"Not all, dear," I hastily put in. "Not nearly all. There are ever so many savages left."
"Yes I know that, I remember the maps and all the history and geography you have taught me."
It was a never-ending source of surprise to me the way those Herland women understood and remembered. It must have been due to their entirely different system of education. There was very much less put into their minds, from infancy up, and what was there seemed to grow there—to stay in place without effort. All the new facts we gave them they had promptly hung up in the right places, like arranging things in a large well- planned, not over-filled closet, and they knew where to find them at once.
"I can readily see," she went on, "that our pleasant collective economy is like that of bees and ants and such co-mothers ; and that a world of fathers does not work as smoothly as that. We have observed, of course, among animals, that the instincts of the male are different from those of the female, and that he likes to fight. But think of all you have done!"
That was what delighted Ellador. She was never tired of my stories of invention and discovery, of the new lands we had found, the mountain ranges crossed, the great oceans turned into highways, and all the wonders of art and science. She loved it as did Desdemona the wild tales of her lover, but with more understanding.
"It must be nobler to have Two," she would say, her eyes shining. "We are only half a people. Of course we love each other, and have advanced our own little country, but it is such a little one— and you have The World !"
We reached the coast in due time, and the town. It was not much of a town, dirty and squalid enough, with lazy halfbreed inhabitants for the most part. But this I had carefully explained and Ellador did not mind it, examining everything with kind im- partial eyes, as a teacher would examine the work of atypical children.
Terry loved it. He greeted that slovenly, ill-built, idle place with ardor, and promptly left us to ourselves for the most part.
There was no steamer. None had touched there for many months, they said; but there was a sailing vessel which under- took, for sufficient payment, to take us and our motor-boat with its contents, to a larger port.
Terry and I had our belts with gold and notes; he had letters of credit too, while Ellador had brought with her not only a supply of gold, but a little bag of rubies, which I assured her would take us several times around the world, and more. The money system in Herland was mainly paper, and their jewels, while valued for decoration, were not prized as ours are. They had some historic treasure chests, rivalling those of India, and she had been amply supplied.
After some delay we set sail.
Terry walked the deck, more eager as the days passed. El- lador, I am sorry to say, proved a poor sailor, as was indeed to be expected, but made no fuss about her disabilities. I told her it was almost unescapable, unpleasant but not dangerous, so she stayed in her berth, or sat wrapped mummy fashion on the deck, and suffered in patience.
Terry talked a little more when we were out of her hearing. "Do you know they say there's a war in Europe ?" he told me. "A war? A real one—or just the Balkans?"
"A real one, they say—Germany and Austria against the rest of Europe apparently. Began months ago—no news for a long time."
"Oh well—it will be over before we reach home, I guess. Lucky for us we are Americans."
But I was worried for Ellador. I wanted the world, my world, to look its best in her eyes. If those women, alone and unaided, had worked out that pleasant, peaceful, comfortable civiliza- tion of theirs, with its practical sisterliness and friendliness all over the land, I was very anxious to show her that men had done at least as well, and in some ways better —men and wo- men, that is. And here we had gotten up a war—a most un- desirable spectacle for an international guest.
There was a missionary on board, a thin, almost emaciated man, of the Presbyterian denomination. He was a most earnest person, and a great talker, naturally.
"Woe unto me," he would say, "if I preach not this gospel! And he preached it "in season and out of season."
Ellador was profoundly interested. I tried to explain to her that he was an enthusiast of a rather rigid type, and that she must not judge Christianity too harshly by him, but she quite re-assured me.
"Don't be afraid, my dear boy—I remember your outline of the various religions—all about how Christianity arose and spread; how it held together in one church for a long time, and then divided, and kept on dividing—naturally. And I remember about the religious wars, and persecutions, that you used to have in earlier ages. We had a good deal of trouble with religion in our first centuries too, and for a long time people kept appearing with some sort of new one they had had 're- vealed' to them, just like yours. But we saw that all that was needed was a higher level of mentality and a clear understand- ing of the real Laws—so we worked toward that. And, as you know, we have been quite at peace as to our religion for some centuries. It's just part of us."
That was the clearest way of putting it she had yet thought of. The Herland religion was like the manners of a true aristo- crat, a thing unborn and inbred. It was the way they lived. They had so clear and quick a connection between conviction and action that it was well nigh impossible for them to know a thing and not do it. I suppose that was why, when we had told them about the noble teachings of Christianity, they had been so charmed, taking it for granted that our behavior was equal to our belief.
The Reverend Alexander Murdock was more than pleased to talk with Ellador—any man would be, of course. He was im- mensely curious about her too, but even to impertinent ques- tions she presented an amiable but absolute impermeability.
"From what country do you come, Mrs. Jennings;" he asked her one day, in my hearing. He did not know I was within earshot, however.
Ellador was never annoyed by questions, nor angry, nor con- fused. Where most people seem to think that there is no altern- ative but to answer correctly or to lie, she recognized an end- less variety of things to say or not say. Sometimes she would look pleasantly at the inquirer, with those deep kind eyes of hers, and ask: "Why do you wish to know ?" Not sarcastically, not offensively at all, but as if she really wanted to know why they wanted to know. It was generally difficult for them to ex- plain the cause of their curiosity, but if they did; if they said it was just interest, a kindly human interest in her, she would thank them for the interest, and ask if they felt it about every one. If they said they did, she would say, still with her quiet gentleness: "And is it customary, when one feels interested in a stranger, to ask them questions? I mean is it a —what you call a compliment? If so, I thank you heartily for the compliment."
If they drove her—some people never will take a hint—she would remain always quite courteous and gentle, even praise them for their perseverance, but never say one word she did not choose to. And she did not choose to give to anyone news of her beloved country until such time as that country decided it should be done.
The missionary was not difficult to handle.
"Did you not say that you were to preach the gospel to all na- tions—or all people—or something like that?" she asked him. "Do you find some nations easier to preach to than others? Or is it the same gospel to all?"
He assured her that it was the same, but that he was natur- ally interested in all his hearers, and that it was often import- ant to know something of their antecedents. This she agreed might be an advantage, and left it at that, asking him if he would let her see his Bible. Once he was embarked on that sub- ject, she had only to listen, and to steer the conversation, or rather the monologue.
I told her I had overheard this bit of conversation, begging her pardon for listening, but she said she would greatly enjoy having me with her while he talked. I told her I doubted if he would talk as freely if there were three of us, and she sugges- ted in that case that if I was interested I was quite welcome to listen as far as she was concerned. Of course I wasn't going to be an eavesdropper, even on a missionary trying to convert my wife, but I heard a good bit of their talk as I strolled about, and sat with them sometimes.
He let her read his precious flexible Oxford Bible at times, giving her marked passages, and she read about a hundred times as much as he thought she could in a given time. It inter- ested her immensely, and she questioned him eagerly about it:
"You call this 'The Word of God'?"
"Yes," he replied solemnly. "It is His Revealed Word." "And every thing it says is true?"
"It is Truth itself, Divine Truth," he answered. "You do not mean that God wrote it ?"
"Oh, no. He revealed it to His servants. It is an Inspired Book."
"It was written by many people, was it not?" "Yes—many people, but the same Word." "And at different times ?'
"Oh yes—the revelation was given at long intervals—the Old Testament to the Jews, the New Testament to us all."
Ellador turned the pages reverently. She had a great respect for religion, and for any sincere person.
"How old is the oldest part ?" she asked him.
He told her as best he could, but he was not versed in the latest scholarship and had a genuine horror of "the higher criti- cism." But I supplied a little information on the side, when we were alone, telling her of the patchwork group of ancient le- gends which made up the first part; of the very human councils of men who had finally decided which of the ancient writings were inspired and which were not; of how the Book of Job, the oldest of all, had only scraped in by one vote, and then, with rather a malicious relish, of that most colossal joke of all his- tory—how the Song of Songs—that amorous, not to say sala- cious ancient love-lyric, had been embraced with the others and interpreted as a mystical lofty outburst of devotion with that "black but comely" light-o'-love figuring as The Church.
Ellador was quite shocked.
"But Van!—he ought to know that. You ought to tell him. Is it generally known?"
"It is known to scholars, not to the public as a whole."
"But they still have it bound in with the others—and think it is holy—when it isn't."
"Yes," I grinned, "the joke is still going on."
"What have the scholars done about it?" she asked.
"Oh, they have worked out their proof, shown up the thing—and let it go at that."
"Wasn't there any demand from the people who knew to have it taken out of the Bible?"
"There is one edition of the Bible now printed in all the sep- arate books—a whole shelf full of little ones, instead of one big one."
"I should think that would be much better," she said, "but the other one is still printed—and sold?"
"Printed and sold and given away by hundreds of thou- sands—with The Joke going right on."
She was puzzled. It was not so much the real outside things we did which she found it hard to understand, but the different way our minds worked. In Herland, if a thing like that had been discovered, the first effort of all their wisest students would have been to establish the facts. When they were sure about it, they would then have taken the rather shameful old thing out of its proud position among the "sacred" books at once. They would have publicly acknowledged their mistake, rectified it, and gone on.
"You'll have to be very patient with me, Van dearest. It is go- ing to take me a long time to get hold of your psychology. But I'll do my best."
Her best was something amazing. And she would have come to her final conclusions far earlier but for certain firm precon- ceptions that we were somehow better, nobler, than we were.
The Reverend Murdock kept at her pretty steadily. He star- ted in at the beginning, giving her the full circumstantial ac- count of The Temptation, The Fall, and The Curse.
She listened quietly, with no hint in her calm face of what she might be thinking. But when he came to the punishment of the serpent: "Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life," she asked a question.
"Will you tell me please—how did the serpent 'go' before?" Mr. Murdock looked at her. He was reading in a deep sor-
rowful voice, his mind full of the solemn purport of the Great Tragedy.
"What was his method of locomotion before he was cursed?" asked Ellador.
He laid down the book in some annoyance. "It is believed that the serpent walked erect, that he stood like a man, that he was Satan himself," he replied.
"But it says: "Now the serpent was more subtile than any of the beasts of the field," doesnt it? And the picture you showed me is of a snake, in the tree."
"The picture is, as it were, allegorical," he replied. "It is not reverent to question the divine account like this."
She did not mind this note of censure, but asked further: "As a matter of fact, do snakes eat dust? Or is that allegorical too? How do you know which is allegorical and which is fact? Who decides?"
They had a rather stormy discussion on that point; at least the missionary was stormy. He was unable to reconcile Ellador's gentle courtesy with her singular lack of reverence for mere statements.
But our theological discussions were summarily ended, and Ellador reduced to clinging to her berth, by a severe storm. It was not a phenomenal hurricane by any means; but a steady lashing gale which drove us far out of our course, and so dam- aged the vessel that we could do little but drive before the wind.
"There's a steamer !" said Terry on the third day of heavy weather. And as we watched the drift of smoke on the horizon we found it was nearing us. And none too soon! By the time they were within hailing distance our small vessel ran up sig- nals of distress, for we were leaking heavily, and we were thankful to be taken off, even though the steamer, a Swedish one, was bound for Europe instead of America.
They gave us better accommodations than we had had on the other, and eagerly took on board our big motor-boat and bi- plane—too eagerly, I thought.
