The Coming Race quotes

and my grandfather was not undistinguished in the War of Independence. My family, therefore, enjoyed a somewhat high social position in right of birth; and being also opulent, they were considered disqualified for the public service.

My father once ran for Congress, but was signally defeated by his tailor.

After that event he interfered little in politics, and lived much in his library.

The engineer long endeavoured to evade my inquiries; but as, while he spoke, he helped himself unconsciously out of the brandy-flask to a degree to which he was wholly unaccustomed, for he was a very temperate man, his reserve gradually melted away.

He who would keep himself to himself should imitate the dumb animals, and drink water.

At last he said, “I will tell you all. When the cage stopped, I found myself on a ridge of rock;

“

A trusty companion halves the journey and doubles the courage.

I will go with you. We will provide ourselves with ropes of suitable length and strength—and—pardon me—you must not drink more tonight. Our hands and feet must be steady and firm tomorrow.”

Others, again, had the form of enormous fungi, with short thick stems supporting a wide dome-like roof, from which either rose or drooped long slender branches. The whole scene behind, before, and beside me, far as the eye could reach, was brilliant with innumerable lamps.

The world without a sun was bright and warm as an Italian landscape at noon, but the air less oppressive, the heat softer.

Nor was the scene before me void of signs of habitation. I could distinguish at a distance, whether on the banks of the lake or rivulet, or halfway upon eminences, embedded amidst the vegetation, buildings that must surely be the homes of men.

I was not allowed to linger long enough to examine into the nature of their employment. Not one young voice was heard—not one young face turned to gaze on us.

They were all still and indifferent as may be ghosts, through the midst of which pass unnoticed the forms of the living.

Quitting this hall, my guide led me through a gallery richly painted in compartments, with a barbaric mixture of gold in the colours, like pictures by Louis Cranach.

Zee rose and kissed her father on the temples, saying, with a smile, “

A Gy’s tongue is wanton, but love can fetter it fast.

And if, my father, you fear lest a chance word from me or yourself could expose our community to danger, by a desire to explore a world beyond us, will not a wave of the vril, properly impelled, wash even the memory of what we …

They were familiar with most of our mechanical inventions, including the application of steam as well as gas. The communities were in fierce competition with each other.

They had their rich and their poor; they had orators and conquerors; they made war either for a domain or an idea.

Though the various states acknowledged various forms of government, free institutions were beginning to preponderate; popular assemblies increased in power; republics soon became general;

If army met army, and both had command of this agency, it could be but to the annihilation of each. The age of war was therefore gone, but with the cessation of war other effects bearing upon the social state soon became apparent.

Man was so completely at the mercy of man, each whom he encountered being able, if so willing, to slay him on the instant, that all notions of government by force gradually vanished from political systems and forms of law.

It is only by force that vast communities, dispersed through great distances of space, can be kept together; but now there was no longer either the necessity of self-preservation or the pride of aggrandisement to make one state desire to preponderate in population over another.

Even in every household the head of it makes a regulation for its guidance, which is never resisted nor even cavilled at by those who belong to the family. They have a proverb, the pithiness of which is much lost in this paraphrase, “

No happiness without order, no order without authority, no authority without unity.

” The mildness of all government among them, civil or domestic, may be signalised by their idiomatic expressions for such terms as illegal or forbidden—viz., “It is requested not to do so-and-so.” Poverty among the Ana is as unknown as crime;

It is only where such creatures are found untamable to this extent that they are destroyed.

Life is never taken away for food or for sport, and never spared where untamably inimical to the Ana.

Concomitantly with these bodily services and tasks, the mental education of the children goes on till boyhood ceases.

… both the aggressive and defensive superiority over the Ana which they once possessed, just as in the inferior animals above the earth many peculiarities in their original formation, intended by nature for their protection, gradually fade or become inoperative when not needed under altered circumstances.

I should be sorry, however, for any An who induced a Gy to make the experiment whether he or she were the stronger.

From the incident I have narrated, the Ana date certain alterations in the marriage customs, tending, perhaps, somewhat to the advantage of the male. They now bind themselves in wedlock only for three years;

They claim the privilege, here usurped by men, of proclaiming their love and urging their suit; in other words, of being the wooing party rather than the wooed.

Such a phenomenon as an old maid does not exist among the Gy-ei.

Indeed it is very seldom that a Gy does not secure any An upon whom she sets her heart, if his affections be not strongly engaged elsewhere.

… to be intolerable to such organised life as was known to the experience of the Vril-ya, though their philosophers believed that even in such places life of some kind, life sentient, life intellectual, would be found abundant and thriving, could the philosophers penetrate to it.

“Wherever the All-Good builds,” said she, “there, be sure, He places inhabitants. He loves not empty dwellings.”

She added, however, that many changes in temperature and climate had been effected by the skill of the Vril-ya, and that the agency of vril had been successfully employed in such changes.

If one excels, perhaps, in one virtue, another equally excels in some other virtue; if one has his prevalent fault or infirmity, so also another has his.

In fact, in their extraordinary mode of life, there are so few temptations to wrong, that they are good (according to their notions of goodness) merely because they live.

They have some fanciful notions upon the continuance of life, when once bestowed, even in the vegetable world, as the reader will see in the next chapter.

and a still meaner and more ignorant conception of the All-Good, to dismiss with a brief contempt all consideration of justice for the myriad forms into which He has infused life, and assume that justice is only due to the single product of the An.

There is no small and no great in the eyes of the divine Life-Giver.

But once grant that nothing, however humble, which feels that it lives and suffers, can perish through the series of ages, that all its suffering here, if continuous from the moment of its birth to that of its transfer to another form of being, would …

The Ana of the community are, on the whole, an indolent set of beings after the active age of childhood. Whether by temperament or philosophy, they rank repose among the chief blessings of life.

Indeed, when you take away from a human being the incentives to action which are found in cupidity or ambition, it seems to me no wonder that he rests quiet.

In their ordinary movements they prefer the use of their feet to that of their wings.

It is that very sweetness, combined with that majesty, which inspired in a beholder like myself, accustomed to strive with the passions of mankind, a sentiment of humiliation, of awe, of dread.

It is such an expression as a painter might give to a demigod, a genius, an angel.

The males of the Vril-ya are entirely beardless; the Gy-ei sometimes, in old age, develop a small moustache.

I had read somewhere in my schoolboy days that a wise man, disputing with a Roman Emperor, suddenly drew in his horns; and when the emperor asked him whether he had nothing further to say on his side of the question, replied, “

Nay, Caesar, there is no arguing against a reasoner who commands ten legions.

”

Though I had a secret persuasion that, whatever the real effects of vril upon matter, Mr. Faraday could have proved her a very shallow philosopher as to its extent or its causes,

I had no doubt that Zee could have brained all the Fellows of the Royal Society, one after the other, with a blow of her fist.

Every sensible man knows that it is useless to argue with any ordinary female upon matters he comprehends; but to argue with a Gy seven feet high upon the mysteries of vril—as well argue in a desert, and with a simoon!

Faraday could have proved her a very shallow philosopher as to its extent or its causes, I had no doubt that Zee could have brained all the Fellows of the Royal Society, one after the other, with a blow of her fist.

Every sensible man knows that it is useless to argue with any ordinary female upon matters he comprehends; but to argue with a Gy seven feet high upon the mysteries of vril⁠—as well argue in a desert, and with a simoon!

Amid the various departments to which the vast building of the College of Sages was appropriated, that which interested me most was devoted to the archaeology of the Vril-ya, and comprised a very ancient collection of portraits.

“Our public libraries contain all the books of the past which time has preserved; those books, for the reasons above stated, are infinitely better than any can write nowadays, and they are open to all to read without cost.

We are not such fools as to pay for reading inferior books, when we can read superior books for nothing.

”

No fame is asked by the inventor, and none is given to him; he enjoys an occupation congenial to his tastes, and needing no wear and tear of the passions.

Man must have exercise for his mind as well as body; and continuous exercise, rather than violent, is best for both.

Our most ingenious cultivators of science are, as a general rule, the longest lived and the most free from disease.

… to be so, by removing old distinctions, and starting afresh, the more glaring and intolerable the disparity becomes, because nothing in hereditary affections and associations is left to soften the one naked distinction between the many who have nothing and the few who have much.

Of course the many hate the few, but without the few they could not live.

The many are always assailing the few; sometimes they exterminate the few; but as soon as they have done so, a new few starts out of the many, and is harder to deal with than the old few.

“I see! old states indeed!—so old as to become drivelling if they don’t pack off that surplus population as we do ours—very old states!—very, very old!

Pray, Tish, do you think it wise for very old men to try to turn head-over-heels as very young children do?

And if you ask them why they attempted such antics, should you not laugh if they answered that by imitating very young children they could become very young children themselves?

“

Taë, I disdain to argue with a child of your age.

I repeat, I make allowances for your want of that culture which a Koom-Posh alone can bestow.”

I did not think sufficiently of this when I allowed you to try an experiment which allured me, for I have longed to have in you a companion.

I shall abandon the experiment now. Your life is becoming dear to me.

” Herewith the Gy’s voice and face softened, and I felt more seriously alarmed than I had been in my previous flights.

Said he, “

If the Tish cannot learn the use of wings, you may still be his companion, Zee, for you can suspend your own.

”

I must leave it to you to take the best way you can to defend yourself.

Perhaps you had better tell Zee that she is ugly. That assurance on the lips of him she woos generally suffices to chill the most ardent Gy.

Here we are at my country-house.”

We consider that the judgment of one An of ordinary capacity is better than the judgment of three or more, however wise they may be; for among three there would probably be disputes, and where there are disputes, passion clouds judgment.

The worst choice made by one who has no motive in choosing wrong, is better than the best choice made by many who have many motives for not choosing right.

”

“Take courage, my dear little guest;

Zee can’t compel you to marry her. She can only entice you to do so. Don’t be enticed.

Come and look round my domain.”

“Certainly; there are indeed very few of the Vril-ya who do not consider that a fortune much above the average is a heavy burden.

We are rather a lazy people after the age of childhood, and do not like undergoing more cares than we can help, and great wealth does give its owner many cares.

For instance, it marks us out for public offices, which none of us like and none of us can refuse.

This hospitality, on a scale so extensive, is not to my taste, and therefore I should have been happier had I been less rich.

But we must all bear the lot assigned to us in this short passage through time that we call life. After all, what are a hundred years, more or less, to the ages through which we must pass hereafter?

Luckily, I have one son who likes great wealth. It is a rare exception to the general rule, and I own I cannot myself understand it.”

“Be not so cruel!” exclaimed Zee, still in sonorous accents. “

Can love command itself where it is truly felt?

Do you suppose that a maiden Gy will conceal a sentiment that it elevates her to feel? What a country you must have come from!”

“I gave you the best aid I could.

To contradict a Gy in her love affairs is to confirm her purpose.

She allows no counsel to come between her and her affections.”

The son took up the patera and said (in what I understood afterwards was the usual form of words), “

Behold how great is the Maker! To this little dust He gave form and life and soul.

It needs not this little dust for Him to renew form and life and soul to the beloved one we shall soon see again.”

We thus feel more sensibly that he still lives, though not visibly so to us. But our sentiments in this, as in all things, are created by custom.

Custom is not to be changed by a wise An, any more than it is changed by a wise Community, without the gravest deliberation, followed by the most earnest conviction. It is only thus that change ceases to be changeability, and once made is made for good.

”

This differed from our entertainments, and was not without a certain resemblance to those we read of in the luxurious age of the Roman empire. There was not one great table set out, but numerous small tables, each appropriated to eight guests.

It is considered that beyond that number conversation languishes and friendship cools.

The Ana never laugh loud, as I have before observed, but the cheerful ring of their voices at the various tables betokened gaiety of intercourse.

The young An replied with a sigh, “

Gentle Tish, the greatest misfortune in life is to marry one Gy if you are in love with another.

”

I bowed my head in silence. The Gy gently raised my face with her right hand, and looked into it tenderly.

“Stay with us,” she said; “stay with us, and be loved.”

What I might have answered, what dangers of becoming a cinder I might have encountered, I still tremble to think, when the light of the naphtha fountain was obscured by the shadow of wings; and Zee, flying though the open roof, alighted beside us.

… fanatical notion of regulating this life by reference to one which, no doubt, we Christians firmly believe in, but never take into consideration, I resolved that enlightened philosophy compelled me to abolish a heathen religion so superstitiously at variance with modern thought and practical action.

Musing over these various projects, I felt how much I should have liked at that moment to brighten my wits by a good glass of whiskey-and-water.

Not that I am habitually a spirit-drinker, but certainly there are times when a little stimulant of alcoholic nature, taken with a cigar, enlivens the imagination. Yes;

We will fly together to some region where thou shalt be safe. I am strong enough to bear thee on my wings across the deserts that intervene. I am skilled enough to cleave open, amidst the rocks, valleys in which to build our home.

Solitude and a hut with thee would be to me society and the universe.

Or wouldst thou return to thine own world, above the surface of this, exposed to the uncertain seasons, and lit but by the changeful orbs which constitute by thy description the fickle character of those savage regions?

“That is no answer.

Love is swifter than vril.

You hesitate to tell me. Do not think it is only jealousy that prompts me to caution you.

Here the corruption which debases democracies was as unknown as the discontents which undermine the thrones of monarchies.

Equality here was not a name; it was a reality. Riches were not persecuted, because they were not envied.

Here those problems connected with the labours of a working class, hitherto insoluble above ground, and above ground conducing to such bitterness between classes, were solved by a process the simplest—a distinct and separate working class was dispensed with altogether.

“

It is no crime to slay those who threaten the good of the community; it would be a crime to slay the smallest insect that cannot harm us.

”