Limanora the island of progress
of this classification and the application of their alloy, labramor.
Every substance or element had its place in their tables according
as it was positive or negative in its electric impulse towards some
other substance or element; and all its affinities, strong or weak,
were tabulated. Thus when they turned their monalan upon any distant
body like a star they were able to analyse its elements by means of
these tables. Even now that their firla interpreted the analysis of the
monalan without the intervention of classifications and tables, they
had another electrically analystic instrument which appealed to the
eye; this turned the electric impulse into a flash or glow, which at
once revealed in the inamar or spectroscope the substances or elements
whence it had come.
Their lower or more material senses I was more nearly able to approach,
even though they too were highly intellectualised and were more the
servants of the spirit than of the animal part. In developing mine I
had more hope of raising myself to the Limanoran level, and yet there
was less stimulus; for I felt that they looked down upon these senses
of smell, taste, and touch because of their need of close contact with
their objects; they were the primitive senses; they were narrow and
bound down to immediate matter, and seemed poor gropers in the finite
and the dark compared with those rangers of infinity, the ear, the eye,
and the electric sense. It was then with a feeling of humiliation that
I saw those lower and more finite senses in me develop so quickly,
proving me a being of a more primitive and material type.
Yet there was no neglect of these in their education and no contempt
for them and their uses; in fact contempt was one of the vices that
they had with most pains weeded out of their systems and civilisation.
They had not merely considered that nothing in creation, if looked
into scientifically, was worthy of contempt, but that contempt was the
truest symptom of crudity of character and ignorance of reality and
nature. Even if they had had any remains of this primal savagery, they
would not have felt it towards those finite-seeking senses. They only
set themselves to make them more and more the servants of the soul, the
instruments of the imagination. They rejected the idea that the arts
belonged only to sight and hearing. Their arts of the firla were far
more important and striking than any sculpture or painting or music
could be. Not merely as a variation on these and a relief from them did
they have arts that brought in the senses of smell and taste and touch;
these had their own special uses in their civilisation. All of them,
but especially smell and taste, were closely linked with memory, and
through memory with imagination. A special perfume and even a special
taste would flash before the mind a scene or fact with more vividness
than even a piece of music would.
The perfumes and tastes had been classified according to their affinity
to certain virtues and ideas and to the great deeds and scenes which
best represented them. The island was one vast flower-garden at all
seasons of the year, arranged not alone to please the eye, but to bring
by the suggestion of their perfumes the noblest virtues and deeds
constantly into the mind. For example, wherever a child or youth was
being trained, the flowers possessing certain well-known scents which
were closely connected with the finest qualities and ideas of the
race shone profusely yet with striking art. The art of the gardening
family did not consist merely in arrangement of the landscape and the
varied coloration of it. The scent of every flower had to be taken
into consideration and the faint flavour or taste the seed or fruit
might produce in the air when sent adrift or bruised. The problem
of no science or art was so complicated as that of gardening in
this island, it had to take account of so many senses, seasons, and
conditions of growth. They were never done with creating and selecting
new variations of flowers and plants, and colour, scent, and taste in
the vegetable world were as adaptable in their hands as tones in the
hands of their musical composers. Their task was made comparatively
easy by the great development of methods and appliances for rapid
growth and decay. They had not only complete command of the weather and
clouds and sunshine; but they could bring up and perfect flowers in a
few nights over vast areas by the use of their streams and watering
platforms and of artificial light. When the Limanorans slept, wonders
were being accomplished in colouring the landscape; for first some of
their great rivers would pour refreshing rain all over the plains; and
then the electric glow, brought close over the plants, would develop
their bloom-producing capacity. As careful were the gardeners that
no withering or dead vegetable matter should ever taint the air of
the island; the moment one set of blossoms had perfected and shown
traces of decay, an electric pruner ran in a few minutes over the
whole area, and not merely cut them off, but burnt them to dust that
fell on the roots to stimulate the new growth of the plants. As soon
as the plants had passed their bloom-productive point, an electric
life-destroyer ploughed lightly through the soil in all directions;
and by the morning what had been profusely flower-coloured the day
before was brown earth, ready for the new plant-growth of next day.
The slow-growing perennials and bushes and trees occupied separate and
fixed quarters at a distance from the residences and the great centres
of intercourse, and all rampant vegetation and rotting boughs and
leaves were daily turned into good soil by the electric weed-destroyer.
No decay was ever allowed to approach the senses. Their knowledge of
the secrets of the soil made them independent of rotting or offensive
manures. The particular elements of which any kind of plant or flower
robbed the soil were accurately ascertained, and their chemistry
enabled them with ease to supply the deficiency after a crop had been
removed.
The gardening family had to be familiar on the one hand with the
innermost secrets of psychology, and on the other with the last
discoveries of the more material sciences; for no one could avoid the
effects of the flowers and trees, as he could painting and sculpture,
music and firlamai. Gardening, in short, was the most public of all the
arts and the most pervasive in its results. A garden (and in Limanora
there was only one vast garden) was a great mnemonic instrument, which
could play upon the souls of the whole community at once. That it
should not be in the hands of novices, or of unwise or wrong-thoughted
men and women, was one of the prime cares of the people. Of all
families those that managed the garden of the island had to be most
simple-hearted and true, most sure in their knowledge of the human
heart, and most eager to stir to what is great and noble and humane.
They were the lords of the sense of smell, one of the most immediate
portals to memory and to imagination. To have the complete command
of one out of the six dominant sense-entrances to the soul was, they
considered, the greatest of responsibilities, and no care was neglected
in selecting, purifying, and training the families of gardeners.
They, too, had the superintendence of Ilarime, a structure devoted to
the arts of smell, taste, and sound combined. Aided by the musicians
and the chemists, they produced symphonies which appealed to all
three senses and roused the imagination to exceptional flights. The
imaginative or pioneering families frequented the halls of this great
building daily in pursuit of new stimulus to their faculty. Every
chamber in it had special emotions to rouse. A garden could have only
a mingled effect upon the memory and mnemonic imagination; Ilarime
separated the effects and classified the emotions and imaginative
ideas which were to be stimulated. Anyone entering could find out at
the porch, either by looking in the index-chamber or by consulting
one of the superintendents, what hall or halls he ought to rest in. I
had often during my education to take refuge in Ilarime, when clogged
in my endeavours to advance by dulness of memory or imagination or by
the weakness of some emotion. After a time I did not need to consult a
guide; I knew what element in my soul was deficient and what emotion or
memory would stir it to activity, and by aid of the index-hall and its
graphic representation of the effect of every chamber upon the spirit I
could choose what symphony I needed. As soon as I had entered the hall
that I had chosen, I lay down on one of their hanging rests and shut
my eyes. At once the medicated atmosphere began to affect my palate,
whilst the delicate perfume entered my nostrils and my ears drank in
the sweet-sounding music. Before many minutes had passed memories of
striking scents I had witnessed or heard of or seen represented in the
island began to rise in my mind, and the emotion I needed thrilled me
through; if it was heroism or courage, I felt myself urged to deeds of
valour; if it was benevolence, I was soon inclined to rush to the help
of the suffering and the poor; if it was hope, I saw bright visions of
the future.
But this exercise was too passive to be allowed for any length of
time. The imagination and emotions were apt to gain at the expense of
the will and the nervous energy by too frequent resort to Ilarime.
Strenuous endeavour was held to be one of the prime essentials of
progress, not only in the race, but even more in the individual. And,
though all the prevailing odours and tastes and sounds of the island
were agreeable, the Limanorans carried with them a small instrument,
called margol, that by an adaptation of electricity could blunt at
will the acuteness of smelling and tasting and hearing, and, on the
other hand, reduce the powers of perfumes and flavours and sounds; it
acted by drying the air around the head and drawing the moisture and
heat from the nostrils, the tongue, and the ears. It was partly to
mitigate the force of smells and tastes and sounds that they always
kept the atmosphere dry and cool by day. In the margol, too, there
was a combination of chemicals and electricity which would modify any
odour or flavour to suit the taste; but if they wished to increase the
strength of any perfume or taste, they applied electric heat to the
source of it, and moistened the nostrils and the mouth. It was one of
the new peculiarities of the race that the mucous and salivary flow was
under the command of the will, and they could smell and taste with
satisfaction to themselves without the aid of moisture on the organs.
Their senses of smell and taste had become by means of their acuteness
what they were originally meant to be, the guardians of the throat and
the digestion. They told with accuracy the nature of the substances
brought to the mouth; whatsoever would be deleterious to the system was
offensive. In most civilised peoples what is grateful to the palate and
the olfactory nerves is often pernicious to some tissue of the body or
some faculty of the mind. Here the two senses were the true friends and
protectors of both body and soul; there was no seducing them or bribing
them into evil or irrational reports, so completely had they been
saturated with reason.
In the medical, chemical, and alimentary families these senses were
trained to a pitch that seemed to me marvellous. By either smell or
taste a member of these families could tell the constituent elements
of any compound. A medical sage, if a man, could distinguish by the
faint odour that marked each human body whether it was losing energy
or expending it, making progress or decaying; if a woman, the sage,