"Hatred; or, in such a case as this, indifference would be about as bad as anything."

"Well, I don't know much about such things, but do I seem like a person who could hate you or be indifferent to you?"

"No, Mona, you seem to be the most loving creature in all the worlds we have ever known, but--"

"Oh, do not spoil that fine speech with a 'but.' I know what you want to say. You think I ought to love you more than anyone else, or in some different way. Now, that desire of yours is what I cannot understand.

I love everybody alike because I know of no other sentiment. So it is a matter of course with me, and I do not feel obliged to tell people that I love them. You seem to make too much of it, coming to me everyday and telling me, over and over again, that you love me, just as if I doubted it. Why do you like to be with me so much? Do you think it is right to be so exclusive? You ought to favor the others with your company. As for me, I must say I prefer Foedric's society to yours, because he has so many interesting things to talk about, while you stick continually to one subject and give me little information even on that one. You know I am a new-comer here and eager to learn all I can. Then there's the doctor. I take more pleasure conversing with him than with you, for he seems to know more, or, at any rate, to be more able to tell me things I want to know about the earth. If the doctor were not here and you were the only one to judge from, I should be obliged to think the people of the earth a very curious race. Your companion, however, appears to be a man of considerable sense."

Mona sang all this in her easy, natural way, being perfectly free from any intention of wounding my feelings, but the more innocent I believed her the more incapable I saw she was of entering into my feelings.

I began to realize how, in loving everybody, she missed a certain enjoyment derived from a more selfish order of love. It then occurred to me that a world full of such people as Mona must have rather a monotonous time from our point of view, and I asked her if she could tell me about her race in general respecting the subject of our conversation.

"Certainly," she replied, "I can tell you something from my own recollections, but more from our traditions."

"Well, were the men of the moon all sensible, or were they all like me?"

"Oh, I see you have a little sense as soon as you begin to talk in a new direction. In answer to your question, let me say that the stress you have put on our personal relations is something entirely new to me, and I do not see any use or advantage in it. This must be my excuse for speaking so plainly. I should not have spoken so had I not known, in spite of what I have said, that you had too much sense to be offended."

"I thank you," I said. "Do not apologize for your words. I have taken them as a needed rebuke for my haste in appropriating you to myself.

But I believe, Mona, that the time will come when you will know the happiness of loving one person so much that your love for all others will not be thought of in comparison. Happy will he be who, in that day, is able to prove the capacity of your great heart."

"Then, in that day," she responded, "shall I prove myself to be the degenerate daughter of a n.o.ble race. No, my friend, we were not made of such stuff. We loved everybody, without question and without limit. We could do nothing else, and to love one more than another was therefore impossible."

"Let me ask if everyone was worthy of being loved?"

"Why, as to that, we were all alike. What do you think of me?"

"You know what I think of you, Mona; or, if you do not, I will tell you."

"Yes; you needn't tell me again. What I wanted to say is, that I am no better than the rest of my people were."

"What a world it must have been then," I exclaimed, "and how fortunate that the earth did not discover it earlier. With such an example before us we should have been utterly discouraged."

When Mona had left me at the close of this conversation, I proceeded to take stock of my sensations. I had certainly been seeing a new phase of Mona's character. Could I make such vigorous language consistent with my former conception of her? I answered yes to this question after studying it awhile, for I concluded that she was only just in giving me a lesson that I deserved. Her innocence was only the more evident, and that was the ground on which I built my faith in her. But now came the inquiry whether my love could withstand such a shock as it had received. I was no longer blind to the truth. Mona had no stronger affection for me than for her other friends, and it began to be doubtful if she ever would have, considering her peculiar education in affairs of the heart. If I continued to love her, it must be with the full knowledge that I had not as yet gained the slightest success in my effort to secure her for my own exclusive possession. My exuberant pa.s.sion had received a serious shock, for I had been plainly told that it was making me appear ridiculous. Then, when there seemed to be danger that my love must grow cold under such treatment, I began to argue Mona's cause to myself, and I bade myself take comfort once more in the old thoughts. She was young and careless, besides being entirely new to our manner of wooing, and I had been too hasty in my approaches and no doubt tired her with my continuous solicitations. But then, on the other hand, I continued, the case seemed much more hopeless than before after such a plain rebuff, and if I had any self-respect I could not continue to pay my court where my honest love was made a matter of jest.

These thoughts pa.s.sed rapidly through my mind, and I cannot tell to what rash resolve they would have led me had not the music of Mona's laughing voice just then come floating in from another room. As usual, this was more than I could resist, and its immediate effect now was to drive out reason and to enthrone love once more. All my doubt and uncertainty vanished in a twinkling, my self-respect hid itself in a dark corner of my memory, and as I instinctively started to find the fair singer I realized again, with a feeling too strong for argument, that I was still very much in love.

CHAPTER XXVI.

AN ENVIABLE CONDITION.

Our life in this cultured home continued to be as pleasant as were these first days. There was always something new to show us or to tell us. We would walk out every day and often step into a carriage and take a long ride. Our friends were famous walkers but were considerate of our feebleness, and still our returning strength, added to the great buoyancy of our bodies on that smaller planet, soon gave us also remarkable walking powers.

Sometimes the children would accompany us on an all-day excursion, and then the house would be left not only unlocked, but with the doors wide open perhaps. When we remarked on this, Zenith told us that if anyone happened along he would be at perfect liberty to go in and help himself to anything in the house. This was always understood, whether the people were at home or not, and one need not even go through the formality of asking, if he could see what he wanted. This referred not merely to bodily refreshment, of which one might be in need, but literally to everything the house contained; and the reason why there was any sort of comfort living under such conditions was, that the members of that society were all and severally of such ripe characters that it was well known one would not deprive another of anything he was using except for a reason which would be satisfactory to both.

"If we could communicate with the people on the earth," said the doctor to me when we sat alone conversing about these things, "and tell them how the inhabitants here live, they would want to organize an expedition and start for Mars right away."

"Yes, I think they would," I a.s.sented. "And yet, if what Thorwald says is true, the earth will one day be as good as Mars. Do you believe it?"

"Well, the fact is," answered the doctor, "I am ready to believe almost anything now."

"Oh, I wish Thorwald could hear you say that."

"I should not object," he continued. "I am sure that some power, not comprehended by our science or philosophy, has operated here to bring these people to the condition in which we find them, and if the same kind forces are at work on the earth, let us hope they will do as much for us, no matter how much time it takes. If a belief in such a power is faith, then perhaps I am beginning to have a little faith.

"I remember I used to hear our preachers in their public prayers ask G.o.d that every form of vice and crime might be banished from the earth, and that the time might come when there should be no more sin, but only love and beauty and happiness. I have heard such prayers a hundred times, and never thought much about them. But now I am forced to think, and it seems to me that these prayers would not be made continually unless there were a hope and expectation in the minds of religious people that they would some time be answered. It is not for me to a.s.sume that such a hope is unreasonable, drawn as it is from the book which so many believe is the word of G.o.d."

I rejoiced to hear my friend talk in this way, but it seemed very odd that he should be preaching my own doctrine to me. I had had the same thoughts, and had been trying to find the right time to offer them to the doctor. I am sure I was thankful that he was coming to such views without a word from me, for he would probably be much more apt to hold to them.

The foregoing conversation was in the evening, and the next morning we were all sitting comfortably in the music room, when Thorwald said:

"The other day I began to give you some orderly account of our history, but you see how it has been broken into by the relation of different phases, in answer to your questions. It seems to me now that it will be more interesting to you if I continue in the same way and take up one subject at a time. And now that we have a little time before us, I wish you would suggest some point upon which you would like to have me talk; that is, if it is agreeable to you."

To which the doctor replied:

"I like your plan very much and I am sure we both have plenty of questions which will keep you supplied with topics. I have desired for some time to ask you about your industrial system. I can see how electricity has relieved you of the most arduous labor, but there must remain much disagreeable work, as we would call it, to be done with the hand. In our busy life there are a thousand such tasks, which I cannot conceive of being performed by machinery, many of them hard only because they are monotonous and awake no interest or enthusiasm in the performer. Men and women are continually wearing themselves out with such work. You must have abolished all that, if everybody here is comfortable and happy. I am very anxious to hear how it has been done."

"In answering your question," Thorwald began, "let me say, first, that I presume we have learned to employ machines in a great many ways which to you would seem incomprehensible. The drudgery and much of the monotony of labor have been removed, as well as its severity. But still, as you surmise, there is plenty of work for all. Our higher civilization does not require less work than yours, but rather more and of greater variety. It is all done quietly, however, without friction or any of the unpleasant features of former times.

"I suspect that the real secret of the change is in the elevation of individual character. This has done more to better our condition than electricity and all the material improvements and inventions of the age. You must believe me when I say that no sort of labor is considered disgraceful, and, further, that one occupation is just as honorable as another. The man who goes into the mine and superintends the machine which gathers the precious metal is esteemed as highly as he who, with an artist's brain and fingers, shapes it to its highest use. The carpenter who works with his hands in the building of the house can hold his head as high as the architect who has spent many years in learning how to create the design. Why not? Both are engaged on the same work, each one in his favorite, and so his best, way. Both are working, not for daily bread or other selfish end, but for the sake of doing something useful. The perfect content and satisfaction we all enjoy in our labor come partly from our abundant health and strength, and largely, also, from our entire freedom from anxiety in regard to the means of maintenance for ourselves and our families. In these respects we are all equally fortunate. We are absolutely unconcerned about what material things we shall have for ourselves or leave to our children."

"Do you then all have equal pay for your work, and that so much that it places you above anxiety?" asked the doctor.

"Yes," answered Thorwald, "we are all paid equally, because we are not paid at all. So, having no wages and owning no property, why should we be anxious? You know I have told you we can have for our use anything that is produced or made without even asking anybody for it. The mere fact that we need a thing makes it rightfully ours."

"But what is the incentive to labor if you get nothing for it, and can live just as well without it?"

"The incentive is in the love for our work and the consciousness that we are doing something to make someone happier and the world a little better. Let me give you an ill.u.s.tration, a personal one, if you will excuse me. A neighbor asks me to make him a plan for a house. He may be a writer of books or he may be a carriage maker, or what not, it makes not the slightest difference. I enjoy that kind of work and, having obtained his ideas in regard to a house, I do the best I can. I cannot conceive that I could do any better if I knew he would pay me for the work, as you say. In like manner he asks other neighbors to build his house for him, and he has no difficulty in finding enough men who enjoy that occupation as much as I do my part of the work, and the principle which governs them in their labor is as high as that which controls me."

"Then," said the doctor, "I should think the poor man--I beg your pardon, I mean the hod-carrier--could have as grand a house as the architect himself."

"I don't know what a hod-carrier is," replied Thorwald, "but I get your meaning, and you are quite right. As an example of just that state of things, I will tell you that the man who tends the digging machine in my garden lives in a larger and handsomer house than this one. Why not?

He has a large family, and he and his wife are educated and refined people."

"But with no physical wants to provide against, I should think some men would find existence easier not to work at all. According to your theory they could live in as good style as the toilers and have no one to call them to account."

"No one but themselves. Every man is his own monitor, and he needs no other. He knows his duty, and he has that within him which keeps him up to it more effectually than any outside influence could. In regard to a man's not caring to work, we have been through all that, and we have now no such cases. We found out long ago that it is better to have some one stated employment and follow it. But this does not mean that the work becomes a burden. One can rest as often and as long as he pleases.

There is no one to intimate in any way that he should be at work, as the question is left entirely to him. The moment that work ceases to be a necessity it becomes a pleasure and the most natural thing in the world.

The multiplication of mechanical inventions has greatly reduced the volume of labor, so that there is really but little for each individual to do; and the truth is, there is never any lack of men. If anything, there is not enough work."

"Your words," said the doctor, "reveal a remarkable condition of affairs, and I fear it will be many, many years before we can begin to think seriously of such a plan, so long as to make it almost hopeless; but there is one more question I would like to ask. With all this freedom of choice, how does it happen that all do not flock to the easy and pleasant occupations, and leave the disagreeable tasks undone?"

To this Thorwald replied:

"Let me ask you, Doctor, if you have not an answer to your question in your own industrial system. Do you not always find men to do every required work, no matter how hard and distasteful it may seem to you?