul of instinctive selfishness, as well as the ‘substance’ of law and gospel, upon which we found our vaunted civilization. In addition, your system of education founded upon the practical adaptation of study to the requirements of life, makes me feel that I have used my brain as a store-house for the vile and useless lumber of past ages, which had better have been buried in the instinctive grave of oblivion. In fact, I have hibernated in common with the class styled learned men, in company with the corrupt bodies of a dead ancestry; and while subject to the winter gloom of instinct, have existed in ritualistic dependence upon the fancied nutriment derived from sucking my mental paws, while in truth exhausting my resources of vitality, and hopes of immortality. But whatever there is in me left of rational appreciation, capable of being cultivated in diversion from the baneful influence of the past, shall be devoted to the welfare of future generations, for the abatement of selfish greed which seeks to accumulate in excess of self-requirements to the detriment of others.”
At the close of the doctor’s declaration of faith, the padre quietly remarked to Mr. Welson, that he fully believed in the Manatitlans and their power of thought substitution. Then, after even-song, Correliana led in a hymn commemorative of Heraclean deliverance, of which the following is an imperfect rendition:—
“Father Supreme, our guide and stay,
When sore opprest for others’ wrongs,
In pity, Thou didst ope a way
To save; to Thee the praise belongs.
“Guide those, to whom we owe the aid,