Current Literature [pp. 481-488]

CURRENT LITERA TURE.
There are no honors, no insignia of higher masculines who are being wooed by clever,
rank assigned to this office; hence, it is not adroit, large-limbed sweethearts. Why take
coveted. Crime is unknown to the Vril-ya; leave of their senses in that sort of style?
there are no courts of criminal justice. Law- There is some exquisite satire leveled at
yers would starve in such a community. scientific disquisitions on the Descent and the
Such idiomatic expressions as, "It is request- Ascent of Man. Whether Gladstone, the
ed not to do so and so," are the strongest Duke of Argyle, or Darwin had best "stand
terms employed in forbidding undesirable from under," deponent saith not. Demo practices. In philosophical and religious be- cratic institutions come in for a share of pleas liefs, they are a unit. Doctrines and dog- ant raillery; and our submerged American
mas are all swallowed up in the one grand, is most amiably compassionated upon his re accepted truth of God and Immortality. lease from agovernment such as he has been
Communities, to attain the highest state of eloquently describing in some wild burst of
perfectibility, limit themselves to four thou- enthusiastic rapture. He is awed into si sand households. The maximum number lence for all time to come.
allowed is thirty thousand. In the family Poverty is unknown in that wonderful Uto circle, the father is permitted to exercise a pia; all live the tranquil life of gods and
gentle authority, nothing more. Domestics sages. The absolute leisure they enjoy for
are not needed, machinery having'been following out their own private pursuits, the
brought to such a state of perfection as to amenities of their domestic intercourse, their
perform all menial labor. Automatons, exquisite politeness and refinement of manmade obedient through the operation of ner, all combine to make the Vril-ya the
vril-power, perform prodigies of skill. Mere most perfect nobility which a political discichildren carry on arts, manufactures, agri- ple of Plato or Sidney could conceive for the
culture, and commerce. Mature manhood ideal of an aristocratic republic.
or womanhood never devotes itself to labor, But the half is not told, and yet we are
other than to scientific research or inventive warned that we have exceeded our limits in
industry. what we have already said of this marvelous
Woman's rights are in triumphant ascend- book. We have barely introduced the readency in Vril-land. She is not only the strong- er to afew of the topics discussed in this origer and taller, but she takes precedence in all inal work. What is said of literature, mudepartments of research, excepting, perhaps, sic, painting, poetry; the varied experiences
science, as made applicable to inventive skill. of our hero among that strange people, what
She takes the initiative in matters of woo- he saw, feared, and suffered; the story of his
ing; for the inhabitants of that strange land "loves," not wisely, but too well; his nlarmarry and are given in marriage, and sys- row escape from sudden and awful death;
tematized plans of divorce are recorded -a his final return to the upper world, through
proof, possibly, of the feasibility of female the all - prevailing strength and ingenuity of
courting, and of the superior sagacity of woman's love, that most potent of all agenwoman in divining the fitness of things. cies, when once set in resolute tension toward
Parents are not allowed to interfere with the victory-of all these, the reader must learn
choice of their daughters. We can but re- himself, and deduce the moral intended by
gret that in this wonderful transition, men the fertile, inventive, and mythical authorape the pretty "sillinesses" of coy maidens that is, if he has wit enough to do so. But,
when gallant lovers whisper soft nothings in after all, who would be a dweller in this
their ears; they blush, and get confused, and strange Utopia? Who, oh, who would be a
cut up all sorts of womanly antics-these vril- Vril-ya?
I87I.]
487