CHAPTER VII.
One of the most curious and pleasing sights in Mizora was the flowergardens and conservatories. Roses of all sizes and colors and shades ofcolor were there. Some two feet across were placed by the side of othersnot exceeding the fourth of an inch in order to display the disparity insize.
To enter into a minute description of all the discoveries made by theMizora people in fruit and floriculture, would be too tedious; sufficeto say they had laid their hands upon the beautiful and compelled natureto reveal to them the secret of its formation. The number of petals,their color, shape and size, were produced as desired. The only thingthey could neither create nor destroy was its perfume. I questioned thePreceptress as to the possibility of its ever being discovered? Shereplied:
"It is the one secret of the rose that Nature refuses to reveal. I donot believe we shall ever possess the power to increase or diminish theodor of a flower. I believe that Nature will always reserve to herselfthe secret of its creation. The success that we enjoy in the wonderfulcultivation of our fruits and flowers was one of our earliest scientificconquests."
I learned that their orchards never failed to yield a bounteous harvest.They had many fruits that were new to me, and some that were new andgreatly improved species of kinds that I had already seen and eaten inmy own or other countries. Nothing that they cultivated was ever withoutits own peculiar beauty as well as usefulness. Their orchards, when thefruit was ripe, presented a picture of unique charm. Their trees werealways trained into graceful shapes, and when the ripe fruit gleamedthrough the dark green foliage, every tree looked like a huge bouquet. Acherry tree that I much admired, and the fruit of which I foundsurpassingly delicious, I must allow myself to describe. The cherrieswere not surprisingly large, but were of the colors and transparency ofhoney. They were seedless, the tree having to be propagated from slips.When the fruit was ripe the tree looked like a huge ball of pale ambergems hiding in the shadows of dark pointed leaves.
Their grape arbors were delightful pictures in their season of maturity.Some vines had clusters of fruit three feet long; but these I was toldwere only to show what they _could_ do in grape culture. The usual andmarketable size of a bunch was from one to two pounds weight. The fruitwas always perfect that was offered for sale.
Science had provided the fruit growers of Mizora with permanentprotections from all kinds of blight or decay.
When I considered the wholesomeness of all kinds of food prepared forthe inhabitants of this favored land. I began to think they might owe agoodly portion of their exceptional health to it, and a large share oftheir national amiability to their physical comfort. I made some suchobservation to the Preceptress, and she admitted its correctness.
"The first step that my people made toward the eradication of diseasewas in the preparation of healthy food; not for the rich, who couldobtain it themselves, but for the whole nation."
I asked for further information and she added:
"Science discovered that mysterious and complicated diseases often hadtheir origin in adulterated food. People suffered and died, ignorant ofwhat produced their disease. The law, in the first place, rigidlyenforced the marketing of clean and perfect fruit, and a wholesomequality of all other provisions. This was at first difficult to do, asin those ancient days, (I refer to a very remote period of our history)in order to make usurious profit, dealers adulterated all kinds of food;often with poisonous substances. When every state took charge of itsmarkets and provided free schools for cooking, progress took a rapidadvance. Do you wonder at it? Reflect then. How could I force my mindinto complete absorption of some new combination of chemicals, while thegastric juice in my stomach was battling with sour or adulterated food?Nature would compel me to pay some attention to the discomfort of mydigestive organs, and it might happen at a time when I was on the vergeof a revelation in science, which might be lost. You may think it aninsignificant matter to speak of in connection with the grandenlightenment that we possess; but Nature herself is a mass of littlethings. Our bodies, strong and supple as they are, are nothing but aunion of tiny cells. It is by the investigation of little things that wehave reached the great ones."
I felt a keen desire to know more about their progress toward universalhealth, feeling assured that the history of the extirpation of diseasemust be curious and instructive. I had been previously made acquaintedwith the fact that disease was really unknown to them, save in itshistorical existence. To cull this isolated history from their vastlibraries of past events, would require a great deal of patient andlaborious research, and the necessary reading of a great deal of matterthat I could not be interested in, and that could not beside be of anyreal value to me, so I requested the Preceptress to give me anepitomized history of it in her own language, merely relating such factsas might be useful to me, and that I could comprehend, for I may as wellbring forward the fact that, in comparison to theirs, my mind was as asavages would be to our civilization.
Their brain was of a finer intellectual fiber. It possessed a wider,grander, more majestic receptivity. They absorbed ideas that passed overme like a cloud. Their imaginations were etherealized. They reached intowhat appeared to be materialless space, and brought from it substances Ihad never heard of before, and by processes I could not comprehend. Theydivided matter into new elements and utilized them. They disintegratedmatter, added to it new properties and produced a different material. Isaw the effects and uses of their chemistry, but that was all.
There are minds belonging to my own age, as there have been to all ages,that are intellectually in advance of it. They live in a mental andprophetic world of their own, and leave behind them discoveries,inventions and teachings that benefit and ennoble the generations tocome. Could such a mind have chanced upon Mizora, as I chanced upon it,it might have consorted with its intellect, and brought from thecompanionship ideas that I could not receive, and sciences that I canfind no words in my language to represent. The impression that my owncountry might make upon a savage, may describe my relation to Mizora.What could an uncivilized mind say of our railroads, or magnificentcathedrals, our palaces, our splendor, our wealth, our works of art.They would be as difficult of representation as were the lofty aims, theunselfishness in living, the perfect love, honor and intellectualgrandeur, and the universal comfort and luxury found in Mizora, were tome. To them the cultivation of the mind was an imperative duty, thatneither age nor condition retarded. To do good, to be approved by theirown conscience, was their constant pleasure.