The Monikins Part 40

"Anna!--dearest Anna!"--I covered the rosy fingers with kisses.

"Let us be tranquil, Jack, and if possible, endeavor to be reasonable, too."

"If I thought this could really cost one habitually discreet as you an effort, Anna?"

"One habitually discreet as I, is as likely to feel strongly on meeting an old friend, as another."

"I think it would make me perfectly happy, could I see thee weep."

As if waiting only for this hint, Anna burst into a flood of tears.

I was frightened, for her sobs became hysterical and convulsed. Those precious sentiments which had been so long imprisoned in her gentle bosom, obtained the mastery, and I was well paid for my selfishness, by experiencing an alarm little less violent than her own outpouring of feeling.

Touching the incidents, emotions, and language of the next half hour, it is not my intention to be very communicative. Anna was ingenuous, unreserved, and, if I might judge by the rosy blushes that suffused her sweet face, and the manner in which she extricated herself from my protecting arms, I believe I must add, she deemed herself indiscreet in that she had been so unreserved and ingenuous.

"We can now converse more calmly, Jack," the dear creature resumed, after she had erased the signs of emotion from her cheeks--"more calmly, if not more sensibly."

"The wisdom of Solomon is not half so precious as the words I have just heard--and as for the music of spheres--"

"It is a melody that angels only enjoy."

"And art not thou an angel?"

"No, Jack, only a poor, confiding girl; one instinct with the affections and weaknesses of her s.e.x, and one whom it must be your part to sustain and direct. If we begin by calling each other by these superhuman epithets, we may awake from the delusion sooner than if we commence with believing ourselves to be no other than what we really are. I love you for your kind, excellent, and generous heart, Jack; and as for these poetical beings, they are rather proverbial, I believe, for having no hearts at all."

As Anna mildly checked my exaggeration of language--after ten years of marriage I am unwilling to admit there was any exaggeration of idea--she placed her little velvet hand in mine again, smiling away all the severity of the reproof.

"Of one thing, I think you may rest perfectly a.s.sured, dear girl," I resumed, after a moment's reflection. "All my old opinions concerning expansion and contraction are radically changed. I have carried out the principle of the social-stake system in the extreme, and cannot say that I have been at all satisfied with its success. At this moment I am the proprietor of vested interests which are scattered over half the world.

So far from finding that I love my kind any more for all these social stakes, I am compelled to see that the wish to protect one, is constantly driving me into acts of injustice against all the others.

There is something wrong, depend on it, Anna, in the old dogmas of political economists!"

"I know little of these things, Sir John, but to one ignorant as myself, it would appear that the most certain security for the righteous exercise of power is to be found in just principles."

"If available, beyond a question. They who contend that the debased and ignorant are unfit to express their opinions concerning the public weal, are obliged to own that they can only be restrained by force. Now, as knowledge is power, their first precaution is to keep them ignorant; and then they quote this very ignorance, with all its debasing consequences, as an argument against their partic.i.p.ating in authority with themselves.

I believe there can be no safe medium between a frank admission of the whole principle--"

"You should remember, dear Goldencalf, that this is a subject on which I know but little. It ought to be sufficient for us that we find things as they are; if change is actually necessary, we should endeavor to effect it with prudence and a proper regard to justice."

Anna, while kindly leading me back from my speculations, looked both anxious and pained.

"True--true"--I hurriedly rejoined, for a world would not tempt me to prolong her suffering for a moment. "I am foolish and forgetful, to be talking thus at such a moment; but I have endured too much to be altogether unmindful of ancient theories. I thought it might be grateful to you, at least, to know, Anna, that I have ceased to look for happiness in my affections for all, and am only so much the better disposed to turn in search of it to one."

"To love our neighbor as ourself, is the latest and highest of the divine commands," the dear girl answered, looking a thousand times more lovely than ever, for my conclusion was very far from being displeasing to her. "I do not know that this object is to be attained by centring in our persons as many of the goods of life as possible; but I do think, Jack, that the heart which loves one truly, will be so much the better disposed to entertain kind feelings towards all others."

I kissed the hand she had given me, and we now began to talk a little more like people of the world, concerning our movements. The interview lasted an hour longer, when the heaven. "You never yet were so unkind to one who was offensive; much less could you willingly have plotted this cruelty to one you regard!"

Anna could no longer control herself, but her cheeks were wetted with the usual signs of feeling in her s.e.x. Then smiling in the midst of this little outbreaking of womanly sensibility, her countenance became playful and radiant.

"That letter ought not to be altogether proscribed, neither, Jack. Had it not been written, you would never have visited Leaphigh, nor Leaplow, nor have seen any of those wonderful spectacles which are here recorded."

The dear creature laid her hand on a roll of ma.n.u.script which she had just returned to me, after its perusal. At the same time, her face flushed, as vivid and transient feelings are reflected from the features of the innocent and ingenuous, and she made a faint effort to laugh.

I pa.s.sed a hand over my brow, for whenever this subject is alluded to between us, I invariably feel that there is a species of mistiness, in and about the region of thought. I was not displeased, however, for I knew that a heart which loved so truly would not willingly cause me pain, nor would one habitually so gentle and considerate, utter a syllable that she might have reason to think would seriously displease.

"Hadst thou been with me, love, that journey would always be remembered as one of the pleasantest events of my life, for, while it had its perils and its disagreeables, it had also its moments of extreme satisfaction."

"You will never be an adept in political saltation, John!"

"Perhaps not--but here is a doc.u.ment that will render it less necessary than formerly."

I threw her a packet which had been received that morning from town, by a special messenger, but of whose contents I had not yet spoken. Anna was too young a wife to open it without an approving look from my fond eye. On glancing over its contents, she perceived that I was raised to the House of Peers by the t.i.tle of Viscount Householder. The purchase of three more boroughs, and the influence of my old friend Lord Pledge, had done it all.

The sweet girl looked pleased, for I believe it is in female nature to like to be a viscountess; but, throwing herself into my arms, she protested that her joy was at my elevation and not at her own.

"I owed you this effort, Anna, as some acknowledgment for your faith and disinterestedness in the affair of Lord M'Dee."

"And yet, Jack, he had neither high cheek-bones, nor red hair; and his accent was such as might please a girl less capricious than myself!"

This was said playfully and coquettishly, but in a way to make me feel how near folly would have been to depriving me of a treasure, had the heart I so much prized been less ingenuous and pure. I drew the dear creature to my bosom, as if afraid my rival might yet rob me of her possession. Anna looked up, smiling through her tears; and, making an effort to be calm, she said, in a voice so smothered as to prove how delicate she felt the subject to be:--

"We will speak seldom of this journey, dear John, and try to think of the long and dark journey which is yet before us. We will speak of it, however, for there should be nothing totally concealed between us."

I kissed her serene and humid eyes, and repeated what she had just said, syllable for syllable. Anna has not been unmindful of her words; for rarely, indeed, has she touched on the past, and then oftener in allusion to her own sorrows, than in reference to my impressions.

But, while the subject of my voyage to the monikin region is, in a measure, forbidden between me and my wife, there exists no such restraint as between me and other people. The reader may like to know, therefore, what effect this extraordinary adventure has left on my mind, after an interval of ten years.

There have been moments when the whole has appeared a dream; but, on looking back, and comparing it with other scenes in which I have been an actor, I cannot perceive that this is not quite as indelibly stamped on my memory as those. The facts themselves, moreover, are so very like what I see daily in the course of occurrence around me, that I have come to the conclusion, I did go to Leaphigh in the way related, and that I must have been brought back during the temporary insanity of a fever.

I believe, therefore, that there are such countries as Leaphigh and Leaplow; and after much thought, I am of opinion that great justice has here been done to the monikin character in general.

The result of much meditation on what I witnessed, has been to produce sundry material changes in my former opinions, and to unsettle even many of the notions in which I may be said to have been born and bred. In order to consume as little of the reader's time as possible, I shall set down a summary of my conclusions, and then take my leave of him, with many thanks for his politeness in reading what I have written. Before completing my task in this way, however, it will be well to add a word on the subject of one or two of my fellow-travellers.

I never could make up my mind relating to the fact whether we did or did not actually eat Brigadier Downright. The flesh was so savory, and it tasted so delicious after a week of philosophical meditation on nuts, and the recollection of its pleasures is so very vivid, that I am inclined to think nothing but a good material dinner could have left behind it impressions so lively, I have had many melancholy thoughts on this subject, especially in November; but observing that men are constantly devouring each other, in one shape or another, I endeavor to make the best of it, and to persuade myself that a slight difference in species may exonerate me from the imputation of cannibalism.

I often get letters from Captain Poke. He is not very explicit on the subject of our voyage, it is true; but, on the whole, I have decided that the little s.h.i.+p he constructed was built on the model of, and named after, our own Walrus instead of our own Walrus being built on the model of, and named after, the little s.h.i.+p constructed by Captain Poke. I keep the latter, therefore, to show my friends as a proof of what I tell them, knowing the importance of visible testimony with ordinary minds.

As for Bob and the mates, I never heard any more of them. The former most probably continued a "kickee" until years and experience enabled him to turn the tables on humanity, when, as is usually the case with Christians, he would be very likely to take up the business of a "kicker" with so much the greater zeal on account of his early sufferings.

To conclude, my own adventures and observations lead to the following inferences, viz.:

That every man loves liberty for his own sake and very few for the sake of other people.

That moral saltation is very necessary to political success at Leaplow, and quite probably in many other places.

That civilization is very arbitrary, meaning one thing in France, another thing at Leaphigh, and still a third in Dorsets.h.i.+re.

That there is no sensible difference between motives in the polar region and motives anywhere else.

That truth is a comparative and local property, being much influenced by circ.u.mstances; particularly by climate and by different public opinions.

That there is no portion of human wisdom so select and faultless that it does not contain the seeds of its own refutation.