Arthur Colton

“ Just such a shawl my maiden aunts wore in Connecticut, just such doilies were on their rocking chairs, just such flowered carpets were in their parlours. They dressed like Mrs. Mink too, but, to the best of my recollection, were not so agreeable to look at.
That weird glistening sea garden of coral and purple feathers and improbable fish was fresh in my mind, with Dr. Ulswater's talk, both undomestic, paradoxical, and showing coloured objects slumberously afloat in a transparent and deluding element. ”

“ Ram Nad withdrew again behind the whites of his eyes, and I returned to the awning, reflecting. Ram Nad had lacked hypnotic subjects since Mrs. Ulswater put her foot down on his fixing any human inhabitant of the Violetta that way.
But it struck me I'd never known a man with so fine an outfit for casuistry as Ram Nad, such a liquid and euphuistic term for slaughter and theft, such philosophic refinement in the practical process. Thus: you generalise your neighbour's watch. It becomes an abstract idea, and belongs to the original nebulous unity of pure conception. ”

“ Ulswater. “This is an incarnate terror and obscure nightmare seen moving through ineffable sea gardens. Behold the seed of religions. You are wise, madam, in desiring to see and to hear, to know the miracle of the world. Everywhere two miracles confront each other, the visible world and the soul of man beholding it, but custom and usage are blinding; that is to say, the more you get used to a thing, the more you don't see it.”
Mrs. Mink nodded. ”

“ Ulswater and I were to find out. How shall one answer the question: “What is Zionville?” We may begin in this way:
A stranger visiting Zionville to-day, if he is one with eyes to see understanding, will notice that the distinction of the place, in some singular and subtle way, seems to come together and concentrate on its cemetery, a noble enclosure with an imposing arched gateway. He will wonder how and why.
If he takes my advice, he will inquire first for Babbitt's Hotel. He will find there a long veranda with thin green pillars, many cane-backed chairs, and many occupants of the chairs. ”

“ In the cabin were green curtains and pink lamp-shade, wall paper and framed prints, a radiator, biscuits, cake, preserves, a red-haired Irish servant-girl named Norah, and Mrs. Mink at home. She was thoughtful.
“Do you have to collect cuttlefish?” she asked at last.
“I? No. I do what I like. Why?” Dr. Ulswater's innocence of manner was perhaps too elaborate. “My curly-haired young friend must not go back to his job for some weeks in South America, for he is not yet a grizzly-bear. He is languid, like a jelly-fish.” ”

“ I do not, indeed, apprehend Sadler to be directly addressing Susannah, as such, in these terms and with that inharmonious vocalisation; but I apprehend the impact of Susannah upon Sadler to arouse in him something other than jubilation, something within the sunless caverns of his memory, certain uneasy glimmerings of an old romance. And I ask, why? To the eye of pure reason, Susannah contains as much of the vapour of moonlit sentiment as a coal scuttle. ”

“ CHAPTER III—AND THE TWENTY PATRIOTS WE left Nassau the following morning. On the third day we passed the Inaguas and sighted Tortuga. They were days rich with the tropical outpourings of Dr. Ulswater, into whose warm Gulf Stream of conversation Mrs. Mink now and then dropped cool comments and punctuations that excited his luxuriant praise. What Mrs. Mink thought of Dr. Ulswater was not so clear.
The green cliffs of Haiti overhung a white surf, and the lapping mouths of half-submerged caves below; above was the tangle of the forest, great pendant leaves, sweeping and coiling creepers. ”

“ But I was speaking of the burial of Hannah Atkins, and what person, in truth, ought to have a bronze statue in front of the City Hall, with a laurel wreath on his head, and one finger pointing toward Hannah's monument.
Of course, any man, of any likely town in the West, advertises his town. It's the subject of his daily conversation and his nightly dreams, for it's not merely a casual coincidence of people, but an enterprise that every inhabitant has stock in. So far Zionville wasn't peculiar. But no other town would have grasped and gathered in the possibilities of Hannah Atkins. ”

“ He went off leaving me reflecting about all the things a man misses. Then I thought about the way things are linked together, one thing happening because of another.
For if the King of Lua hadn't roused Mrs. Ulswater's wrath so that she had to carry him off, she wouldn't have carried off Sadler too; and if Sadler hadn't been a poet, probably Susannah wouldn't have been either; and if Susannah hadn't begun a poem on me, it wouldn't have turned into a semipublic diary; and if I hadn't seen her diary, and seen it grow from day to day, I wouldn't have got into that tumultuous condition. ”

“ Ulswater thought she was going to do with her insurrection. It was a good idea of hers to keep Chepa aboard the Violetta. But a mob is like dynamite, and a person ought to have a considerable idea before he takes it on himself to explode one. A Portate mob is a maniac that cuts throats in the name of the saints, and forgets what started him, and he scatters destruction in all directions. For a man said to be without sand, I thought Hagan had done pretty well. ”

“ Georgiana never would go on deck when the wind blew, and they were both in the cabin the night before the water spouts. Of course if I accused him of it, and it wasn't so, he'd be perfectly crushing. He'd be crushing if it was true, for that matter. But somehow I don't see how it could have happened, and I won't have Ram Nad getting the best of me. I wish you'd see if you can find out.”
Now if anything suits my temperament and talent, it is wily diplomacy, and the worming out of another man by devious ways the carefully guarded secret of his soul. ”

“ I said, “are Georgiana and Dolores, you depraved and disgusting pundit?”
“How do I know, pig?”
But this limpid flow of pure reason was not, it seemed to me, really headed for Ram Nad's soul secret. I skilfully shifted the attack.
“Why, in this way you might have an idea, illustrious. As I understand your theory of everything, it's this: The entire universe, you say, is only a general idea which has the misfortune to be particularised in spots. Normally, it's just an abstract conception, but parts of the conception have somehow blundered into a curious condition called concreteness. ”

“ Now I cling henceforward to this domestic light and floating fireside of the Violetta. No man has so entire a footing in the universe as he whose stockings are darned by a woman with a logical mind. I am not myself a vertebrate. Mrs. Ulswater is my complement. I am complete. I am satisfied. I am at rest.
My family has increased. It now consists of Mrs. Ulswater, an orphan girl, and an orphan pundit. But I go too fast.
On the 13th of last April, we put in at the island of Clementina, which lies to the north of Mozambique Channel. ”

“ The toil and restless wandering of individuals, the surging migration of races, the incessant change called progress, are all but the symptoms of his feverish discomfort, his cosmic ill adjustment? And the other, the Ram Nads, the old-world type, meek, timid, tricky, placid, has it found at least, out of its age-long thoughts, how to make its truckling peace with the mystery? C'est un grand peut-être. Meanwhile the education of Susannah is the principal enterprise of Mrs. Ulswater, Sadler, and me, to say nothing of Ram Nad. ”

“ The crew of the Violetta remained forward discussing them. Dr. Ulswater, the Commodore, Captain Jansen, and I sat down under the awning in the upholstered chairs, together with Mrs. Mink. Dr. Ulswater explained, cheerfully:
“He says he's an insurrection. He admits that we're not the enemy, but says he's got to have the Violetta in order to triumph over the tyrant of Haiti. When he has triumphed we will be rewarded,—meaning he'll be in a position to pay damages. He thinks our consciences will reward us, too. He thinks that's a strong point,—maybe stronger than the other. ”

“ Three-quarters of Ceylon is an abomination of swamp, sand, and jungle, with a most pestilential and vile climate; whereas the normal Cingalese person is the mildest, most peaceful and pious agriculturist that's to be found.
Ram Nad wore a blue head cloth. The rest of his clothes were meant to be white, like his beard. He squatted behind his basket. Mrs. Ulswater rocked in her rocking-chair, knitting, looking at Ram Nad as if she did not make out how to begin benefiting him. She examined Ram Nad, who in turn examined Susannah, who in turn was, at that moment, playing jackstraws. ”

“ Ulswater ever arrived there—in defeat of justice—whether they was intended to be exhibited in the same show case; and if so, whether the promiscuous and opprobrious language he (Dr. Ulswater) was at present using was by him thought calculated to benefit his case——
“Doctor,” said Louisa, “Zionville is pleased to know you. Under other circumstances your evanescent humour would delight us beyond measure. But it is the opinion of the Court you ought to be informed that this is a moral town. Yes, sir. Not insanity but morality is what's hit us. It's the moralest town this side the Divide. ”

“ I took him aboard the Violetta in order to get his advice respecting the orphan-asylums of his native land.
Ram Nad already knew himself to be more vertebrate and sagacious than I, but he did not know Mrs. Ulswater.
The harbour at Colombo is no harbour, but an open roadstead, though quiet at that time.
“ The spicy breezes blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle,
And every prospect pleases, and only man is vile.' ”

“ Do you happen to know that the Inca signs of the Zodiac are practically identical with the Egyptian, that, moreover, they probably antedate them, that——”
“No, we don't,” interrupted Sadler. “It ain't so.”
“I can prove it to any man with eyes,” shouted Dr. Ulswater, thumping his knee.
“Which I holds myself,” said Sadler, gloomily, “that any man, with eyes, can see as them signs of the Zodiac all comes from the jim-jams, and the first man that made 'em was the first man that had drunk not wisely but too often.”
“Ha!” said Dr. Ulswater. “Why! Now, that's an idea! It really is!” ”

“ She came to where the dingy heap of eastern wisdom sat against the cabin wall.
“Ram Nad!” we heard her say, with a stamp of the foot, “you go this minute and get your shawl!”
He rose silently, pale and venerable, and went down the companionway.
“He catches cold easily,” Mrs. Ulswater explained. “I told him not to sit out evenings without his shawl.”
Chepa and Hagan had gone forward sometime before. Susannah paced the deck apart with folded arms, making poetry about me. Mrs. Ulswater sat in her rocking chair, knitting, listening, talking. ”

“ Ulswater is fond of drawing fine distinctions between what he calls “the phenomenal and noumenal Zionville,” between “the objective and the subjective Zionville,” between Zionville as she appears to the senses and “Zionville as such.” This is all more or less beyond me, but I'd go so far as to admit that “Zionville as such” is a personage without parallel in the solar system, without example in the Milky Way. How shall I describe her? She is romantic, and incurably young. She is nonchalant, and yet interested. She is open, unashamed, and yet impenetrable. ”

“ We don't like to take orphans without knowing about them.”
“I'll tell you on the square, ma'am,” said Sadler, “Kolo ain't bright, or he'd have called me before now. He's slow. He's plodding. Moreover he's self-willed and opinionated. He don't take to prime ministers, or official advice. He needs discipline, and he needs encouragement. And yet I'd call him a promising kid, and a hopeful orphan. He'd be a credit to you. Yes'm. No doubt of it.”
Mrs. Ulswater took up her knitting and said, “I should like to see the older king first.” ”

“ Sadler met us in the village, and brought us to his own dwelling, which stood at the foot of the palace hill. I judged it had been furnished from the palace with properties of King Craney. It included five bamboo huts adjoining each other.
A Kanaka servant, who stood by the door of one of them, shrieked and vanished. That hut seemed to be the kitchen. A cat of faded and depressed appearance replaced the Kanaka in the doorway.
“Oh, please!” cried Susannah, “May I have that cat?”
“Dolores is her name,” said Sadler, looking dreamily at the cat, “which she likes to sleep on pies. ”

“ Your ultimatum seemed to be everywhere known. Evidently you were not meaning to be found that night by friend or foe, and therefore Sadler and I went our way in the interests of archæology.
“There is a national museum at the capital of this country, which contains an extraordinary collection of Inca relics, but is as disorderly as Portate emotions. Thither we went by the slowest train the ingenuity of man ever invented, getting what sleep we could, through the night, upon car seats of mistaken construction, each one of which was a populous commonwealth of bugs. ”

“ It is not as wood that it burns. Madré de Dios, no! It is the wrath of the devil on the end of a stick.”
The Union Electric had the contract for the whole outfit of the lights and trolleys, and sent me down to handle it. I had good nerve then. I thought electricity was king, and that a man could do anything he set out to do. He can, but my nerve is not so good now.
Now The Union Electric Company's contract was to furnish the city of Portate so many arc lights, at so much a month per light, with monthly payments, but there was more politics in it than I was used to. ”

“ Ulswater and I came back under the awning. Norah was washing dishes in the cabin, Mrs. Mink sweeping the deck with a broom. The guns lay along the scuppers. She stopped, and lifted a troubled face to Dr. Ulswater.
“Will it do them any harm?”
Dr. Ulswater seemed subdued: “It will make them sick at the stomach. A—a moral lesson.”
“I should think as much!” she said, sweeping vigorously. “That impudent barber! Did he want to be President?”
“I understood he had ambitions.”
She hesitated again: “Do you think the revolution ought to succeed, if their government is very bad? ”

“ Ram Nad, ineffably mild. “We say no more, excellent Mrs. Ulswater. Other orphans are elsewhere to be found and the vow accomplished. But now, if permitted, I go, and return soon with gifts of fruit plucked in the gardens of my house, that our happiness may be complete as the meeting of long-parted friends, pleasant as to the bee is the honey of the flower.” ”

“ Nassau runs up the side of a bluff and overlooks a blue and dimpled harbour. Dr. Ulswater at last began to take me with him, to lie on the rocks and watch him search in the harbour shoals for small cuttlefish. ”

“ You don't think that you ought to be skinned or drowned? Why not? It depends on Mrs. Ulswater's opinion. But see here, Ram Nad, if you ever try to mesmerise Susannah again, or anybody aboard, I'll see to the skinning privately. I'll insert Mrs. Ulswater's knitting needles into your digestion, Susannah shall stuff your mouth full of jackstraws and head cloth, and Mrs. Uls-water shall make a Presbyterian of your mangled remains. ”