The Diothas, or, A Far Look Ahead/Chapter 20
Utis having explained the matter to me, I was not surprised when, on the morning following our visit to Nuiore, we descended to the workshop at the usual hour. This proceeding was, it is true, strongly contrary to the prejudices of my early training; yet I could not but acknowledge that there was much reason in the view taken of the matter. Day of rest as it was, the ordinary wants of the body had to be attended to; and not least among these was considered the exercise necessary to keep the body in health. On this day, accordingly, all performed about one-half of their usual morning task. But not only was the labor thus reduced by one-half: the proceeds were scrupulonsly set apart as a contribution to the general fund. This, as we liave seen, was a fund devoted to the noblest purposes. The only direct benefit to the worker from the morning's labor was the maintenance of his physical and moral health.
It was now I first obtained some insight into the religious thought of the period. Though somewhat staggered by many things that ran counter to my preconceived opinions, I could not help seeing that these people were religious in the highest sense of the term.
Man had not, as he advanced in power and moral dignity, reasoned himself into the belief that he is merely a fortuitous concourse of atoms, differing only in degree of complexity from a lichen or a monad. The more knowledge advanced, the more difficult was it found to believe that this divine something, this apparently boundless capacity for improvement, these far-reaching aspirations after a higher existence, was merely a resultant of the blind re-action of matter upon matter.
The change, to me so surprising, from the sceptical man of science of those former days to the Utis now known to me, was entirely typical of the general change in the attitude of scientific thought towards the most important questions that can engage the attention of man. Fulness of knowledge had removed many of the stumbling-blocks of half-knowledge. Psychology had become a real science. The most complex operations of the intellect could be resolved into their elementary components with all the precision now attained in the analysis of matter. Yet all tended more and more toward compelling a belief in the existence of an archetypal mind, a pre-arranging, all-embracing power.
I have no intention of entering into a detailed statement of the prevailing forms of belief. The heterodoxy of one age is the orthodoxy of another: the devout sentiment of one would be outraged by the current belief of a succeeding age. I need merely state, that all believed in a God, and in a future existence. There were two great schools of thought on this subject, which, in their general characteristics, reminded me of the saying, that all men are born either Platonists or Aristotelians. To one or other of these, individuals gave their assent, in accordance, as far as I could judge, with an inborn mental bias.
This was the more clearly perceptible, seeing that all were left perfectly free to follow this bias. Parents did not feel justified in prejudicing the case by impressing their own religions opinions upon the unformed and helpless minds of children. When the proper time came, the distinctive views of the divine nature were displayed before the youth or maiden, with a warning not to come to a hasty decision. At least a year of reflection was enjoined before they should definitely unite with one or the other communion.
Breakfast, on this morning, passed off much as usual, except that the customary concert was omitted. Not long after nine arrived Reva, accompanied by her father, whom I now saw for the first time. Hulmar Edial was of unusually tall stature, even for the men of that period. His unthinned locks and heavy beard showed here and there a thread of premature gray amid the original ruddy brown,—a color no longer so common as at present, and another sign of the original Scandinavian stock whence the Edials had sprung. Reva, for her part, was a genuine Diotha in feature,—one good reason, no doubt, for the tender regard with which the father's eye would dwell on the features so strongly recalling those of the wife so dearly loved and so early lost.
This loss had left deep traces. Among the slightest were those premature, though few, gray hairs. For he was only fifty-two, while sixty was then considered an early age for these signs of age to appear. A deeply lined forehead gave evidence of long-continued and strenuous thought, as did also the features, fined down almost to emaciation. From beneath his strongly marked eyebrows flashed the most penetrating eyes I had ever seen. Hulmar Edial, indeed, was a man to whom intense labor was a necessity as well as a delight, the one refuge from the unavailing remembrance of a happiness irrevocably past.
His case was by no means uncommon. The more precious the treasure, the more grievous its loss: the more intimate the union of hearts, the more bitter the premature separation. The haunting fear of such a separation was the one bitter drop in the comparatively unmingled cup of life in those days. I was the more able to appreciate this fact after a confidential conversation. with Utis not long subsequent to the time of which we are speaking. The conversation had turned upon Hulmar, and the great loss he had sustained. While speakmg of this, the voice of Utis faltered; and, after a pause, he confided to me his own apprehensions.
"You are already aware that our race, though greatly improved in general health and longevity, is barely maintained at its present number. This is in accordance with a well-known physiological law. The average number of children to a marriage is a little above two, but the number of mothers able to boast of more than two living children is scarcely sufficient to compensate for the deficiency in other families. The absence of children in a household being regarded as the greatest of calamities, the want must, in many cases, be supplied by adoption.
"A mother with only two children would never consent to surrender one, except, perhaps, to a childless sister, or dearly loved friend. But the mother blessed with more than two can rarely close her heart to the pitiful solicitations of wives less happy than themselves, to whom is wanting this crowning glory of womanhood. By a curious reversal of conditions, such a mother is now very much in the position of those childless but wealthy persons so frequently referred to in the literature of your period: she is the much-courted possessor of a coveted treasure. Even among the mothers of two children, she occupies a proud position. They have done but their duty: she has done as much, and has besides been able to confer the only greatly coveted gift it is now in human power to bestow.
"I am, at present, looking forward to an event that may make my wife a very proud woman, or me a very wretched man. I have but too much reason to dread as well as to hope. From causes in regard to which there has been much dispute, the fact is but too certain, that motherhood, though a greater glory even than of yore, is also a greater danger. Ulmene, strange to say, looks forward with hope and exultation: it is I, she thinks, need comfort and encouragement. She is right. When I think of what may be, my heart sinks within me; and I wonder whether I shall be able to imitate the quiet endurance of my friend Hulmar.
"By some of the ways in which such matters become known, this anticipated event, though yet fully half a year in the future, has already become the cause of numerous kinswomen offering congratulations, and urging each her claim to consideration. For these applications arrive, not from the absolutely childless only. The mother who, though blessed with a son, has ceased to hope for a daughter, longs for one, and vice versa.
"Ulmene was strangely moved by the letter of a former schoolmate. The writer humbly acknowledged there were many having a prior claim to favor, as she was but distantly related to her. But she conjured her, by the memory of their girlish intimacy, to take her ease into consideration. She had now been married for about ten years, years of happiness till the sweetest hope of marriage began to fade away. Her husband was as kind as, even kinder than, ever, seeing her unhappiness. But even he, at times, seemed to feel the lack of that by his fireside to which they once had looked forward with confident anticipation. Dearly as she loved him, she would be willing to see him the husband of another, if thereby this unexpressed longing could be satisfied. But, as this could not be, all that remained was, to seek to obtain, from the compassion of her highly favored friend, what God had denied to herself.
"This letter," continued Utis, "decided the matter. According to the custom observed in such matters, Niata Diotha-Mornu will, as it is called, serve a year for her adopted child. That is, she comes to our house, and remains for a year. She is the first to welcome the little one: it is she that takes entire charge of it, under the mother's direction. At the end of the year she leaves for her own home with her adopted child, to which she has henceforth all a mother's right. The real mother suffers, indeed, at the separation; but conscious of the happiness she has conferred, and which none is in better condition to appreciate than a happy mother, certain that the little one will lack neither love nor care, she stifles what she recognizes as a merely selfish regret, and seeks consolation in the love of her remaining children."