THE COMMENCEMENT OF WONDERS, WHICH ARE THE MORE EXTRAORDINARY ON
ACCOUNT OF THEIR TRUTH.
I dare say my head had been on the pillow fully an hour before sleep
closed my eyes. During this time I had abundant occasion to
understand the activity of what are called the "busy thoughts." Mine
were feverish, glowing, and restless. They wandered over a wild
field; one that included Anna, with her beauty, her mild truth, her
womanly softness, and her womanly cruelty; Captain Poke and his
peculiar opinions; the amiable family of quadrupeds and their
wounded sensibilities; the excellences of the social-stake system;
and, in short, most of that which I had seen and heard during the
last four-and-twenty hours. When sleep did tardily arrive, it
overtook me at the very moment that I had inwardly vowed to forget
my heartless mistress, and to devote the remainder of my life to the
promulgation of the doctrine of the expansive-super-human-
generalized-affection-principle, to the utter exclusion of all
narrow and selfish views, and in which I resolved to associate
myself with Mr. Poke, as with one who had seen a great deal of this
earth and its inhabitants, without narrowing down his sympathies in
favor of any one place or person in particular, Stunin'tun and
himself very properly excepted.
It was broad daylight when I awoke on the following morning. My
spirits were calmed by rest, and my nerves had been soothed by the
balmy freshness of the atmosphere. It appeared that my valet had
entered and admitted the morning air, and then had withdrawn as
usual to await the signal of the bell before he presumed to
reappear. I lay many minutes in delicious repose, enjoying the
periodical return of life and reason, bringing with it the pleasures
of thought and its ten thousand agreeable associations. The
delightful reverie into which I was insensibly dropping was,
however, ere long arrested by low, murmuring, and, as I thought,
plaintive voices at no great distance from my own bed. Seating
myself erect, I listened intently and with a good deal of surprise;
for it was not easy to imagine whence sounds so unusual for that
place and hour could proceed. The discourse was earnest and even
animated; but it was carried on in so low a tone that it would have
been utterly inaudible but for the deep quiet of the hotel.
Occasionally a word reached my ear, and I was completely at fault in
endeavoring to ascertain even the language. That it was in neither
of the five great European tongues I was certain, for all these I
either spoke or read; and there were particular sounds and
inflections that induced me to think that it savored of the most
ancient of the two classics. It is true that the prosody of these
dialects, at the same time that it is a shibboleth of learning, is a
disputed point, the very sounds of the vowels even being a matter of
national convention; the Latin word dux, for instance, being ducks
in England, docks in Italy, and dukes in France: yet there is a 'je
ne sais quoi,' a delicacy in the auricular taste of a true scholar,
that will rarely lead him astray when his ears are greeted with
words that have been used by Demosthenes or Cicero. [Footnote: Or
Chichero, or Kickero, whichever may happen to suit the prejudices of
the reader.] In the present instance I distinctly heard the word my-
bom-y-nos-fos-kom-i-ton, which I made sure was a verb in the dual
number and second person, of a Greek root, but of a signification
that I could not on the instant master, but which beyond a question
every scholar will recognize as having a strong analogy to a well-
known line in Homer. If I was puzzled with the syllables that
accidentally reached me, I was no less perplexed with the
intonations of the voices of the different speakers. While it was
easy to understand they were of the two sexes, they had no direct
affinity to the mumbling sibilations of the English, the vehement
monotony of the French, the gagging sonorousness of the Spaniards,
the noisy melody of the Italians, the ear-splitting octaves of the
Germans, or the undulating, head-over-heels enunciation of the
countrymen of my particular acquaintance Captain Noah Poke. Of all
the living languages of which I had any knowledge, the resemblance
was nearer to the Danish and Swedish than to any other; but I much
doubted at the time I first heard the syllables, and still question,
if there is exactly such a word as my-bom-y-nos-fos-kom-i-ton to be
found in even either of those tongues. I could no longer support the
suspense. The classical and learned doubts that beset me grew
intensely painful; and arising with the greatest caution, in order
not to alarm the speakers, I prepared to put an end to them all by
the simple and natural process of actual observation.
The voices came from the antechamber, the door of which was slightly
open. Throwing on a dressing-gown, and thrusting my feet into
slippers, I moved on tiptoe to the aperture, and placed my eye in
such a situation as enabled me to command a view of the persons of
those who were still earnestly talking in the adjoining room. All
surprise vanished the moment I found that the four monkeys were
grouped in a corner of the apartment, where they were carrying on a
very animated dialogue, the two oldest of the party (a male and a
female) being the principal speakers. It was not to be expected that
even a graduate of Oxford, although belonging to a sect so
proverbial for classical lore that many of them knew nothing else,
could at the first hearing decide upon the analogies and character
of a tongue that is so little cultivated even in that ancient sea of
learning. Although I had now certainly a direct clew to the root of
the dialect of the speakers, I found it quite impossible to get any
useful acquaintance with the general drift of what was passing among
them. As they were my guests, however, and might possibly be in want
of some of the conveniences that were necessary to their habits, or
might even be suffering under still graver embarrassments, I
conceived it to be a duty to waive the ordinary usages of society,
and at once offer whatever it was in my power to bestow, at the risk
of interrupting concerns that they might possibly wish to consider
private. Using the precaution, therefore, to make a little noise, as
the best means of announcing my approach, the door was gently
opened, and I presented myself to view. At first I was a little at a
loss in what manner to address the strangers; but believing that a
people who spoke a language so difficult of utterance and so rich as
that I had just heard, like those who use dialects derived from the
Slavonian root, were most probably the masters of all others; and
remembering, moreover, that French was a medium of thought among all
polite people, I determined to have recourse to that
tongue. "Messieurs et mesdames," I said, inclining my body in
salutation, "mille pardons four cette intrusion feu convenable"--but
as I am writing in English it may be well to translate the speeches
as I proceed; although I abandon with regret the advantage of going
through them literally, and in the appropriate dialect in which they
were originally spoken.
"Gentlemen and ladies," I said, inclining my body in salutation, "I
ask a thousand pardons for this inopportune intrusion on your
retirement; but overhearing a few of what I much fear are but too
well-grounded complaints, touching the false position in which you
are placed as the occupant of this apartment, and in that light your
host, I have ventured to approach, with no other desire than the
wish that you would make me the repository of all your griefs, in
order, if possible, that they may be repaired as soon as
circumstances shall in any manner allow."
The strangers were very naturally a little startled at my unexpected
appearance, and at the substance of what I had just said. I observed
that the two ladies were apparently in some slight degree even
distressed, the younger turning her head on one side in maiden
modesty, while the elder, a duenna sort of looking person, dropped
her eyes to the floor, but succeeded in better maintaining her self-
possession and gravity. The eldest of the two gentlemen approached
me with dignified composure, after a moment of hesitation, and
returning my salute by waving his tail with singular grace and
decorum, he answered as follows. I may as well state in this place
that he spoke the French about as well as an Englishman who has
lived long enough on the continent to fancy he can travel in the
provinces without being detected for a foreigner. Au reste, his
accent was slightly Russian, and his enunciation whistling and
harmonious. The females, especially in some of the lower keys of
their voices, made sounds not unlike the sighing tones of the Eolian
harp. It was really a pleasure to hear them; but I have often had
occasion to remark that, in every country but one, which I do not
care to name, the language when uttered by the softer sex takes new
charms, and is rendered more delightful to the ear.
"Sir," said the stranger, when he had done waving his tail, "I
should do great injustice to my feelings, and to the monikin
character in general, were I to neglect expressing some small
portion of the gratitude I feel on the present occasion. Destitute,
houseless, insulted wanderers and captives, fortune has at length
shed a ray of happiness on our miserable condition, and hope begins
to shine through the cloud of our distress, like a passing gleam of
the sun. From my very tail, sir, in my own name and in that of this
excellent and most prudent matron, and in those of these two noble
and youthful lovers, I thank you. Yes! honorable and humane being of
the genus homo, species Anglicus, we all return our most tail-felt
acknowledgments of your goodness!"
Here the whole party gracefully bent the ornaments in question over
their heads, touching their receding foreheads with the several
tips, and bowed. I would have given ten thousand pounds at that
moment to have had a good investment in tails, in order to emulate
their form of courtesy; but naked, shorn, and destitute as I was,
with a feeling of humility I was obliged to put my head a little on
one shoulder and give the ordinary English bob, in return for their
more elaborate politeness.
"If I were merely to say, sir," I continued, when the opening
salutations were thus properly exchanged, "that I am charmed at this
accidental interview, the word would prove very insufficient to
express my delight. Consider this hotel as your own; its domestics
as your domestics; its stores of condiments as your stores of
condiments, and its nominal tenant as your most humble servant and
friend. I have been greatly shocked at the indignities to which you
have hitherto been exposed, and now promise you liberty, kindness,
and all those attentions to which it is very apparent you are fully
entitled by your birth, breeding, and the delicacy of your
sentiments. I congratulate myself a thousand times for having been
so fortunate as to make your acquaintance. My greatest desire has
always been to stimulate the sympathies; but until to-day various
accidents have confined the cultivation of this heaven-born property
in a great measure to my own species; I now look forward, however,
to a delicious career of new-born interests in the whole of the
animal creation, I need scarcely say in that of quadrupeds of your
family in particular."
"Whether we belong to the class of quadrupeds or not, is a question
that has a good deal embarrassed our own savans" returned the
stranger. "There is an ambiguity in our physical action that renders
the point a little questionable; and therefore, I think, the higher
castes of our natural philosophers rather prefer classing the entire
monikin species, with all its varieties, as caudae-jactans, or tail-
wavers; adopting the term from the nobler part of the animal
formation. Is not this the better opinion at home, my Lord
Chatterino?" he asked, turning to the youth, who stood respectfully
at his side.
"Such, I believe, my dear Doctor, was the last classification
sanctioned by the academy," the young noble replied, with a
readiness that proved him to be both well-informed and intelligent,
and at the same time with a reserve of manner that did equal credit
to his modesty and breeding. "The question of whether we are or are
not bipeds has greatly agitated the schools for more than three
centuries."
"The use of this gentleman's name," I hastily rejoined, "my dear
sir, reminds me that we are but half acquainted with each other.
Permit me to waive ceremony, and to announce myself at once as Sir
John Goldencalf, Baronet, of Householder Hall, in the kingdom of
Great Britain, a poor admirer of excellence wherever it is to be
found, or under whatever form, and a devotee of the system of the
'social-stake.'"
"I am happy to be admitted to the honor of this formal introduction,
Sir John. In return I beg you will suffer me to say that this young
nobleman is, in our own dialect, No. 6, purple; or, to translate the
appellation, my Lord Chat-terino. This young lady is No. 4, violet,
or, my Lady Chatterissa. This excellent and prudent matron is No.
4,626,243, russet, or, Mistress Vigilance Lynx, to translate her
appellation also into the English tongue; and that I am No. 22,817,
brown-study color, or, Dr. Reasono, to give you a literal
signification of my name--a poor disciple of the philosophers of our
race, an LL.D., and a F.U.D.G.E., the travelling tutor of this heir
of one of the most illustrious and the most ancient houses of the
island of Leaphigh, in the monikin section of mortality."
"Every syllable, learned Dr. Reasono, that falls from your revered
lips only whets curiosity and adds fuel to the flame of desire,
tempting me to inquire further into your private history, your
future intentions, the polity of your species, and all those
interesting topics that will readily suggest themselves to one of
your quick apprehension and extensive acquirements. I dread being
thought indiscreet, and yet, putting yourself in my position, I
trust you will overlook a wish so natural and so ardent."
"Apology is unnecessary, Sir John, and nothing would afford me
greater satisfaction than to answer any and every inquiry you may be
disposed to make."
"Then, sir, to cut short all useless circumlocution, suffer me to
ask at once an explanation of the system of enumeration by which you
indicate individuals? You are called No. 22,817, brown-study color--
"
"Or Dr. Reasono. As you are an Englishman, you will perhaps
understand me better if I refer to a recent practice of the new
London police. You may have observed that the men wear letters in
red or white, and numbers on the capes of their coats. By the
letters the passenger can refer to the company of the officer, while
the number indicates the individual. Now, the idea of this
improvement came, I make no doubt, from our system, under which
society is divided into castes, for the sake of harmony and
subordination, and these castes are designated by colors and shades
of colors that are significant of their stations and pursuits--the
individual, as in the new police, being known by the number. Our own
language being exceedingly sententious, is capable of expressing the
most elaborate of these combinations in a very few sounds. I should
add that there is no difference in the manner of distinguishing the
sexes, with the exception that each is numbered apart, and each has
a counterpart color to that of the same caste in the other sex. Thus
purple and violet are both noble, the former being masculine and the
latter feminine, and russet being the counterpart of brown-study
color."
"And--excuse my natural ardor to know more--and do you bear these
numbers and colors marked on your attire in your own region?"
"As for attire, Sir John, the monikins are too highly improved,
mentally and physically, to need any. It is known that in all cases
extremes meet. The savage is nearer to nature than the merely
civilized being, and the creature that has passed the mystifications
of a middle state of improvement finds himself again approaching
nearer to the habits, the wishes, and the opinions of our common
mother. As the real gentleman is more simple in manners than the
distant imitator of his deportment; as fashions and habits are
always more exaggerated in provincial towns than in polished
capitals; or as the profound philosopher has less pretensions than
the tyro, so does our common genus, as it draws nearer to the
consummation of its destiny and its highest attainments, learn to
reject the most valued usages of the middle condition, and to return
with ardor towards nature as to a first love. It is on this
principle, sir, that the monikin family never wear clothes."
"I could not but perceive that the ladies have manifested some
embarrassment ever since I entered--is it possible that their
delicacy has taken the alarm at the state of my toilet?"
"At the toilet itself, Sir John, rather than at its state, if I must
speak plainly. The female mind, trained as it is with us from
infancy upwards in the habits and usages of nature, is shocked by
any departure from her rules. You will know how to make allowances
for the squeamishness of the sex, for I believe it is much alike in
this particular, let it come from what quarter of the earth it may."
"I can only excuse the seeming want of politeness by my ignorance,
Dr. Reasono. Before I ask another question the oversight shall be
repaired. I must retire into my own chamber for an instant,
gentlemen and ladies, and I beg you will find such sources of
amusement as first offer until I can return. There are nuts, I
believe, in this closet; sugar is usually kept on that table, and
perhaps the ladies might find some relaxation by exercising
themselves on the chairs. In a single moment I shall be with you
again."
Hereupon I withdrew into my bed-chamber, and began to lay aside the
dressing-gown as well as my shirt. Remembering, however, that I was
but too liable to colds in the head, I returned to ask Dr. Reasono
to step in where I was for an instant. On mentioning the difficulty,
this excellent person assumed the office of preparing his female
friends to overlook the slight innovation of my still wearing the
nightcap and slippers.
"The ladies would think nothing of it," the philosopher good-
humoredly remarked, by way of lessening my regrets at having wounded
their sensibilities, "were you even to appear in a military cloak
and Hessian boots, provided it was not thought that you were of
their acquaintance and in their immediate society. I think you must
have often remarked among the sex of your own species, who are
frequently quite indifferent to nudities (their prejudices running
counter to ours) that appear in the streets, but which would cause
them instantly to run out of the room when exhibited in the person
of an acquaintance; these conventional asides being tolerated
everywhere by a judicious concession of punctilios that might
otherwise become insupportable."
"The distinction is too reasonable to require another word of
explanation, dear sir. Now let us rejoin the ladies, since I am at
length in some degree fit to be seen."
I was rewarded for this bit of delicate attention by an approving
smile from the lovely Chatterissa, and good Mistress Lynx no longer
kept her eyes riveted on the floor, but bent them on me with looks
of admiration and gratitude.
"Now that this little contre-temps is no longer an obstacle," I
resumed, "permit me to continue those inquiries which you have
hitherto answered with so much amenity and so satisfactorily. As you
have no clothes, in what manner is the parallel between your usage
and that of the new London police practically completed?"
"Although we have no clothes, nature, whose laws are never violated
with impunity, but who is as beneficent as she is absolute, has
furnished us with a downy covering to supply their places wherever
clothes are needed for comfort. We have coats that defy fashions,
require no tailors, and never lose their naps. But it would be
inconvenient to be totally clad in this manner; and, therefore, the
palms of the hands are, as you see, ungloved; the portions of the
frame on which we seat ourselves are left uncovered, most probably
lest some inconvenience should arise from taking accidental and
unfavorable positions. This is the part of the monikin frame the
best adapted for receiving paint, and the numbers of which I have
spoken are periodically renewed there, at public offices appointed
for that purpose. Our characters are so minute as to escape the
human eye; but by using that opera-glass, I make no doubt that you
may still see some of my own enregistration, although, alas! unusual
friction, great misery, and, I may say, unmerited wrongs, have
nearly un-monikined me in this, as well as in various other
particulars."
As Dr. Reasono had the complaisance to turn round, and to use his
tail like the index of a black-board, by aid of the glass I very
distinctly traced the figures to which he alluded. Instead of being
in paint, however, as he had given me reason to anticipate, they
seemed to be branded, or burnt in, indelibly, as we commonly mark
horses, thieves, and negroes. On mentioning the fact to the
philosopher, it was explained with his usual facility and
politeness.
"You are quite right, sir," he said; "the omission of paint was to
prevent tautology, an offence against the simplicity of the monikin
dialect, as well as against monikin taste, that would have been
sufficient, under our opinions, even to overturn the government."
"Tautology!"
"Tautology, Sir John; on examining the background of the picture,
you will perceive that it is already of a dusky, sombre hue; now,
this being of a meditative and grave character, has been denominated
by our academy the 'brown-study color'; and it would clearly have
been supererogatory to lay the same tint upon it. No, sir; we avoid
repetitions even in our prayers, deeming them to be so many proofs
of an illogical and of an anti-consecutive mind."
"The system is admirable, and I see new beauties at each moment. You
enjoy the advantage, for instance, under this mode of enumeration,
of knowing your acquaintances from behind, quite as well as if you
met them face to face!"
"The suggestion is ingenious, showing an active and an observant
mind; but it does not quite reach the motive of the politico-
numerical-identity system of which we are speaking. The objects of
this arrangement are altogether of a higher and more useful nature;
nor do we usually recognize our friends by their countenances, which
at the best are no more than so many false signals, but by their
tails."
"This is admirable! What a facility you possess for recognizing an
acquaintance who may happen to be up a tree! But may I presume to
inquire, Dr. Reasono, what are the most approved of the advantages
of the politico-numerical-identity system? For impatience is
devouring my vitals."
"They are connected with the interests of government. You know, sir,
that society is established for the purposes of governments, and
governments, themselves, mainly to facilitate contributions and
taxations. Now, by the numerical system, we have every opportunity
of including the whole monikin race in the collections, as they are
periodically checked off by their numbers. The idea was a happy
thought of an eminent statistician of ours, who gained great credit
at court by the invention, and, in fact, who was admitted to the
academy in consequence of its ingenuity."
"Still it must be admitted, my dear Doctor," put in Lord Chatterino,
always with the modesty, and, perhaps I might add, with the
generosity of youth, "that there are some among us who deny that
society was made for governments, and who maintain that governments
were made for society; or, in other words, for monikins."
"Mere theorists, my good lord; and their opinions, even if true, are
never practised on. Practice is everything in political matters; and
theories are of no use, except as they confirm practice."
"Both theory and practice are perfect," I cried, "and I make no
doubt that the classification into colors, or castes, enables the
authorities to commence the imposts with the richest, or the
'purples.'"
"Sir, monikin prudence never lays the foundation-stone at the
summit; it seeks the base of the edifice; and as contributions are
the walls of society, we commence with the bottom. When you shall
know us better, Sir John Goldencalf, you will begin to comprehend
the beauty and benevolence of the entire monikin economy."
I now adverted to the frequent use of this word "monikin"; and,
admitting my ignorance, desired an explanation of the term, as well
as a more general insight into the origin, history, hopes, and
polity of the interesting strangers; if they can be so called who
were already so well known to me. Dr. Reasono admitted that the
request was natural and was entitled to respect; but he delicately
suggested the necessity of sustaining the animal function by
nutriment, intimating that the ladies had supped but in an
indifferent way the evening before, and acknowledging that,
philosopher as he was, he should go through the desired explanations
after improving the slight acquaintance he had already made with
certain condiments in one of the armoires, with far more zeal and
point, than could possibly be done in the present state of his
appetite. The suggestion was so very plausible that there was. no
resisting it; and, suppressing my curiosity as well as I could, the
bell was rung. I retired to my bed-chamber to resume so much of my
attire as was necessary to the semi-civilization of man, and then
the necessary orders were given to the domestics, who, by the way,
were suffered to remain under the influence of those ordinary and
vulgar prejudices that are pretty generally entertained by the
human, against the monikin family.
Previously to separating from my new friend Dr. Reasono, however, I
took him aside, and stated that I had an acquaintance in the hotel,
a person of singular philosophy, after the human fashion, and a
great traveller; and that I desired permission to let him into the
secret of our intended lecture on the monikin economy, and to bring
him with me as an auditor. To this request, No. 22,817, brown-study
color, or Dr. Reasono, gave a very cordial assent; hinting
delicately, at the same time, his expectation that this new auditor,
who, of course, was no other than Captain Noah Poke, would not deem
it disparaging to his manhood, to consult the sensibilities of the
ladies, by appearing in the garments of that only decent and
respectable tailor and draper, nature. To this suggestion I gave a
ready approval; when each went his way, after the usual salutations
of bowing and tail-waving, with a mutual promise of being punctual
to the appointment.