"Then you really and truly practice what you preach!" said I, with scant politeness, and I hastened to add, "Severnius told me that you recognize the trinity in human nature. Well, we do, too, upon the Earth, but the Three have hardly an equal chance! We preach the doctrine considerably more than we practice it."
"I understand that you are a highly intellectual people," remarked Calypso, courteously.
"Yes, I suppose we are," said I; "our achievements in that line are nothing to be ashamed of. And," I added, remembering some felicitous sensations of my own, "there is no greater delight than the travail of intellect which brings forth great ideas."
"Pardon me!" he returned, "the travail of soul which brings forth a great love--a love willing to share equally with others the fruits of intellectual triumph--is, to my mind, infinitely greater."
We had reached the terrace, or little plateau, on which my friends' house stood; it was like a strip of green velvet for color and smoothness.
The house was built of rough gray stone which showed silver glintings in the sun. Here and there, delicate vines clung to the walls. There was a carriage porch--into which the children drove--and windows jutting out into the light, and many verandas and little balconies, that seemed to give the place a friendly and hospitable air. Above there was a spacious observatory, in which was mounted a very fine telescope that must have cost a fortune,--though my friends were not enormously rich, as I had learned from Severnius. But these people do not regard the expenditure of even very large sums of money for the means of the best instruction and the best pleasures as extravagance, if no one suffers in consequence. I cannot go into their economic system very extensively here, but I may say that it provides primarily that all shall share bountifully in the general good; and after that, individuals may gratify their respective tastes--or rather, satisfy their higher needs; for their tastes are never fanciful, but always real--as they can afford.
I do not mean that this is a written law, a formal edict, to be evaded by such cunning devices as we know in our land, or at best loosely construed; nor is it a mere sentiment preached from pulpits and glorified in literature,--a beautiful but impracticable conception! It is purely a moral law, and being such it is a vital principle in each individual consciousness.