# A Few Hours in a Far-Off Age/Chapter 1

A FEW HOURS IN A FAR-OFF AGE.
CHAPTER I.
—Progress of Culture, RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
—Conduct of Life, RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
I STAND in the doorway of an immense building, which appears to be devoted to the display of antiquities. Many people are entering, although the morning is young. A magnificent scene is before me.
At last I see a city in which are combined grandeur, cleanliness, order and picturesque loveliness. Between this one and those of the nineteenth century exists a difference as great, if not greater, than between the latter and the loathsome lairs of our cannibal progenitors reeking with refuse of human remains. My mind power has so widened that I know more than can be here told.
The buildings are truly grand works of art. All stand on noble columns of great size and strength. I cannot ​recognize what we call "streets." All structures are in clusters, though each house is separate. Very few prominent angles, only sufficient to make the curves more beautiful. Between the clusters are large distances, occupied in their centres by statuary, trees and scented shrubs. Many prettily-designed fountains are throwing their precious jewels into the rays a glorious morning sun. No smoke-disfigured architecture. No stream of poisonous filth, running with ferocious delight on its deathly errand. No besotted-looking creatures offending passers-by with debasing language. No jails. No knots of babbling men standing around entrances to public-houses, vieing with each other for destruction of intelligence. Indeed, such things so pitiable could not be for here are no such houses. No ill-fed, barefooted, unclean children, learning the probationary steps to scoundrelism. No suffering animals, urged by cruelty to overtax their strength. No decrepitude in age. No careworn faces. All are lovely with the light of knowledge—knowledge not in the capabilities of our lower natures, but towards which we are surely tending.
I know these graceful beings are humans—yet how they differ from my own poor self, and all others of our era. They appear luminous with integrity and benevolence. Both sexes are bewitchingly graceful. Women are rather taller than the generality of the present generation, but the men are not such fine animals as those of my century, though far nobler looking.
Their ambition has evidently been to attain efficiency in intellect and benignity in preference to the retention of tiger muscle. Another link to the brute fast disappearing.
My increased comprehension tells me the inner life of these persons is as noble as the expression of their ​countenances. But this is very many thousands of years hence, as I now plainly perceive by the model of a racehorse placed amongst other models of extinct mammals in the spacious court-yard below where I stand.
Vehicles of different sizes are passing swiftly on the ground and in the air. Some disappear through large openings in upper stories of enormous buildings.
I hear the cheerful hum of busy life, but it seems too minute a sound compared with all that movement. Ah, our vanity in the present renders it extremely difficult to hear the sounds from future ages, or see what is there passing without deeming it illusion. Yet I distinctly feel some of these beings touch my hand and nerve me as they pass into the great hall.
Here are three mounting the stairs. A lady about fifty years of age with her only children—a daughter between eighteen and nineteen, and son perhaps two years younger. It is very fortunate they are unable to see the staring habits of our century, for they are all so beautiful in form and mind I cannot remove my eyes from them. Every trace of wild-beast treachery and cruelty obliterated. Grand creatures are these! Benevolent, courageous and intelligent as only very numerous generations of truth loving ancestors could make them.
No, sceptics, "distance" has not "lent" this enchantment—that is, in the sense you imply—for I am near enough to hear the elder lady say:
"My darlings, this morning we will glance at some of the relics of what was once called the 'Christian Era,' subsequently designated by historians as 'The Age of Blood and Malevolence,' but which is, nevertheless, always of importance in the world's library from its having been ​the first link in the long unbroken chain of eras of civilization. If time will permit we will take from the twenty-first century to the fifteenth."
Only six centuries in one whole morning! That seems slow work. We go through the relics of ages in an hour or so, and then think ourselves sufficiently informed in their wonderful lessons for the rest of our lives. I cannot help feeling a proud delight that these lovable persons are going to include the present time in their examinations, and shall remain by them to hear their gratifying expressions of astonishment at our remarkable progress.
They have turned into a very long gallery, over the entrance to which is written:
"Christian Era, or Age of Blood to the Twenty-first Century."
They enter an alcove containing four or five seats and desks—easily lowered or raised—writing necessaries and book of reference, concerning only those objects of interest which are placed in front. As far as I can see down the centre of this gallery are similar alcoves ranged back to back. All appear to be occupied by families somewhat resembling the one I have chosen to remain with, and that there is now no vacant room must be notified to new comers by some known signal, for I observe them look at one of the pillars supporting the roof and pass without entering. So there is no more movement to distract the students than is requisite for exchange of alcoves, which is managed with such courtesy and considerative quiet that it causes no interruption. No one speaks more loudly than is necessary for the distance in occupation by her or his party; and us all have musical voices, the combination of these soft, sweet ​sounds comes to my ears as a new entrancing harmony. Involuntarily my memory recalls the wild-beastly roar of footballers one afternoon when I was unfortunately compelled to walk about half a mile from where they were going through their brutal pastime.
"Though," continues this lady, "you must naturally expect to find the brute still more unpleasantly prominent than you have yet seen."
"More prominent!" echoes the boy. "Then, mother, I think evolution most degrading if it proves that we came from beings lower than those we examined last Sunday and Monday."
"My Frederick, I am not at all surprised at your opinion. Youth in the individual, as youth in a world, cannot judge accurately on subjects where accuracy is all-important. When the world was much younger, and the vanity of unthinking beings was, of course, very strong, most men thought as you do. When you are older you will not give so positive an opinion on any subject without reflection, or judge by the portion only of an argument. You will, more wisely, await the whole."
"Yes, dear and generous-minded mother, you are right, as you always are. I ought not to have spoken so hastily, but I was thinking of that twenty-first century's mode of insulting woman by placing women members of the Senate in a third chamber to debate by themselves."
Smiling, the lady replies: "Oh! my true-hearted chevalier des dames, it is not known whether that arrangement originated in men's comical vanity, or from a wish by the women to secure quiet in their debates, the men being notorious in those days for their silly quarrels and irrelevant chatter. You must endeavour to restrain all impatience, for I have ​that to tell you concerning your progenitors which to your brave mind will appear cowardly and debasing; but when you shall have learned to dissect these truths with the calm judgment arising from more philosophical thought, you will perceive that all that primitive wrong-doing was entirely from the vanity and prejudice born of ignorance. It would be unjust and unreasonable were I to feel anger or contempt for my loved son because his thought is immature. So with those other children—those still more imperfect beings of a younger world—living under the all-powerful, though by them unseen, law of evolution. Ought we to be indignant with them because they had not the great benevolence which springs only from the knowledge of numerous ages? and because, being nearer the brute, they naturally showed more traces of their origin? Grasp that, and you will not be surprised to learn that the males of these primitive people held their own sex in such veneration that quite young ones—puny in intellect, and without education—were, by act of senate, qualified to elect senators, enter upon the government of the world, and occupy the highest offices to the exclusion of the Infinite Intelligence, where possessed by women. So those poor vain creatures, with much assumption of wisdom, though still very apelike in various ways, made laws affecting woman's liberty, property, and even her children, without consulting her, her happiness, or any higher feeling than their own self-love, comfort and aboriginal greed. In short, the women up to past the nineteenth century were really slaves in all but the name. It is known that men long retained much of brute strength, gained in the still earlier ages by fierce combats for possession of women to toil for them; and they sedulously preserved all they could of that great muscular power, ​because they imagined it to be a proof of superiority. By use of it they were enabled, during all the low ages, to keep women in a very subjective state, which you will find the more degrading the nearer we descend to the brute period. Little wonder then should we feel that when men commenced forms of religion they framed them with doctrines for continuing the humiliation of women. In all their so-called religious exercises they dinned in her ears old men's tales of how she had been the primary cause of every wrong-doing, for which she had been doomed to suffer cruel punishment, and be subservient to man through all earthly life. Some even went so far in their self-exaltation as to rear woman in the belief that she had no soul—no existence beyond the debasing one allotted to her by those near cousins of apes and tigers. The 'religious' ceremony of marriage in use by the ancestors of our own race was characteristic of the very small place conscientiousness then held in the world's mind. Men trained to the profession of goodness—called 'clergymen' or 'ministers of God'—administered the sacred oaths, knowing they thereby assisted in the perpetration of a crime; for the husband—so the man was named, and meant master—vowed to the Infinite that he would endow his wife—old name for slave—with all his 'worldly goods,' and that he would 'cherish' and 'love' her. Except in very rare cases, the endowment not only ended in nothing, but he annexed everything valuable that belonged to her, under the miserable pretext similar to others they used in all their acts of unjust dealing with women—that woman's brain was inadequate to the care of her own property; and, with the same ape logic they asserted that her strength was insufficient for the various light situations monopolized by man. So she generally ​performed the menial work, which was very severe in those days of crude appliances and badly constructed dwellings—so severe that she frequently died from the effects—lamed, and hands distorted in her heroic efforts to fulfil duties imposed upon her by the apish cunning of the males. The husband frequently proved his superior intellect by the rapidity with which he squandered his wife's property, and reduced her to hardships she never would have known had his sense or conscientiousness equalled hers. As to the loving and cherishing—alas!"
She is silent. Her kind eyes appear to be looking sadly and compassionately through the mighty past into the aching hearts of my century.
Though anxious to hear more, the young people respect her silence. Now her daughter, who had hitherto been taking notes, looks up. What a countenance! No mirror—whether of quicksilver, canvass or marble—ever in the world's 'early eras'—as they call our time—reflected so real a beauty. Added to the grand look of integrity all faces here possess, hers shows deeper thought than has yet come to her brother; and the expression of loving reverence for that dear mother! Was there ever aught so charming in a daughter?
My readers' share in this pleasure will be small, for I have not power to depict all I see.
After a few minutes' reflection, the mother resumes:
​"I hope," interrupted Frederick, with tones of increasing interest, "you will tell us more of those brave women and wicked men."
To which she answers, with great nobility of expression in both face and voice:
"You must learn to think of those vain creatures as not wicked."
With a roguish smile, he replies:
"Well then, stupid men! Do let me call them something they merit for their ill-treatment of women."
"Nay, my son, not even stupid, except by unfair comparison with the more evolved minds of our age; many were highly intellectual."
"But," says he, with the air of gaining victory, "they evinced no logic, either in ethics or in natural philosophy—that is, judged by what I have learnt as yet. Ethics, indeed! why our Leoni shows more logic in his ethics! and he would neither crush nor maim us, although he has such great muscular power."
"Bravely argued, dear! But, like most young reasoners, more from sympathy than reason. In the first place, tigers are now more gentle than were men in the age under notice. Our pet would crush no persons, whether he loved them or not. In this he but acts according to his extent of benevolence, as did those apparently cruel men, who were only commencing to emerge from the anti-lucan age. Though intellect was coming to most of them, they were very deficient in the higher qualities of benevolence and conscientiousness. Thus they were neither wicked nor stupid, simply and sadly for all under their rule, very very ignorant—so ignorant that they knew not the wrong they were committing—consequently great truths were obscured from their ​understanding by their vanity. In ethics they acted as far as their semi-barbarous nature made clear to them. Morality had then a different signification; their conception of it was far from resembling the high feeling it is with us. We must think of those poor creatures as they were constituted—not judge them by our advanced natures. To do so is as illogical as if you were to upbraid kind Leo with stupidity, because he could not solve one of your mathematical problems."
Kissing his mother's hand he acknowledges, in reverential words, her maturer reflections. Receiving his contrition with her habitual, lovable manner, she continues: "However, woman's position greatly changed in the twentieth century. The example was given in a grand part of the world called, America, where first appeared advanced intellect which guided human kind to nobler work than had before been thought of."
Then, turning to her daughter: "My Veritée, you who were so ready with your opinions two years ago have you none now to offer?"
"My silence is not from lessened interest, dear mother. On the contrary, I have been too occupied for speech in studying the reflex of my younger thoughts in those now expressed by Frederick. When you commenced your instruction of myself in evolution, I felt exactly as he feels. That such beings should have been our progenitors was an indignation that lasted long. I used to fervently hope some talented naturalist would discover it had been all a mistake—a futile and unreasonable hope, for at the same time I saw how indisputably real it had been proved to be. So beautifully has the growing intelligence of ages preserved through all the earth's changes traces of our slow but certain ​development, the gradual alteration in bodily structure and correlativety, that of all appertaining to mind. But it is no longer a disquietude all lesser feelings have resolved into an absorbing wonder—more absorbing still when I miss the intervening time, and compare the low beings, whose ethics and world-government we are now reviewing, with my noble father."
"Modestly-spoken conscientious thoughts! A result I expected when I forebore to press your young judgment at that time on matters so important. Given facts, and honest thought and great truths never fail to reveal themselves before the reflection of an earnest mind. You are right, dear, in calling your loved father noble, for so he is in every thought and act, and likewise all humans of our age, compared with the half savages whose habits and natures we are examining. Understand I say compared, because humankind is still progressing. We must endeavour not to give the future cause to stamp us with conceit, as well as lesser knowledge than it will possess. This was one of the great errors of our ancestors. The bulk of the ancient Australians, for whom we feel such pity, imagined there remained little else to learn. A fallacious idea, which operated powerfully in delaying progress—and that brings me back to the point where your brother interrupted. Of course the laws made by such men as I have endeavoured to describe, not only fully protected themselves, but sanctioned their perjury and wife-plundering! and—this I tell you to caution you against self-laudation—these same men boasted of their religious sentiments and great height in ethics, yet they broke the vows made at their altars with absolute impunity! and such conduct brought to them no loss or disgrace, no lowered status in anything. They boasted, too, of their fine sense of ​justice as compared with woman's, yet when a wife discovered her husband to be utterly unworthy of her, and left him because she could not live a life of foul hypocrisy, they put her to death at once. As civilization advanced, such a woman was killed more slowly. The husband was permitted to keep her children for any degraded life he chose. He spread evil untruths against her. The husband having thus given permission everyone was at liberty to follow his example, which all cruel persons availed themselves of—knowing they could indulge their disposition to injure without any fear of punishment or without being expected to feel mercy for the poor suffering heart—wearing life away in the pain of sorrow while the husband proudly proclaimed that he was made in the image of his god."
"Oh, the irreverent coward!" exclaims Frederick.
His mother continues in graver tones, yet so thrillingly tender, for she knows well that dear son's heart:—
"That was said of him by some in those very times—but civilization was then only in its infancy. You forget, through your impetuosity, one of the objects of your present study;—how much that to the unthinking wears the appearance of 'irreverence' or other wickedness has proceeded solely from the arrogance of ignorance." Looking very earnestly at him, she adds: "When a danger—and thoughtlessness is a great danger—has been pointed out for our avoidance, they are unwise who heed not the friendly warning."
​The thoughtful, beautiful eyes of his mother have again their abstracted expression as of examining into that far-off past of which she discourses.
"Those primitive men had numerous peculiar forms of belief. A little reflection would show you that acting in accordance with them could not be called 'irreverence.' They worshipped the Infinite as an avenging deity of an exceedingly vain and cruel nature, and, by a strange complexity in metaphysics, boastfully claimed a likeness to that deity; but it was no more irreverence in them than was the belief of their ancestors in still more primordial creeds—namely, that the earth was flat, a place below named 'hell,' and one above named 'heaven,' both of which places were inhabited by many gods—some of whom, indeed the most of them, judged by the growing light of succeeding ages, were remarkably immoral. When they reduced their deities to one they made that one a male, and with their usual deficiency in reason said his sons came down to earth 'to the daughters of men;' and that their progeny became 'men of renown.' Such a belief formed part of the creed of the more civilized time which we are reviewing. It was printed by those peculiar people in some curious books called Bible, Koran, &c., the contents of which were taught by their myth-men, or "clergymen," to have been the actual words of their god. But all that will be fully explained in our mornings for mythology. I only touch the subject to show you that morality and religion are of close affinity. When we know the creed of a nation we can judge correctly as to its ethics. If the creed be of an impossible or debasing nature the ethics will be found to correspond. We may deplore the ignorance which caused so much wrong-doing and suffering, but must not abase our own higher minds by ​condemning those poor men because they had not the knowledge that, except in extraordinary instances, can only be born of time and experience—a knowledge that grew as slowly as their change of bodily structure. As it grew, so they acquired increasing power to control, and, as we have seen in higher ages, ultimately extinguish all grosser traces of brute origin. If any blame attaches to early civilization it is solely to such heads of communities who, while possessing more than the ordinary understanding and some scientific learning, continued the promulgation of fallacies to the multitude, which they dared not utter to the Infinite in their solitude, simply to retain worldly position! Much honour is due to the integrity and courage of the few who would not bow to untruth, who thus risked and often bore with heroism the wrath of fanatics, whose vengeance was as great as their minds were small."
In tones so musically compassionate—they thrill me while I listen—she continues: "Yes, fierce and terrible to reflect upon has been the domination of ignorance! The further we examine into the evolution of our species, the more terrible will it show itself to have been. The more fully will it prove beyond all other proofs, our low origin. The lower we proceed in our researches shall we find the suffering it caused of such magnitude and hideousness that it cannot fail to create in our minds firm and lasting resolves not to be drawn, though in never so little a degree, within its deadening circle. Understand, my darlings, I refer not to lack of rote learning alone—where that is the sole knowledge, the possessor is often but a tiresome bookcase. To the study of others' written ideas we should always add our own. We must try more for the learning which honest thought gives—thought, that wordless, powerful prayer to ​the Infinite Mind, which is never without result. A person without daily habit of thought is but a child in all high knowledge, while also losing curb over what of brute may be in her or his nature. You reply, perhaps, 'What shall I think?' Every subject appears so impenetrable to your young comprehension. You resemble one contemplating a thickly grown, dark looking forest, wishing to find out something of its mystery; but it looks dangerous and impossible to make way through the tangled growth. At last you resolve to attempt entrance—Ha! Now, where is the difficulty? Only to restrain your inclination, lest you venture too far at once. These glades with their soft light, where is the darkness so feared? There are revealed to you beauties and grandeurs you would never have known by standing on the verge and only feebly wishing to dare further. You, my Veritée, have already entered. The result has been pleasantly shown during many of our morning studies."
Hearing these words, a blush of delight comes over the girl's face as she answers:—
"Yes, mother dear it has proved to me many errors of my judgment. One, especially, has been made even more apparent by some of the details you have kindly drawn from your great memory to aid us in understanding our development. I used to think the senate had been needlessly cautious in having fixed thirty as the age for entering into the government of the world. Now, I feel only content in that it gives me ten years more for fitting myself to undertake those important duties. I have resolved not to rely only on the required standard, but to attain a much higher degree of knowledge, that I may testify to all your patient instruction, and distinguish our name, as you have done, by introduction of some measures the benefit of which will ​extend to future ages. I cannot express the pride it gave me to learn that the women legislators introduced those world-reforming measures which raised the standard of learning and increased the requisite age. Only within the past year did I begin to understand how necessary it is that senators should possess the knowledge of years, as well as that of books. Looking back over that sad past, it is so easy to see that none of those cruel wrongs would have taken place had law-making and law-administering not been entrusted to such very young and ignorant men, without aid from woman's mind, which appears to have shown more real courage, more benevolence, and sounder idea of justice than that of her male oppressors."
How I wish my readers could see the beautiful picture it has been accorded me to examine!
This high-minded, glorious young couple, resplendent with promise of future excellence, and the noble mother, her handsome face expressing wisdom in every glance—at this moment lustrous with admiring love as she reads her daughter's innermost thoughts, its wonderful beauty unmarred by debasing cares, or cause for sad memories. They must be of noble blood. What they say is so exquisite tones and language too, I could not give an adequate idea by the poor little translation which alone is possible to my inferior nature.
Laying her hand kindly on Veritée's shoulder, she says, with much of earnestness:—
"Dear girl, the many proofs you give me during our studies of your widening thought are just so many delights to my spirit. Your aspirations are of the right order. There can be no thoroughly, desirable ambition which does not include benefit for the unborn. I am pleased very pleased, you begin ​to feel the absolute necessity of matured thought in positions of such enormous trust as that of governing humankind. None but youth and ignorance think this power lies in youth. While looking at those dreadful rocks of the past we shudder at the nearness of the danger which threatened to again strand civilization. But you must not think all women of those times were magnanimous. Too often the oppressed became the very fiercest of oppressors. While admiring the patient endurance and great good sense of the many under their spirit-wearying burdens and indignities, we must be just. There were also women whose ideas had so contracted in being tyrannized over by little-minded husbands that they appeared to have sunk below the average and ignorantly inflicted as much suffering as did the lowest of men:—and thereby contributed in no small degree to the long continued degraded condition of human kind."
Then, turning to her son, who had been attending to her words with his whole mind:
"And you, loyal heart, you must not place all the men of those rude ages in the same category. Console yourself amidst this unfavourable introduction to your ancestors that there existed some of quite amazing rectitude of thought, and who were also brave enough to proclaim it, which was then very dangerous conduct. Notably one Higinbotham, who lived in our own hemisphere far back as the nineteenth century of the Age of Blood. He was a legislator of unusual wisdom for that era; the originator of free education for the young, and endeavoured to obtain from the other legislators a partial recognition of woman's political rights. Of course his attempt failed, because the brute was too generally dominant in men's unformed minds and naturally the grand spirit of this Higinbotham was so far beyond their very weak ​comprehensions that, with feeble attempts at wit and noisy chattering, they threw the measure out—much as monkeys would destroy valuable deeds without at all knowing the great mischief they were doing. It has often happened that the advanced minds in a community have been considered to be fools by all the fools around them. But I feel a pride in knowing that women never forgot his fearless endeavour to gain justice for them—and this brings me to a most interesting fact in geology. A marvellous accident, some called it which furnished irrefutable proofs of the grand and wondrous truth at present your study. But perhaps, Veritée, you have already told him?"
"No: mother. It was, to myself, such a pleasure to learn it from your own lips that I would not so deprive him."
Frederick is about to inquire, when his mother commences: