The Coming Race - Edward Bulwer, Lord Lytton (free ereaders txt) 📗

wander. Though not inclined
22to be superstitious, nor hitherto believing that man could be
brought into bodily communication with demons, I felt the
terror and the wild excitement with which, in the Gothic ages,
a traveller might have persuaded himself that he witnessed a
'sabbat' of fiends and witches. I have a vague recollection of
having attempted with vehement gesticulation, and forms of
exorcism, and loud incoherent words, to repel my courteous and
indulgent host; of his mild endeavors to calm and soothe me; of
his intelligent conjecture that my fright and bewilderment were
occasioned by the difference of form and movement between us
which the wings that had excited my marvelling curiosity had,
in exercise, made still more strongly perceptible; of the
gentle smile with which he had sought to dispel my alarm by
dropping the wings to the ground and endeavouring to show me
that they were but a mechanical contrivance. That sudden
transformation did but increase my horror, and as extreme
fright often shows itself by extreme daring, I sprang at his
throat like a wild beast. On an instant I was felled to the
ground as by an electric shock, and the last confused images
floating before my sight ere I became wholly insensible, were
the form of my host kneeling beside me with one hand on my
forehead, and the beautiful calm face of his daughter, with
large, deep, inscrutable eyes intently fixed upon my own.


Chapter VI.


I remained in this unconscious state, as I afterwards learned,
for many days, even for some weeks according to our computation
of time. When I recovered I was in a strange room, my host and
all his family were gathered round me, and to my utter amaze my
host's daughter accosted me in my own language with a slightly
foreign accent.

"How do you feel?" she asked.

23It was some moments before I could overcome my surprise enough
to falter out, "You know my language? How? Who and what are
you?"

My host smiled and motioned to one of his sons, who then took
from a table a number of thin metallic sheets on which were
traced drawings of various figures- a house, a tree, a bird, a
man, &c.

In these designs I recognised my own style of drawing. Under
each figure was written the name of it in my language, and in
my writing; and in another handwriting a word strange to me
beneath it.

Said the host, "Thus we began; and my daughter Zee, who belongs
to the College of Sages, has been your instructress and ours
too."

Zee then placed before me other metallic sheets, on which, in
my writing, words first, and then sentences, were inscribed.
Under each word and each sentence strange characters in another
hand. Rallying my senses, I comprehended that thus a rude
dictionary had been effected. Had it been done while I was
dreaming? "That is enough now," said Zee, in a tone of command.
"Repose and take food."


Chapter VII.


A room to myself was assigned to me in this vast edifice. It
was prettily and fantastically arranged, but without any of the
splendour of metal-work or gems which was displayed in the more
public apartments. The walls were hung with a variegated
matting made from the stalks and fibers of plants, and the
floor carpeted with the same.

The bed was without curtains, its supports of iron resting on
balls of crystal; the coverings, of a thin white substance
resembling cotton. There were sundry shelves containing books.
24A curtained recess communicated with an aviary filled with
singing- birds, of which I did not recognise one resembling
those I have seen on earth, except a beautiful species of dove,
though this was distinguished from our doves by a tall crest of
bluish plumes. All these birds had been trained to sing in
artful tunes, and greatly exceeded the skill of our piping
bullfinches, which can rarely achieve more than two tunes, and
cannot, I believe, sing those in concert. One might have
supposed one's self at an opera in listening to the voices in
my aviary. There were duets and trios, and quartetts and
choruses, all arranged as in one piece of music. Did I want
silence from the birds? I had but to draw a curtain over the
aviary, and their song hushed as they found themselves left in
the dark. Another opening formed a window, not glazed, but on
touching a spring, a shutter ascended from the floor, formed of
some substance less transparent than glass, but still
sufficiently pellucid to allow a softened view of the scene
without. To this window was attached a balcony, or rather
hanging garden, wherein grew many graceful plants and brilliant
flowers. The apartment and its appurtenances had thus a
character, if strange in detail, still familiar, as a whole, to
modern notions of luxury, and would have excited admiration if
found attached to the apartments of an English duchess or a
fashionable French author. Before I arrived this was Zee's
chamber; she had hospitably assigned it to me.

Some hours after the waking up which is described in my last
chapter, I was lying alone on my couch trying to fix my
thoughts on conjecture as to the nature and genus of the people
amongst whom I was thrown, when my host and his daughter Zee
entered the room. My host, still speaking my native language,
inquired with much politeness, whether it would be agreeable to
me to converse, or if I preferred solitude. I replied, that I
should feel much honoured and obliged by the opportunity
offered me to express my gratitude for the hospitality and
civilities I had received in a country to which I was a stranger,
25and to learn enough of its customs and manners not to offend
through ignorance.

As I spoke, I had of course risen from my couch: but Zee, much
to my confusion, curtly ordered me to lie down again, and there
was something in her voice and eye, gentle as both were, that
compelled my obedience. She then seated herself unconcernedly
at the foot of my bed, while her father took his place on a
divan a few feet distant.

"But what part of the world do you come from?" asked my host,
"that we should appear so strange to you and you to us? I have
seen individual specimens of nearly all the races differing
from our own, except the primeval savages who dwell in the most
desolate and remote recesses of uncultivated nature, unacquainted
with other light than that they obtain from volcanic fires, and
contented to grope their way in the dark, as do many creeping,
crawling and flying things. But certainly you cannot be a
member of those barbarous tribes, nor, on the other hand, do
you seem to belong to any civilised people."

I was somewhat nettled at this last observation, and replied
that I had the honour to belong to one of the most civilised
nations of the earth; and that, so far as light was concerned,
while I admired the ingenuity and disregard of expense with
which my host and his fellow-citizens had contrived to illumine
the regions unpenetrated by the rays of the sun, yet I could
not conceive how any who had once beheld the orbs of heaven
could compare to their lustre the artificial lights invented by
the necessities of man. But my host said he had seen specimens
of most of the races differing from his own, save the wretched
barbarians he had mentioned. Now, was it possible that he had
never been on the surface of the earth, or could he only be
referring to communities buried within its entrails?

My host was for some moments silent; his countenance showed a
degree of surprise which the people of that race very rarely
26manifest under any circumstances, howsoever extraordinary. But
Zee was more intelligent, and exclaimed, "So you see, my
father, that there is truth in the old tradition; there always
is truth in every tradition commonly believed in all times and
by all tribes."

"Zee," said my host mildly, "you belong to the College of
Sages, and ought to be wiser than I am; but, as chief of the
Light-preserving Council, it is my duty to take nothing for
granted till it is proved to the evidence of my own senses."
Then, turning to me, he asked me several questions about the
surface of the earth and the heavenly bodies; upon which,
though I answered him to the best of my knowledge, my answers
seemed not to satisfy nor convince him. He shook his head
quietly, and, changing the subject rather abruptly, asked how I
had come down from what he was pleased to call one world to the
other. I answered, that under the surface of the earth there
were mines containing minerals, or metals, essential to our
wants and our progress in all arts and industries; and I then
briefly explained the manner in which, while exploring one of
those mines, I and my ill-fated friend had obtained a glimpse
of the regions into which we had descended, and how the descent
had cost him his life; appealing to the rope and grappling-
hooks that the child had brought to the house in which I had
been at first received, as a witness of the truthfulness of my
story.

My host then proceeded to question me as to the habits and
modes of life among the races on the upper earth, more
especially among those considered to be the most advanced in
that civilisation which he was pleased to define "the art of
diffusing throughout a community the tranquil happiness which
belongs to a virtuous and well-ordered household." Naturally
desiring to represent in the most favourable colours the world
from which I came, I touched but slightly, though indulgently,
on the antiquated and decaying institutions of Europe, in order
27to expatiate on the present grandeur and prospective
pre-eminence of that glorious American Republic, in which
Europe enviously seeks its model and tremblingly foresees its
doom. Selecting for an example of the social life of the
United States that city in which progress advances at the
fastest rate, I indulged in an animated description of the
moral habits of New York. Mortified to see, by the faces of my
listeners, that I did not make the favourable impression I had
anticipated, I elevated my theme; dwelling on the excellence of
democratic institutions, their promotion of tranquil happiness
by the government of party, and the mode in which they diffused
such happiness throughout the community by preferring, for the
exercise of power and the acquisition of honours, the lowliest
citizens in point of property, education, and character.
Fortunately recollecting the peroration of a speech, on the
purifying influences of American democracy and their destined
spread over the world, made by a certain eloquent senator (for
whose vote in the Senate a Railway Company, to which my two
brothers belonged, had just paid 20,000 dollars), I wound up by
repeating its glowing predictions of the magnificent future
that smiled upon mankind- when the flag of freedom should float
over an entire continent, and two hundred millions of
intelligent citizens, accustomed from infancy to the daily use
of revolvers, should apply to a cowering universe the doctrine
of the Patriot Monroe.

When I had concluded, my host gently shook his head, and fell
into a musing study, making a sign to me and his daughter to
remain silent while he reflected. And after a time he said, in
a very earnest and solemn tone, "If you think as you say, that
you, though a stranger, have received kindness at the hands of
me and mine, I adjure you to reveal nothing to any other of our