The Diothas, or, A Far Look Ahead/Chapter 26
Knowing nothing of the invitation on the part of her father, she was probably, though showing no sign of it, greatly surprised to see with whom her father was conversing with such unwonted animation.
There was at first, or I imagined there was, the slightest touch of restraint in her manner. Her proud spirit still chafed at the recollection of the bondage to which her never-before-confined tresses had been subjected. This, however, soon vanished before the influence of her naturally sunny disposition, and her gratitude for the pleasure I seemed to have procured for her father. Nothing, indeed, could have proved a surer passport to her favor.
When Hulmar revealed to her his newly discovered mine of information, Reva entered with enthusiasm into his hopes and plans for the completion of the long-delayed work. Her remarks on the necessity of rewriting the whole of the first volume showed a surprising familiarity with a subject not regarded among us as especially attractive to the feminine mind. It must be remembered, however, that much now regarded as recondite in science had, reduced to simple principles, become part of elementary education.
"But you, Reva, are not so lucky to-day as I have been."
"In what way?" inquired she, evidently puzzled as to what was referred to, but seeing that her father was inclined to tease, a somewhat unusual thing with him, and a sure sign that he was in the best of spirits.
"You must know," said he, addressing me, that this good daughter of mine is ambitious. She has been indulging lately in wild dreams of future fame. Her name was to descend to the latest posterity linked with the discovery of the Something-or-other Diothensis."
"Oh, my poor plant!" exclaimed Reva, half amused, half dismayed. "What has happened?"
"Your pet is safe," said Hulmar, as we rose from table. But it proves to be a most undesirable vehicle to posthumous fame. Your cousin, here, can tell you what your uncle Aslan could not." This uncle, it must be mentioned, was an authority on botany.
"He knows my new plant?" said Reva with sparkling eyes.
"It turns ont to be a very old and a very mischievous one," replied her father.
By the time he had repeated to her what I had told about the plant, we were all standing before it.
"It is so beautiful," said Reva, regarding it somewhat. ruefully. "Yet it must be destroyed, I suppose."
Since Reva said it was beautiful, I began to think so too; because she showed an interest in it. I forthwith became earnest to save the existence of what I had hitherto regarded as simply a detestable weed. I proposed, accordingly, that it should be potted in a tub of sufficient size, taking care to remove from the ground every fragment of the root. Then, by taking care to snip off the flowers before ripening, the plant might be preserved as a unique specimen of an apparently extinct species.
The proposal was carried by acclamation. When I returned from the out-house with the large ualin tub that Reva pointed out to me, Hulmar had the plant already so loosened that we could transfer it at once to the tub. We had just carried this under the shade of a spreading beech when a visitor was seen approaching the house; and Hulmar was obliged to leave the completion of the task to me, under the superintendence of Reva.
While thus engaged, an idea occurred to me that took Reva's fancy too. I knew that before long it would be her turn to give a lecture in the village institute. Why not select for theme this strange regressor from a distant past? The plant itself would attract attention by its peculiar and unknown aspect. In addition to its botanical and scientific aspects, the subject admitted of many interesting historical details being introduced,—its former prevalence, its extirpation, the story of the probable origin of this one specimen.
Seated on the rustic seat encircling the lower trunk of the beech, Reva listened attentively. Encouraged by the silent approval of my fair auditor, I poured forth a stream of anecdote more or less connected with the thistle, from its preservation of the Scottish host at Largs to the character of the people who adopted it as a national emblem.
"How do you come to know all these interesting things?" inquired Reva during a pause in my eloquence.
"From old books," was my reply. "I hope to be able to show you a representation of this plant in one of the books expected to-day."
"In what language is the book?" she inquired.
"In the English of the nineteenth century."
"I have read that many languages were in use at that time. Do you know any other beside that you mentioned?"
"More or less of four others, though none so well as that."
"What languages were those?"
"Greek, Latin, German, and French."
"I have some idea of the peoples by whom they were spoken. It must have taken you a long time to learn so many different ways of expressing the same thought. Yet it must be something to possess the power of reading the very words that moved the minds of men in those faroff times. It must make you feel sometimes as if you had known them personally, and had heard them speak. You must be able to sympathize with their hopes and fears and strivings, in a way impossible for others.
"Yes, it is so difficult to realize, that, so many centuries ago, the sun was shining just as it does now upon this fair earth, that other eyes then looked on grass and flowers and branches waving in the summer wind, and, as they saw the sun verging to those familiar hills, thought and planned for the to-morrow that was to come and to pass away like millions upon millions since."
As she spoke she had risen from her seat, and stood looking toward where the distant hills shut in the horizon. As, resting on one knee beside the flower-tub I was still engaged in filling, I looked up toward her, the very incarnation of youth and loveliness and noble thought, there came to me one of those moments that come to all,—one of those moments when, with shuddering awe, we recognize for once what we really are, mere drops of spray tossed up from the abyss of eternity, and poised for an instant ere redescending to the mysterious source from which we sprung. For her, too, and for me, would come the day when other thoughtful eyes, gazing on the fair world illumined by that self-same sun, would endeavor to realize that that sun had once shone for others once as young and hopeful as themselves.
Some such expression she must have read in my eyes as she turned toward me.
"My father says that I am too much given to pursue such fancies," she said with a slight laugh. "He warms me, that, unless I take care, I shall find myself some day writing verse."
It may here be remarked, that not only was verse-making regarded as a very poor employment of time, but the poetic temperament itself, as experience had shown, was far from conducive to happiness in its possessor. Hulmar himself possessed it in no slight degree, but had counteracted its influence largely by assiduous application to the most abstruse studies.
The slight estimation in which the versifier was held at this period arose from no lack of appreciation of the truly poetic, but from the despair of attaining any result worthy of comparison with the best efforts of earlier periods. The difficulty had become ever greater of discoursing with any freshness of utterance or originality of thought upon the themes that had exercised the highest skill of so many hundreds of generations.
It is with the first development of a literature as with the opening of a new country. The earliest cultivators draw with ease rich harvests from the virgin soil, from which succeeding generations find increasing difficulty in obtaining an adequate reward for their toil. For the first comers are the great nuggets, and the rich surface placers, the primeval forests, and the abundant game. Yet in this period, though little poetry was written, there was much enjoyed; just as there was much religion in life, though theology was almost as extinct as a department of literary activity.
Finding Reva was about to gather the fruit for the evening meal, I naturally volunteered my aid. Even in so small a matter as the cultivation of small fruits, I found much to remark and to admire. This may be understood when I state, that, by the methods in use, strawberries—and what strawberries! Even the amiable and enthusiastic author of "Small Fruits" would have been filled with amazement to see what had been accomplished in the improvement of his favorite fruit,—improvements in flavor and size beyond his wildest dreams,—by the methods in use, I repeat, strawberries had come to be in season for six months in the open air, May and October both inclusive. For other fruits, there were correspondingly extended seasons.
The selection and gathering of the strawberries, at present so disagreeable a task, were greatly facilitated by the manner of their cultivation. The plants grew, not on the level ground, but on ridges of about four feet in height, and sloping each way at an angle of sixty degrees. By this means, not only was a greater surface obtained, but also, by varying the direction of the ridges, the different varieties could be suited with almost any amount of exposure to, or aversion from, the beams of the morning and mid-day sun. We gathered also a small dish of cherries, more for their beauty than from any notion of their ability to cope in flavor with the other fruit we had gathered. These cherries, I may remark, grew on dwarf-trees, or, rather, bushes, not more than six feet in height.
We were returning to the house, when Hulmar met us with the intelligence that his visitor had departed, and that he had just heard through the telephone that the books ordered a few hours before were already on their way from the railway station.
Nor was it long until the wagon came in sight. The books, contained in several cases, were soon deposited on the floor of the veranda. With easy good-breeding, the zerdar who had brought them acceded to Hulmar's invitation to rest for a while under the shade. While admiring the basket of fruit, which Reva placed at his disposal, and eating a few of the cherries, he amused us with an account of the ingenious expedients to which they were obliged to resort at home in order to raise such fruits as these, and told of the excellence of their mangoes.
His native place, it appeared, was in the neighborhood of where Timbuctoo now stands. In complexion and build I should have taken him for a Spaniard. Hulmar was able to inform me afterwards, that, from his name, he must be, partly at least, of Moorish descent. In manner, however, and training, he did not differ from the other zerdars I had met.
When we had arranged the books in the study, Hulmar read to us—that is, Reva and me—the note from the librarian, which had come with the books. In the course of this note the librarian mentioned the fact, that few of the books included in the list had, according to the records, been asked after during many centuries. One, a copy of "Webster's Unabridged," had not been out since A.D. 6943.
To Reva this last work became at once an object of great interest, especially after I had pointed out to her the woodcut representing the thistle, which she recognized at once. While I was occupied with Hulmar in mapping out our future work by a cursory examination of the books, she was engaged in examining the woodcuts in the dictionary. The cuts themselves were to her objects of interest. Compared with the photographic illustrations in the books to which she had been accustomed, they had the like merits and defects with the old manuscripts as compared with the finest specimens of the printer's art.
Meantime the afternoon was passing away, till Hulmar, becoming aware of the near approach of the dinner-hour, rose, saying,—
That is surely enough for one day. You will, of course, dine with us. There will be no difficulty as regards costume. You are just the make of Olay a few years back. As for dinner, that is Reva's affair."
"There is just time," said Reva, and hastened to the telephone to give the necessary directions.
"I have informed Ulmene of your intended absence," she said a few moments later. "She proposes that Utis come later in the evening to pilot you home, as the moon rises late."