|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 32
"As I was able to gain from Peters in so brief a time a very limited
range of fact from which to make correct deductions of importance, I did
not expend much of that valuable time in seeking for descriptions of
buildings; but I did learn sufficient in that direction to satisfy me
that, to the fund of architectural knowledge brought by the ancestors of
this people from Europe, they had, during the centuries, added much that
is new and valuable, even sublime and truly marvellous.
"But even here in this paradise on earth, there is a criminal class--not
very terrible, but, legally, a criminal class. It seems that a portion
of the old, restless, warrior-spirit must have trickled along in obscure
by-ways of the sanguineous system of many of these people, for among
the youths of each generation several thousand out of the whole
population (residing on a hundred islands, large and small), would,
despite every effort of their elders, become unmanageable. These--after
each young man had been given two or three opportunities to reform, and
in the end been judged incorrigible--were banished to the
mountain-ranges which surround the great active surface-crater already
described, and which are from thirty to eighty miles distant from the
Capital of Hili-li. There they might either freeze or roast, as taste
should dictate.
"To-morrow evening," concluded Bainbridge, "I shall relate some
particulars in the lives of Pym and Peters in Hili-liland. The purely
personal experiences of these two adventurers I should ignore, were it
not that they take us into the region of the wonderful crater and its
peculiar surrounding mountains and valleys, where we shall see nature in
one of the strangest of her many strange guises." Then, after a second's
pause:
"Do you accompany me to see the poor old fellow, tomorrow?"
I promised that I would; and we agreed upon two o'clock as the time for
starting. Five minutes later Doctor Bainbridge arose, and saying
good-night, left me until the morrow.
The TWELFTH Chapter
The next evening at the appointed hour Doctor Bainbridge came in. I had
not been able to accompany him in his daily visit to Peters. As
Bainbridge took his seat he said a few words concerning the old sailor,
who, to the surprise, I think, of both physicians, appeared to be
recovering. They hoped for scarcely more than a temporary improvement,
but a little longer life for the poor old man seemed now assured.
Doctor Bainbridge glanced at the map of Hili-li, which I had spread out
on the table, and began:
"In the ducal palace," said he, "in which through the kindness of the
younger members of the household, Pym and Peters were permitted to
reside--at first only in the servants' quarters--the servants, however,
being, at least in social manners, equal to the strangers--there were,
besides the immediate family of the duke, many more or less close family
connections. Among these was a young woman, corresponding in her period
of life to New England women in their twentieth or twenty-first year,
but really in her sixteenth year. Now I should imagine from the actions
of that old sea-dog, Peters, lying there in his seventy-eighth or
seventy-ninth year, and forty-nine years after he last set eyes on the
young woman, that she must have been the loveliest being in a land of
exceeding loveliness. Her eyes, the old man says, were in general like a
tropical sky in a dead calm, but on occasions they resembled a tropical
sky in a thunder-storm. She had one of those broad faces in which the
cheeks stand out roundly, supporting in merriment a hundred changing
forms, and laughing dimples enough to steal a heart of adamant--the
loveliest face, when it is lovely, in all the world. Her hair was
golden, but of the very lightest of pure gold--a golden white; and when
in the extreme warmth of her island home she sat amid the trees, and it
was allowed to fall away in rippling waves--to what then am I to liken
it? It was transcendently beautiful. I think that I can feel its
appearance. It must have looked like the sun's shimmer on the sea-foam
from which rose Aphrodite; or like the glint from Cupid's golden
arrow-heads as, later, sitting by the side of Aphrodite, he floated
along the shores of queenly Hellas, in gleeful mischief shooting
landward and piercing many a heart. Ah, love in youth! The cold
reasoning world shall never take away that charm; and when the years
shall cover with senile snows those who have felt it, then Intuition and
not Reason shall give Faith to them as the only substitute for glories
that have faded and gone.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|