The clothing of the Intermereans, wrought from native materials not wholly unlike, except an to quality, those utilized by other peoples, is of a texture and finish beyond the conception of the outer world, and of such colors and combinations of tints as to breathe, as it were, both art and aptitude.
The garments of both sexes more nearly resemble those in Europe and America than any others, and yet they are very unlike in striking points. Speaking of this similitude, I may say that the polity and institutions, and mental and physical characteristics of the people who live under them, more nearly resemble those of America than of any other nation or people.
But at that, how wide and deep and apparently impassable is the gulf that separates them. Ours is but the faint promise; theirs the fulfillment of the completed prophecy.
Did we start on the journey? Have we halted just beyond the first milestone? Will the journey be resumed? Will our remoter generations reach the Ultima Thule? What splendid hope or what illimitable despair and misery depend upon the Sphinx's answer to these questions!
While Intermere is not sown with diamonds and pearls and precious stones and metals, they were to be seen in profusion everywhere, not as matters of garish display, but of artistic taste. I doubt not that the Intermereans, through their successful study of Nature, possess the Philosopher's Stone, capable of combining and transmuting every substance into the riches for which men die and women sacrifice more than life, and nations crush nations, and peoples destroy peoples, gathering the Dead Sea fruits that turn to bitter ashes on their lips.
These people place no more commercial value upon these than they do upon the tints of the rainbow, or the purple haze that hangs like a halo above the mountain tops. To them they are but artistic types of beauty that add to life's true enjoyments.
In mingling socially with the men and women—they do not speak of them as ladies and gentlemen—of Intermere, I was struck with their ease and delicate frankness of entertainment. They were very human indeed in every way. There was no affectation in speech or manner. They were good listeners as well as good talkers, fond of art and the lofty literature in which they were naturally at home; anxious to learn something about the outside world from their visitor, and yet not inquisitive, never asking an embarrassing question.
Their literary and social entertainments, many of which I attended, while altogether new and strange to me, were none the less thoroughly enjoyable. Their social games were unique—to me—and in all respects I was struck with their great superiority, and forcibly impressed with the belief that their lives were indeed worth living.
Their conceptions of art were of the highest and most exalted character. Their tastes were not only refined but sublimated, and I felt abashed at my own inability to follow them rapidly, or fully comprehend them on the moment.