Born Again - Alfred William Lawson (fantasy books to read txt) 📗

"And what do you think of your highly civilized people now?" she inquired sadly. "They are a race of tail-less monkeys and filthy beasts with myself included," responded I, with vehemence, and then I began a tirade of abuse against the entire human family.

"Stop," exclaimed Arletta, "you must not allow malice to enter your mind against any living creature, no matter how beastly or brutal it may be. Hatred will not make the world better; it needs love. No living being is responsible for what it is any more than you or I are accountable for being in existence. But while each individual inherits the good or bad instincts of its predecessor, still it has the power to make better or worse its own condition. Love will not only make better your own condition, but that of your fellow beings as well. Do not expect to find in others that which you do not possess yourself. It is your duty to set a good example, not wait for others to accomplish what you have not done yourself. So begin right now with love. Cast away all unkind thoughts and never allow another to enter your mind, no matter what the provocation might be. I admit that the Apeman of today is no better, in fact, in many respects is much inferior to the Apeman who lived over four thousand years ago, but that is because he took the wrong road in trying to reach real manhood. He is still on the wrong path, but must be turned about and started in the right direction. He must be taught that Heaven is here on earth, if he will only make it so. But the earth will never be a paradise, so long as he allows a grain of selfishness to remain in his system. In yonder picture you can see what real men were like. Study their countenances carefully and see if you can read that any one of them ever committed a selfish act or even permitted an unkind thought to enter his mind, for if he had, you could plainly read it from his features, the face being the mirror of our thoughts and actions, and no matter what we do or what we think from the time we are born until we die, every act and thought is indelibly stamped upon our faces and can never be erased until the material of which we are composed has disintegrated and reentered the great chemical basin from which all living things receive their matter and energy. And it is to be hoped that with each turn of the chemical wheel the succeeding generation will be re-moulded on a better scale, until the Apeman and all lower animals have passed through a successful course of evolution and finally emerge into real manhood--the highest type of earthly beings. This goal is but a few steps and within the power of the Apeman to reach, but he must take his steps in the right direction. A whole nation of those magnificent beings you see in the picture, once existed in real life. Their ancestors were Apemen who were started in the right path, and after persistently sticking to the upward march of unselfish progress for many generations, ultimately reached the class of men you see before you; giants, physically, mentally and morally." And here she paused and looked long and affectionately at those wonderful figures in the painting. Then a feeling of intense jealousy suddenly crept into my brain, and I thought I would surely go mad under its terrible pressure. Arletta was in love with one of those real men, while she held merely a compassionate feeling for me.

I, the Apeman, standing six feet two inches in height and weighing over two hundred pounds avoirdupois, heretofore regarded as a marvel in physical development, now, in the presence of these eight-foot giants, felt like a shrunken pigmy. Formerly it was generally conceded that I was a rather handsome fellow. This woman thought I was hideous. Previously, I had felt proud of my nicely curled heavy black mustache, now I thought it made me look like a monkey. The splendid features of the real men were not disfigured by a hair or blemish of any kind, while their skin was as soft and smooth as that of a new born child. During my trip around the world, I had observed that the more man's body was covered by hair, the more ape-like he appeared, especially when decorating his face with it, and I was certain that my appearance was just as ludicrous in the eyes of Arletta as those I had seen. Therefore my admiration for the stately objects portrayed in the picture was beginning to turn into hatred. I inwardly wished they were alive that I might have an opportunity to combat with one or all of them in order to show Arletta that I possessed the courage to fight until death for her love. While lost in the midst of such reflections Arletta turned her gaze upon me fixedly and said: "What barbaric thoughts have you permitted to enter your mind now?" "I was wishing," replied I rather sullenly, "that the man you love in that picture was alive, that I might have the chance to demonstrate my worth in a fight to secure your favor; perhaps, then, you would discover that I had some good qualities."

"And do you suppose if I saw you fighting like a savage bulldog that I would admire those brutish tendencies in your nature?" inquired she. "Do you think that the animal instincts of fighting and killing are good qualities to possess? Has your trip around the world borne no good results? You have observed that your own species, like other savage beasts, quarrel, fight, maim and kill each other through selfish motives, and you have condemned them for it; now you would continue to do the very same thing yourself and think that I would consider it courageous. According to one of our primitive laws, the courageous man was he who feared no one and caused no one to fear him. These men of the picture were the bravest of the brave, and still if one of them were alive today he would not fight with you, no matter how much you might ill use him, for he would know that it required more real strength to take abuse than to give it. He would suffer more pain if he hurt you than if you injured him. And still he could have crushed you with greater ease than a cat can a mouse, if he were cowardly enough to do it. That is the real courage of unselfishness--the kind your species cannot understand. Your fellow beings applaud cowardice which they mistake for strength of character. They seem unable to comprehend that it requires far more courage to suffer pain than to inflict it upon others. They have inherited their erroneous ideas from the wild beasts who preceded them, and at the present time few of them know any better. But they must be taught differently and the teachers must set the examples, not merely offer advice. The different countries of the world today support large armies of licensed murderers who are commonly called soldiers. They are sent to the battle-fields to slaughter each other for selfish purposes. The strongest side is naturally victorious, and after killing as many of their adversaries as possible, return home to receive the applause and admiration of their countrymen. They are considered heroic because they were successful in slaying their weaker opponents. Your society worships these human butchers and the more lives one of them has destroyed the bigger the monument is erected in his honor. How many of these butchers would have the courage to take an insult from a weaker party without resenting it? It requires great bravery for the strong to refrain from taking advantage of the weak; it demands real heroism for the strong to equally share the results of their labors with the feeble. For the strong are doubly blessed in having strength while the weak are unfortunate and need sympathy."

"Would it not be courageous for one person to die for the love of another?" inquired I.

"That would depend altogether upon the circumstances," replied Arletta. "It would require far more courage to sacrifice your life for one you did not love as there would then be no selfish motive behind it. As I understand your feelings, you love me and imagine that you would not care to live without me."

"Yes," said I fervently, "I shall take my own life sooner than leave you."

"That is not courage at all, it is simply cowardice," answered she. "Through your own selfishness in trying to obtain something beyond your reach, you lack the strength to live without it. It takes far more courage to live when you want to die than to die when you want to live. Unselfishness is the very highest type of courageousness and one must live for the good he may do the world instead of his own personal aggrandizement. Thousands of our noble men sacrificed their lives yearly for the good of the world. Our laws permitted a certain number of them to leave their heavenly country periodically to go among the Apemen, and try and teach these barbarians the meaning of unselfish love. They never returned. They fully realized before starting on these missionary trips, that they were depriving themselves of all the luxuries the earth provided for a life of hardship and suffering; a life of insults and all the cruel tortures the ferocious Apemen could inflict upon them. But it pleased them to know that they possessed the courage to withstand all the insults heaped upon them, while trying to alleviate the conditions of others. Unlike your present missionaries they did not go into different countries backed up by loaded guns ready to annihilate all who did not believe their doctrines. If you hit a man on the head with a club and then tell him that you love him he will not believe you. They understood that to teach the Apemen to love one another they must set themselves up as examples, not with mere words, but by unselfish and courageous acts. They also knew that they had no divine right to enter another country and force upon the inhabitants their laws and customs. They merely went to teach their methods and in trying to do good for others were willing to accept insults in return for their kindness in order to prove their sincerity of purpose.

"At first, these good men were looked upon as gods by the Apemen who wished to worship them as such, and had they been vain-glorious like the Apeman himself, they would have allowed this false idea to exist. But no, there was not a grain of vanity or selfishness in their systems. They had not left their homes and friends to be worshiped, but had gone away to show the Apeman how he might reach real manhood, if he would but follow their instructions. They taught the eradication of selfishness from all living beings and the abolition of the system of individual accumulation, practiced then and now by all of your species. Of course when the rich and religious rulers of the different tribes and nations learned that these men were teaching that all living beings should have an equal chance in life, and that the weak should enjoy the same comforts as the strong, and that their divine right laws were unjust, they became wroth and ordered our men to be put to death by the most cruel methods. Some were burned at the stake; others were buried alive; several were put into dungeons and their bodies allowed to rot; many were cast into fiery furnaces, while a number of them were thrown into dens containing