Unveiling a Parallel: A Romance

t some female

e and you'll fo

op

evening with her usual careless aplomb, the glance with which she favored me reduced me to my customary attitude toward her,-that of unquestioning admiration. Our physical nat

y disclosed in outline. She was somewhat pale, and her eyes seemed larger and darker than their wont, and had deeper shadows. And a certain air of languor that hung about her was an added grace. She had,

ing of her society, and the most we saw of her was at dinner or luncheon time,-and crossed o

ver sung for our fri

hing look to her brother's suggestive remark, but was not sure she noted it. But presently she began to sing and I dropped into a chair and sat spell-bound. Her voice was sweet, with a quality that stirred unwonted feelings; but it was not that alone. As she stoo

thrall of it, a servant entered the room with a packet for Seve

of mine, those Caskians from Lunism

ithout much enthusiasm, a

that I am to be indebted to them fo

ccount?"

you, and are extremely anxio

to care to travel a thousand m

hey, pray?

she said with a laugh, "so refined and subl

her a look of

aid, "who inhabit a mountainous and very picturesque coun

from," I rejoined, remembering what he

h our religious fables?" she asked. I glanced at him an

onths in Lunismar, their capital, once, studying. They have rare facilities for reading the heavens there,-I me

s," interjected Elodia, "because they live so near the stars. What is t

friend Calypso's wife

ber,-Clytia. Is

husband and se

ther w

two, I

onduct ourselves dur

not find that they will p

Elodia, with a slig

use the thought of them seemed to arouse Elodia to an unwonted degree of feeling an

or two upon Severni

lopment of which mankind is capable. Their aim was nothing short of the Ideal, and they believed that the ideal was possible. It took many centuries to counteract a

d, certain species of animals dropped thei

a bow to us as she vanished, before Severnius or I could interpose an objection to her leaving us. Although there was never a

, I think. He felt somewhat hurt by her sarcastic comments

e trouble. It is a beautiful city, wonderful in its cleanness, in its dearth of poverty and squalor,

a regret in his v

ot you rem

my sister,"

r some occult reason I hung upon hi

said. "And she and I are all

upon Elodia's, even against the testimony of my reason. If she disapproved of her brother's extraordinary friends and thought them an impossible people, why, then, I

em would be simply apish. She is genuine, and she detests imitation. She accepts herself-as she puts it-as she found herself. God, who made all things, created her upo

ue thus in earnes

. "She thinks my sanctuary in the top story of the house here,

sia for people to have things of that s

en to be rather c

ou put i

d that to

y a great good," I began enthusiastically, "in

ine, and not to go to church at all except in condescension, to patronize the masses. Elodia saw clearly just how it would be, before I began to carry out my plan. She has a logical mind, and her thought travels from one sequence to the next with unfa

eve, then, in prog

mong the Caskians and studied their sublime ethics until I grew into the meanings of them. But no person can take them second-hand from me, because I could not bring away with me the inexpressible something which holds those people together in a perfect U

about the religion of

it is that they live it, rath

a moment's consideration of the matter in his ow

, is liberty. But I have seen few here in Paleveria who have any conception of the vast spiritual meanings of the word. We limit it to the physical; we say 'personal' liberty, as though that were all. You admire the man of high courage, because in that one thing he is free. So with all the virtues, named and unnamable; he is greatest who has loosed himself the most, who weighs anchor and sails away triumphant and free. But this is but a general picture of the Caskians; let me particularize: we are forbidden to steal, by both our civil and religious canons,-the coarseness of such a command would offend them as much as a direct charge of theft would offend you or myself, so exquisite

ncern themselves wit

y superior to ours. They believe in the triple nature,-the spiritual, the intellect

m time to time, spasmodic, and never the same; to-day it may be physical, to-morrow intellectual, and by-and

by the fact that the principles of our Christia

itually-perhaps from unanalyzed motives of policy. You would not strike a man if you knew he would hit back and hurt you worse than he himself was hurt; well, these people have sensibilities so finely developed, that a wrong done to another reacts upon themselves with exquisite suffering. The law and its penalties are both unseen forces, operating on an internal not an external plane. With us, the authority which declares, 'Thou shalt

n?" I demanded,

vine Authority-as we believe-that if a man look upon a woman to lust after her, he has committed adultery in his heart. The Caskians interpret that to mean a man's wife, the same as any other woman, because-t

amazement called ou

s in any of your highl

sire for their existence, but are too often simply the result of indulgence, a

d that instances of it are supernatural. And certainly it is incredible unless your mind can grasp the problem, or rathe

moment h

hing I ever saw; they are lovers on the highest plane. It would be an impossibility for either of them to say or do a coarse or improper thing in the other's presence, or to presume, in any of the innumerable ways you and I are familiar with in our observations of husbands and wives, upon the marriage bond existing between them. This matter of animal passion," he went on, after a little pause, "has been at the bottom of untold crimes, and unnumbered miseries, in our land. I doubt if any other one thing has been prolific of more or greater evils,-even the greed of wealth. Men, and women, too,