The Diothas, or, A Far Look Ahead/Chapter 19
While, as we have seen, the young men, as zerdars, did service to the community, and completed their education abroad, the girls, whether viora or zerua, went through a somewhat similar experience at home. It was by their fair hands that, under skilful guidance, all the cooking and baking for the community were performed at the cooking depots, or laboratories as they should rather be called. Their tasks were carefully adjusted to their years and strength. Besides, the muscular exertion required was but slight. Machines of ingenious construction, demanding little beyond the guidance of mind, performed equally the most laborious and the most complex operations.
By the hands of the maidens of the community, also, or, rather, under their guidance, was performed the large amount of laundry-work rendered necessary by the frequent customary changes of clothing. Simple as the attire of the period was, and free from the abomination of starch, the amount of labor required for the laundry-work of a family, according to the crude methods now in use, would have been very considerable. But machinery, almost automatic in its operation, reduced the requisite labor to a minimum.
I was once admitted, under the escort of Ulmene, to the great laundry of the village. I was filled with surprise, not only by the novelty of seeing so many beautiful and high-bred maidens engaged in what, to my prejudices, was so humble an occupation. Not one was there but could trace back her pedigree through thousands of years of culture and refinement, not one but had received a training, moral and intellectual, such as is at present, even for the most favored, a dream or an aspiration. Yet each was attending to her allotted task with youthful zeal, as diligent, as well as graceful, as her fair prototype, Nausicaa, amid her primitive appliances.
I was also filled with astonished admiration at the amount of ingenuity that bad been expended on the curious mechanical contrivances that met my eye at every turn, from the huge centrifugal drier, to the machine that turned out, by the dozen, garments smoothly mangled and neatly folded. One important task that could not be performed by machinery was the assorting, and packing into panniers, of the articles belonging to each household. These panniers were then stowed, by the strong arms of zerdars, in the locomotive wagon that conveyed each to its destination.
The maidens were not, however, nearly so hard-worked as the young men were during their zerdarship. Three hours a day, and that only on alternate weeks, were all that was required for these communal duties. There were some domestic duties at home. But these, from the scientific construction and sensible furnishing of their houses, were reduced to a minimum. There was no overtaxing of the strength of the inmates in the care of rubbish as slightly ornamental as it is useful, fit emblem of the mental furnishing of the tasteless idiots that brought it into vogue.
Dressmaking, that other source of female slavery, had become, at least in its present developments, a lost art. Dresses not being made to display the figure, their cut and make-up was entirely a matter of machinery. As a preoccupation, dress did not take up more of a woman's time than is now devoted to the matter by a man having a decent regard to his outward appearance. It must not, however, be supposed that the wives and the daughters of the tenth chiliad were indifferent to their personal appearance. Their toilet was brief, simply because their garments were so sensibly devised, that each was put on as easily, and required as little arrangement, as a mantle. No one, seeing the graceful folds and harmonious coloring of the feminine attire of that period, would regret the gaudy frippery, the costly and elaborate combination of shreds and patches, that now disfigures more frequently than it adorns.
Once. while turning over the volumes contained in my host's library, I came upon an old author of the fifty-sixth century. Some remarks of his on this subject struck me as being not so far from the truth, considering the prejudices of his age, and the great remoteness of the period of which he was treating.
"The leading characteristics of the feminine costume of this period,"—the writer was discoursing of the closing centuries of the second chiliad,—"its general inclegance, its extravagance, its strange vacillations between an unbecoming exposure and an overloading of the person, its sudden and capricious changes, may all be traced to the struggle between two opposing influences. On the one side was a class of creatures for whom our language no longer has a name. Reckless of cost, caring for nothing so much as to attract attention, as devoid of real taste as of self-respect, they gave the predominating tone to what was then called fashion. This was especially the case in that country whose taste in feminine costume was long slavishly copied by other nations. Here their influence was stronger and more openly exercised than in any other land. They were actually a political power, sometimes the highest. A meretricious art and a corrupting literature were their worthy allies and ministers. They were backed by all the interests whose account lay in extravagance of costume.
"The matrons and daughters of the period, as yet without any direct influence upon legislation, and unused to acting in concert, had neither the ability to contend against the influences that degraded their sex, nor the spirit to abstain from an unworthy imitation. They seem to have been content to copy and modify—sometimes in matters of more importance than dress—what they should have rejected with the disdain due to the source whence it originated. It generally happened, that, as in other copies from a bad original, the more glaring defects were exaggerated: the good points, if any, disappeared. True taste in feminine attire first became possible when woman ceased from the endeavor to recommend herself chiefly by what, at most, is but an accessory to her true charm."
All this, no doubt, is extremely incorrect, yet may rest on a substratum of truth.
From the causes above mentioned, the maidans, both vioran and zeruan, having a considerable amount of leisure, were able to prosecute their higher education with even more assiduity than their busier brothers. In literature and art woman was, in fact, pre-eminent. Men, though by no means ignorant of, or indifferent to, the more graceful culture, showed generally a predilection for the exact sciences.
Distinguished artists would occasionally appear among the male sex, just as eminent geometers or scientists would among the women. But, as a rule, the whole range of the fine arts and of imaginative literature had long become the special province of the sex whose finer nervous organization gave a special advantage in those directions. Her powers of invention and execution had long ceased to be open to the sneering scepticism that seemingly expects from the one sex, amid many discouragements, and with little or no training, what appears only exceptionally from the crowded and well-trained ranks of the other,—that rare flowering of a union of natural endowment with resolute perseverance, to which is given the name of genius. Discussion as to the superiority of either sex would, to the contemporaries of Utis and Ulmene, have seemed as ridiculous as a question in regard to the greater necessity of one or the other. Their difference of mental endowment was recognized as one of quality, not of quantity. To compare them was as vain as the endeavor to strike a balance between a Cæsar and a Homer, a Newton and a Raphael, a Watt and a Shakspeare.
It would be useless to enumerate the long list of female names that, in the ninety-sixth century, had become famous in the higher walks of literature. Yet the works on which rested their title to fame are not more unknown than are really those of Newton and Shakspeare to the great majority of those who now unhesitatingly admit their surpassing superiority.
As scientific investigators, women had shown a special predilection for chemistry and biology, as was readily seen on referring to any of the standard works on those subjects. As inventors they had, since education gave them a grasp of the principles of mechanics, enriched the world with many notable inventions.
Of these I will mention only two, both in photography, or, rather, in the extensive field of applied science of which photography is merely the humble beginning.
These remarkable inventions, called respectively the varzeo and the lizeo, were, indeed, characteristically feminine in their purpose and application, as were the great majority of woman's inventions. By means of the one she was enabled, as in a magic mirror, and almost as well as if there present, to behold those distant scenes to which she had less free access than man,—before marriage, at least. By means of the other was presented to her eyes, endowed with the movement of life, the loved form separated by distance or death.
I have already mentioned that Ialma made photography her specialty. One day, by special invitation, I was admitted to her studio. She engaged me in an animated discussion on some topic—what, I do not remember—while she appeared to be busied in making some adjustments in the curious instrument beside which she stood. Presently she produced for my inspection an extensive collection of sun-pictures, and, while I was occupied with these, went on with her preparations, as I thought, for taking my portrait, to obtain which was one object of my visit.
"It is an undoubted success," were the words by which she drew my attention.
"A success,—in what?" said I, looking up from the collection of views, which certainly were worthy of my complete absorption in them.
"Look here," she replied, pointing to the table before her.
On approaching, I found the entire table covered with a number of portraits of myself. How they had been taken, I could not at first imagine; for I had not, to my knowledge, been "posing," in any sense of the term. A closer examination somewhat explained the seeming mystery. I had been "taken" on the wing, as it were. Each portrait showed a slight change of position from that shown in the preceding one of the series.
In all this, however, there was nothing specially wonderful. I had seen something similar effected in regard to horses, though with infinitely more trouble, and far less nicety of result. It was not till a few hours after that I discovered the full scope of the invention.
- You will be better able to judge of the result," said Ialma, when you see them in the lizeo."
I had not the slightest notion, at the moment, as to what was referred to by this new term,—whether a locality, or a piece of apparatus. According to my wont in such cases, I asked no questions that might betray an alarming ignorance. Even should I find no opportunity of seeking enlightenment from Utis, the explanation would present itself in due time.
In the evening, after dinner, a small piece of furniture was rolled forward on casters from the corner where I had frequently noticed it, and supposed to be some kind of sewing-machine. A knob being pressed by Ialma, a small electric light within lighted up a sort of niche, in which was seen one of the portraits taken in the morning. It was, however, increased in size, had its coloring fully developed, and showed a peculiar stereoscopic effect for which I could not account.
Ialma pressed another knob, and the picture seemed endowed with life and voice. I—for it was indeed myself, reduced to one-twelfth of my natural dimensions—I seemed to turn from regarding some object to my left, toward which I had been pointing. The movement of eyes, lips, of every feature, was in exact unison. I recognized what was seemingly uttered by my miniature double, as an inquiry put by me in the morning. The whole, action and speech, occupied, perhaps, thirty seconds, then could be repeated, with or without the voice, as often as desired.
The voice was due, of course, to a concealed phonograph, which, as well as the fact that I was focussed in the camera, had purposely been kept out of sight, so as not to interfere with that naturalness of expression otherwise so difficult to obtain. An ingenious piece of mechanism caused the series of pictures to pass rapidly before the niche, at such a rate as to cause the visual impressions so to overlap as to produce the illusion that the figure seen was actually in motion.
The lizeo, as I discovered, was an instrument found in every household. By means of it, not only the absent living could be made to speak before our eyes, but also the dead, even of remote ages. Every family possessed a very complete series of family portraits adapted to this instrument. These were taken and perpetuated by a process that rendered them practically indestructible.
My host kindly allowed me access to the safe in which was preserved this peculiar species of family archives. They afforded a reliable means of becoming acquainted with the family history to the remotest period. For connected with each set of portraits was a brief autobiographical sketch of the leading events in the life of the person represented. Though not extending, in general, beyond the limits of a monumental inscription, they possessed the one merit to which our epitaphs can most rarely lay claim: they were strictly accurate.
An account of the varzeo I must defer to another occasion. It was an instrument of somewhat too complex a nature for general private use. But one was to be found among the apparatus of every village institute, where it was employed as shall afterwards be described.