Limanora the island of progress
we took our way back on the other side of the valley, I could notice
how rapidly these lordly animal forms disappeared, and yielded to the
compact little figures, irregular features, and divine expression of
face I had grown accustomed to in the Limanorans.
The dead were grouped in families and in order of time after the epoch
of exiling, and a student could trace the growth of a talent or virtue.
But many of the family groups were small; the line had suddenly ceased.
In these I could see after a time an occasional evidence of atavism in
the size or the sensuousness of the form, and the interpreter explained
how on the appearance of this recession the right of having posterity
had ceased, or expatriation had occurred. The general sense of the
unfitness of an individual for fatherhood or motherhood was too strong
in the community to need any expression in public resolve. Those who
felt this great misfortune fall upon them knew that their race must
be cut off; and they set themselves to eradicate the desire of family
life. If they could not eradicate it and at the same time make effort
to subdue their retrogressive tendency, they had to go into exile. At
first action on the part of the community had been needed. Now this
expurgative policy worked almost automatically and without friction.
When we had taken a comprehensive view of Fialume, we entered another
faleena, which had been substituted for our disabled car. We shot
farewell glances at Oolmo and were off in the air before I had well
disentangled my thoughts from the last sight. Below us receded the
massive archways of the door and the foaming streams at the entrance of
the valley. The jubilant music began to grow dim, and the dome shone
softly in the colours of the sunset. I thought we were to be alone
on our return journey, and began to question Thyriel on some of the
mysteries of the day. She had not much light to throw on them, for she
was herself a novice in life. But of a sudden like a flock of homing
pigeons a band of our comrades broke out into the level sunlight from
the mouth of Fialume; and along with them other bands that streamed
east and north and south. Before long the western train had overtaken
us, and their voices rang like carolling at heaven’s gate. They saw our
faleena land in safety at the house of my proparents, and then, joined
by Thyriel, they streamed away through the twilight sky, ever breaking
off into more and more widely separated groups till they were lost
across the horizon, or in the darkness of some distant valley.
Week after week, and at last day after day, we took our path through
the azure to Fialume. For several years under the direction of Oolmo
we became acquainted with the history of Limanora, and saw the gradual
development of the civilisation and of the human form and faculty. We
came to feel how naturally ends followed means chosen in the mind and
frame of man, as in the plant creation and in the other animals. We saw
how creative had been this community, not in the arts merely, but in
that art of all arts, human nature. They had moulded generation after
generation to higher and ever higher purpose. How poor and subsidiary
seemed all the sciences when compared with this great practical
science, the knowledge to mould man into any required form, to bend his
energies ever upwards! Every week there grew upon us the consciousness
that there was no more plastic material in the whole world than the
human soul, when it had reached a certain stage of development.
Oolmo traced for us each new faculty and power and virtue to its
starting-point, and showed us how feeble it was to begin with, and
how rapidly it grew when once artificial effort was turned upon it.
At first it was the physical powers that he drew our attention to; in
family after family, for example, he showed us how the capacity of
flight had been acquired, and how the human frame had gradually become
adapted to it; the body grew lighter, the shoulder and breast muscles
stronger, the bones hollower, the arms longer, and the legs shorter,
with greater strength at the heels.
He acknowledged that there was something peculiar in Limanora that
made this adaptation easier; a magnetism seemed to come from the earth
that made the force of gravitation less; there was also something more
exhilarating in the atmosphere and climate that differentiated it from
all other lands. This explained why I had so rapidly acquired the
tripping, noiseless gait I had so admired when first I saw Noola. There
had been a time in the history of the earth when the human body was so
light and agile in proportion to its size that a few coincidences in
nature, as, for example, the increase of swift land and tree enemies,
would have made it ultimately winged. That was the geological epoch,
when, after a period of great contraction and increase of density
(the period of the huge saurians and other monsters of the prime),
the orb had, through volcanic explosions within it and the impact of
myriads of aërolites on its crust, expanded its texture and partially
volatilised its internal elements. Since then it has been cooling down
within, and thus growing less in size, though losing none of its mass;
this can be seen in the twistings and foldings of the rocks and the
enormous wrinkles on its surface. The result has been that animals,
and men with them, have been growing heavier for their size. The
possibility of man becoming a flying race has passed away. Land and sea
animals have no longer the chance of developing into birds of the air;
and even some of the tribes of winged things have almost surrendered
their prerogative of flight; nothing but embryo and unused wings
remain to them. It is only in exceptional spots like Limanora, where
the magnetic conditions and the spongy nature of the interior of the
earth lessen the force of gravitation, that men could ever acquire the
power of artificial flight with any ease. By dint of the application
of enormous force, and of inventive mechanical power, men in other
lands may master the art of aërial voyaging; but it will never become
an accomplishment of the individual; there will be too much strain and
stress for it ever to grow a pleasant mode of travel.
Thus Oolmo flashed light upon the past and the future as we traversed
the groves of Fialume. We grew familiar with the great forces of the
universe, and their bearing upon the problems of mankind, and gained
the true perspective of existence. I felt that Europe was but standing
still, reform herself and advance in science and art and civilisation
as quickly as she might. European man himself was not progressing, but
only the external results of his individual efforts. It would take ten
thousand years for the huge nations of Europe to make the step upwards
that these islanders made in a day. Material progress meant nothing to
the Limanorans unless it meant also the progress of the men themselves
in capacity, in power of attaining higher and higher goals.
Year by year I came nearer to the special purpose of my education.
As we passed over the family groups of the island, and learned their
sciences and arts, both Thyriel and myself began to feel drawn to one
branch of investigation above all others. Every family had a special
department of the civilisation assigned to it, and for generations it
had cultivated this. To prevent narrowness of view in its members,
and to enable all to understand the value and purpose of the work of
each, a long tract of their youth was devoted to a bird’s-eye view of
the departments of human knowledge and progress. And, that no section
of life might be left at the mercy of accident, there worked with the
representatives of every family one or two supernumeraries. Thus new
blood was introduced, for the alien was generally chosen from a family
not even distantly connected, and had such a nature and temperament
as would be likely to lead to marriage and to the best results in
posterity.
There was one family grove to which I was specially drawn. The faces
of the dead seemed to me exquisitely beautiful; the natures that shone
through their petrified bodies attracted me with tenfold power. Every
day as I entered Fialume I felt inclined to bend my steps thither, and
the close of the day generally found me amongst them. Oolmo tried with
some amusement to himself to break me of the habit, which yet grew
stronger and stronger. And Thyriel showed the same tendency. Perhaps
one feature which gave great attraction to the place was its seclusion;
it was almost the only family grove that had not two or three studying
the records. Here we were generally left to our own companionship;
for Oolmo had often to go when we arrived there; and, with our common
tastes, we found the time far too short.
At last I came upon the explanation. We were studying the growth of
some feature through the generations, and I had remarked to Thyriel
how like she was to this family in character and appearance, when
suddenly the foliage parted near where we stood and disclosed three
figures, two of whom seemed to my undiscriminative eyes facsimiles
of the last of the group which had been ireliumised. The feeling of
worship was aroused in me, for I felt in them the beautiful nature
of Thyriel, and besides this the atmosphere of years and experience
mellowing it and making it seem loftier and more divine. The third was
different and yet as noble, and when I gazed into her face I found the
solution of a problem that had begun to perplex me, the source of those
characteristics of Thyriel which made her different from the two others
and from the family group. The last was her mother; the other two were
her father and aunt. This was the treasure-house and sleeping place of
her ancestry. Her own relationship had instinctively drawn her to it,
and my natural kinship with her had attracted me there.
We were now to begin the special study which was to make us useful
working members of the community, filling our own places in it, and
serving its great and final purpose with our own labour and thought.
Many years would we have to spend in this secluded grove mastering
the knowledge and achievements of this family. Its distinctive name
was Leomo, which meant earth-seers, and its department was the study
of the crust and inner movements of our orb. It was one of the
peculiarities of all Limanoran science that it was art too; nothing
was lost; every investigation or discovery or law had practical
issue; and it was the duty of the investigator to find out how his
work bore upon the progress of the race to its final aim. As I saw
farther and got deeper into this study I discovered that much which
had seemed purely speculative was most practical and relevant to the
purpose of the race. A shallow view would have rejected nine tenths
of it as useless application of the energies, as mere fancy thinking.
The wider my knowledge, the more my admiration of the far-sight of
these investigators grew. They seemed to me to have almost the gift
of prophecy as they looked at the facts they accumulated and the
conclusions they tried to draw.
It was easy to follow them for every generation had reduced the
ancestral writings and thoughts and achievements to the briefest
available form, and indexed all that previous generations had done. It
was the duty of every new student of a family, after he had finished
his general education and seen the advances made in other branches,
to bring all his ancestors’ researches and suggestions into relation
to these, and to place a brief account of them on record in the
latest phraseology and scientific light, so that any alien student
might read or hear with understanding. There was thus in every family
grove a summary of all that was known or achieved in its department