oct. 12. this is the land of harmony. here, shut in from the outer world by the crystal walls of the ages, rhythmic vibrations of the universe have blossomed in a fair, frail, almost supernatural life. here the ideals of ferratoni are the realities of the daily round, while the dreams of edith gale are but as the play language of little children.
here, shut away from the greed and struggle of the life we know—few in numbers and simple in their material needs, fragile and brief in their span of physical existence and plunged for half the year into a sunless period of contemplation—the lives of the people have linked themselves with the sun and stars, with the woods and fields, with the winds and waters, and with each other, in one rare, universal chord.
it is the natural result of the long periods of sun and darkness. the polar night binds them in closer sympathy, even as it did those of the billowcrest, while during the long sunny day they have only to bask in the sun and dream, and let the fecund 244soil provide amply for their wants. there is no need of struggle—no effort, save to retain life, if i may apply that term to this languorous melody of existence wherein greed, jealousy, vanity and the other elements of discord find no place.
there is no old age here—our most frequent excuse for greed. no necessity for a life of heavy toil to provide for a ghastly period when all save physical want has perished.
indeed, there is little effort here of any sort. they are not even obliged to talk, for their minds are as open books, and there is not, as with us, the need of many words to cloud and diffuse a few poor thoughts, that in the beginning were hardly worth while.
truth here is not a luxury—a thing produced with difficulty and therefore conserved for special occasions—but an abounding necessity, like air and water. concealment, ever the first step toward sorrow, is impossible.
love flowers naturally and where all may see. marriage is union, and separation unknown. joy to one is answered in the bosom of many, and grief is the minor chord that stirs mournfully the heart of a multitude. verily is it a “land of the heart’s desire,”
“where nobody ever grows old, and crafty and wise—
where nobody ever grows false and bitter of tongue.”
245if i seem to have waxed poetic in speaking of these people, it is because poetry is the language and breath of their race. even chauncey gale has imbibed something of the pervading spirit, and adapted his phraseology to the conditions.
“the chant of the trolley and the song of the lawn-mower are heard not nor needed,” he said to me this morning, as we looked from our high terrace down on the dream world below.
i speak of it as morning, but there is no morning now. it is always afternoon—the afternoon of a june day, before the gray dust and the withering heat of summer have begun their blight. we have been here a week and we would roam no farther. the world, the vessel, the crew—even edith gale—all seem as a page of some half-forgotten tale—something of another and long-ago existence in which we have no further part. the spell of the lotus is upon us. the lives of the lotus-eaters have become our lives.
we have laid off our travel-stained dress, shaved our beards, and become in appearance even as those about us. ferratoni is as one to the manor born. mr. sturritt might have been a seer and a high priest from childhood. his (to them) extreme age has commanded their wonder and reverence, and his pink dessert lozenges are highly regarded as a new and most delightful confection. altogether he is 246in high favor, ranking next, it would seem, to ferratoni, who, as the favorite of the prince, and interpreter for the rest of us, is exalted somewhat unduly. as for gale, whose physical and facial lines are perhaps most at variance with those about us, he has put himself on low diet in order to train down to a poetic basis, and goes about reciting verses, remembered from childhood, to slender youths and fair, reclining women, who listen drowsily as they bathe in the life-giving rays of the returning sun. yesterday i heard him repeating “mary’s little lamb” to a group of languid listeners. it did not matter—they do not understand his words, and his thought vibrations are, i suspect, altogether too highly tensioned for this deliberate race.
now that there is no more night the people live out of doors. there are no regular hours for sleep or food. soft-footed, bare-limbed boys bring viands at call, while ?olian harps, yielding pillows, and the perfume of flowers everywhere woo to somnolence and repose. our food consists mainly of preserved fruits, also the meat of a curious, silken-haired goat which these people possess, and sometimes that of the strange, leaping rabbit creature—these being their only animals. the flesh of birds and fishes, however, is plentiful, and to these things are added many preparations of their chief cereal, a sort of rice, which yields abundantly each 247year, without planting. our sweets are from the sap of a tree, even finer and more delicate of flavor than our northern maple. wine we have from the wild grapes that ripen later in great abundance.
within the palace i find many curious little lamps and torches,—their provision against the long night. the walls and floors are draped with yielding fabrics, woven from the silken fleece of the goat, and from the long hair of the “skipteroon.” of feather work, too, i have seen some delicate examples. their looms for weaving, their implements for harvesting, their utensils for preparing food, are all of the simplest and most primitive form, such as our earliest ancestors might have employed, and as may be in use to-day in lands where mechanism has made little or no progress. their one attempt in this direction is their invention for dispelling darkness, and this has not yet been shown to us, for the complaisant prince has been quiescent since our arrival, and we have fallen into the way of it all, and are willing to procrastinate, and to keep on procrastinating while the circling sun dispenses the anodyne of eternal afternoon.
it is not strange that like the nations of the incas these people should be worshippers of the sun. to them comes the fullest realization of its life-giving glory, and the joyless stagnation of the death-breathing dark. we who sleep through 248much of the sun’s absence come naturally to regard it somewhat as a useful and not always agreeable adjunct to our lives. yet even we, after days of dull weather—black nights and murky mornings—welcome joyously the return of the life-giver, while to these people it would be strange indeed if the great luminary had not become at least the shining symbol of infinity. the terrace form of their dwelling is, i think, suggested by the sun’s gradual circling ascent and descent of the sky, and from the topmost step or story they assemble to bid it joyous welcome and reverential farewell. the world itself here appears to be a sort of terrace, the first step of which we ascended when we reached the violet fields. the next is the approach to the land ruled over by the prince’s serene sister, whom we are soon to see, for though we are loth to depart from this pleasant vale, we are daily required by a mental message from her to proceed farther on our journey.
to-morrow, therefore, or the next day, or the day after, we must ascend still higher this enchanted river and “pause not unduly, nor idly linger”—so her august message runs—until we shall arrive at the palace of the lady of the lilied hills.
