It is necessary to turn the botanist's thoughts into a worthier
channel. It is necessary to override these modest regrets, this
intrusive, petty love story. Does he realise this is indeed Utopia?
Turn your mind, I insist, to this Utopia of mine, and leave these
earthly troubles to their proper planet. Do you realise just where
the propositions necessary to a modern Utopia are taking us?
Everyone on earth will have to be here;--themselves, but with a
difference. Somewhere here in this world is, for example, Mr.
Chamberlain, and the King is here (no doubt incognito), and all the
Royal Academy, and Sandow, and Mr. Arnold White.
But these famous names do not appeal to him.
My mind goes from this prominent and typical personage to that, and
for a time I forget my companion. I am distracted by the curious
side issues this general proposition trails after it. There will be
so-and-so, and so-and-so. The name and figure of Mr. Roosevelt jerks
into focus, and obliterates an attempt to acclimatise the Emperor of
the Germans. What, for instance, will Utopia do with Mr. Roosevelt?
There drifts across my inner vision the image of a strenuous
struggle with Utopian constables, the voice that has thrilled
terrestrial millions in eloquent protest. The writ of arrest,
drifting loose in the conflict, comes to my feet; I impale the scrap
of paper, and read--but can it be?--"attempted disorganisation? ...
incitements to disarrange? ... the balance of population?"
The trend of my logic for once has led us into a facetious alley.
One might indeed keep in this key, and write an agreeable little
Utopia, that like the holy families of the mediaeval artists (or
Michael Angelo's Last Judgement) should compliment one's friends in
various degrees. Or one might embark upon a speculative treatment of
the entire Almanach de Gotha, something on the lines of Epistemon's
vision of the damned great, when
"Xerxes was a crier of mustard.
Romulus was a salter and a patcher of patterns...."
That incomparable catalogue! That incomparable catalogue! Inspired
by the Muse of Parody, we might go on to the pages of "Who's Who,"
and even, with an eye to the obdurate republic, to "Who's Who in
America," and make the most delightful and extensive arrangements.
Now where shall we put this most excellent man? And this? ...
But, indeed, it is doubtful if we shall meet any of these doubles
during our Utopian journey, or know them when we meet them. I doubt
if anyone will be making the best of both these worlds. The great
men in this still unexplored Utopia may be but village Hampdens in
our own, and earthly goatherds and obscure illiterates sit here in
the seats of the mighty.
That again opens agreeable vistas left of us and right.
But my botanist obtrudes his personality again. His thoughts have
travelled by a different route.
"I know," he says, "that she will be happier here, and that they
will value her better than she has been valued upon earth."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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