CHAPTER I.
I answered in the affirmative, and further added that I had a husbandand a son.
The effect of a confession so simple, and so natural, wounded and amazedme.
The Preceptress started back with a look of loathing and abhorrence; butit was almost instantly succeeded by one of compassion.
"You have much to learn," she said gently, "and I desire not to judgeyou harshly. _You_ are the product of a people far back in the darknessof civilization. _We_ are a people who have passed beyond the boundaryof what was once called Natural Law. But, more correctly, we have becomemistresses of Nature's peculiar processes. We influence or control themat will. But before giving you any further explanation I will show youthe gallery containing the portraits of our very ancient ancestors."
She then conducted me into a remote part of the National College, andsliding back a panel containing a magnificent painting, she disclosed along gallery, the existence of which I had never suspected, although Iknew their custom of using ornamented sliding panels instead of doors.Into this I followed her with wonder and increasing surprise. Paintingson canvas, old and dim with age; paintings on porcelain, and a peculiartransparent material, of which I have previously spoken, hung so thickupon the wall you could not have placed a hand between them. They wereall portraits of men. Some were represented in the ancient or mediaevalcostumes of my own ancestry, and some in garbs resembling our modernstyles.
Some had noble countenances, and some bore on their painted visages theunmistakable stamp of passion and vice. It is not complimentary tomyself to confess it, but I began to feel an odd kind of companionshipin this assembly of good and evil looking men, such as I had not feltsince entering this land of pre-eminently noble and lovely women.
As I gazed upon them, arrayed in the armor of some stern warrior, or thevelvet doublet of some gay cavalier, the dark eyes of a debonair knightlooked down upon me with familiar fellowship. There was pride of birth,and the passion of conquest in every line of his haughty, sensuous face.I seemed to breathe the same moral atmosphere that had surrounded me inthe outer world.
_They_ had lived among noble and ignoble deeds I felt sure. _They_ hadbeen swayed by conflicting desires. _They_ had known temptation andresistance, and reluctant compliance. _They_ had experienced thetreachery and ingratitude of humanity, and had dealt in it themselves._They_ had known joy as I had known it, and their sorrow had been as mysorrows. _They_ had loved as I had loved, and sinned as I had sinned,and suffered as I had suffered.
I wept for the first time since my entrance into Mizora, the bittertears of actual experience, and endeavored to convey to the Preceptresssome idea of the painful emotion that possessed me.
"I have noticed," she said, "in your own person and the descriptions youhave given of your native country, a close resemblance to the people andhistory of our nation in ages far remote. These portraits are very old.The majority of them were painted many thousands of years ago. It isonly by our perfect knowledge of color that we are enabled to preservethem. Some have been copied by expert artists upon a materialmanufactured by us for that purpose. It is a transparent adamant thatpossesses no refractive power, consequently the picture has all theadvantage of a painting on canvas, with the addition of perpetuity. Theycan never fade nor decay."
"I am astonished at the existence of this gallery," I exclaimed. "I haveobserved a preference for sliding panels instead of doors, and that theywere often decorated with paintings of rare excellence, but I had neversuspected the existence of this gallery behind one of them."
"Any student," said the Preceptress, "who desires to become conversantwith our earliest history, can use this gallery. It is not a secret, fornothing in Mizora is concealed; but we do not parade its existence, norurge upon students an investigation of its history. They are so farremoved from the moral imbecility that dwarfed the nature of thesepeople, that no lesson can be learned from their lives; and their timecan be so much more profitably spent in scientific research and study."
"You have not, then, reached the limits of scientific knowledge?" Iwonderingly inquired, for, to me, they had already overstepped itsimaginary pale.
"When we do we shall be able to create intellect at will. We govern to acertain extent the development of physical life; but the formation ofthe brain--its intellectual force, or capacity I should say--is beyondour immediate skill. Genius is yet the product of long cultivation."
I had observed that dark hair and eyes were as indiscriminately mingledin these portraits as I had been accustomed to find them in the livingpeople of my own and other countries. I drew the Preceptress' attentionto it.
"We believe that the highest excellence of moral and mental character isalone attainable by a fair race. The elements of evil belong to the darkrace."
"And were the people of this country once of mixed complexions?"
"As you see in the portraits? Yes," was the reply.
"And what became of the dark complexions?"
"We eliminated them."
I was too astonished to speak and stood gazing upon the handsome face ofa young man in a plumed hat and lace-frilled doublet. The dark eyes hada haughty look, like a man proud of his lineage and his sex.
"Let us leave this place," said the Preceptress presently. "It alwayshas a depressing effect upon me."
"In what way?" I asked.
"By the degradation of the human race that they force me to recall."
I followed her out to a seat on one of the small porticoes.
In candidly expressing herself about the dark complexions, my companionhad no intention or thought of wounding my feelings. So rigidly do theyadhere to the truth in Mizora that it is of all other thingspre-eminent, and is never supposed to give offense. The Preceptress butgave expression to the belief inculcated by centuries of the teachingsand practices of her ancestors. I was not offended. It was herconviction. Besides, I had the consolation of secretly disagreeing withher. I am still of the opinion that their admirable system ofgovernment, social and political, and their encouragement and provisionfor universal culture of so high an order, had more to do with theformation of superlative character than the elimination of the darkcomplexion.
The Preceptress remained silent a long time, apparently absorbed in thebeauty of the landscape that stretched before us. The falling waters ofa fountain was all the sound we heard. The hour was auspicious. I was soeager to develop a revelation of the mystery about these people that Ibecame nervous over my companion's protracted silence. I felt a delicacyin pressing inquiries concerning information that I thought ought to bevoluntarily given. Inquisitiveness was regarded as a gross rudeness bythem, and I could frame no question that I did not fear would soundimpertinent. But at last patience gave way and, at the risk ofincreasing her commiseration for my barbarous mental condition, I asked:
"Are you conversant with the history of the times occupied by theoriginals of the portraits we have just seen?"
"I am," she replied.
"And would you object to giving me a condensed recital of it?"
"Not if it can do you any good?"
"What has become of their descendants--of those portraits?"
"They became extinct thousands of years ago."
She became silent again, lost in reverie. The agitation of my mind wasnot longer endurable. I was too near the acme of curiosity to longerdelay. I threw reserve aside and not without fear and trembling falteredout:
"Where are the men of this country? Where do they stay?"
_"There are none_," was the startling reply. "_The race became extinctthree thousand years ago._"