POSITIVISM OF AN ISLAND. 



pink dressing-gown, embroidered with silver 

 flowers ; and, just before sunset, the two sat 

 down to a really excellent meal. The bread-tree 

 at the door of the cottage contributed some beau- 

 tiful French rolls ; close at hand, also, they dis- 

 covered a butter-tree ; and the professor had pro- 

 duced from the cutter a variety of salt and potted 

 meats, p&te-de-foie-gras, cakes, preserved fruit, and 

 some bottles of fine champagne. This last helped 

 much to raise their spirits. Virginia found it 

 very dry, and exactly suited to her palate. She 

 had but drunk five glasses of it, when her natural 

 smile returned to her, though she was much dis- 

 appointed because Paul took no notice of her 

 dressing-gown; and, when she had drunk three 

 glasses more, she quietly went to sleep on the 

 sofa. 



The moon had by this time risen in dazzling 

 splendor ; and the professor went out and light- 

 ed a cigar. All during dinner there had been a 

 feeling of dull despair in his heart, which even 

 the champagne did not dissipate. But now, as 

 he surveyed in the moonlight the wondrous para- 

 dise in which his strange fate had cast him, his 

 mood changed. The air was full of the scents of 

 a thousand night-smelling flowers ; the sea mur- 

 mured on the beach in soft, voluptuous cadences. 

 The professor's cigar was excellent. He now saw 

 his situation in a truer light. Here was a boun- 

 tiful island, where earth unbidden brought forth 

 all her choicest fruits ; and most of the luxuries 

 of civilization had already been wafted thither. 

 Existence here seemed to be purified from all its 

 evils. Was not this the very condition of things 

 which all the sublimest and exactest thinkers of 

 modern times had been dreaming and lecturing 

 and writing books about for a good half-century ? 

 Here was a place where Humanity could do jus- 

 tice to itself, and realize those glorious destinies 

 which all exact thinkers take for granted must 

 be in store for it. True, from the mass of 

 Humanity he was completely cut away ; but Vir- 

 ginia was his companion. Holiness, and solem- 

 nity, and unspeakably significant happiness, did 

 not, he argued, depend on the multiplication- 

 table. He and Virginia represented Humanity as 

 well as a million couples. They were a complete 

 Humanity in themselves, and Humanity in a per- 

 fectible shape ; and the very next day they would 

 make preparations for fulfilling their holy destiny, 

 and being as solemnly and unspeakably happy as 

 it was their stern duty to be. The professor 

 turned his eyes upward to the starry heavens ; 

 and a sense came over him of the eternity and 

 the immensity of Nature, and the demonstrable 



absence of any intelligence that guided it. These 

 reflections naturally brought home to him with 

 more vividness the stupendous and boundless im- 

 portance of man. His bosom swelled violently ; 

 and he cried aloud, his eyes still fixed on the 

 firmament: "Oh, important All! oh, important 

 Me!" 



When he came back to the cottage, he found 

 Virginia just getting off the sofa, and preparing 

 to go off to bed. She was too sleepy even to say 

 good-night to him ; and, with evident want of 

 temper, was tugging at the buttons of her dress- 

 ing-gown. " Ah," she murmured, as she left the 

 room, " if God, in his infinite mercy, had only 

 spared my maid ! " 



Virginia's evident discontent gave profound 

 pain to Paul. " How solemn," he exclaimed, 

 " for half humanity to be discontented ! " But 

 he was still more disturbed at the appeal to a 

 chimerical manufacturer of atoms ; and he ex- 

 claimed, in yet more sorrowful tones, "How 

 solemn for half humanity to be sunk lower than 

 the beasts by superstition ! " 



However, he hoped that these stupendous 

 evils might, under the present favorable condi- 

 tions, vanish in the course of a few days' prog- 

 ress ; and he went to bed, full of august au- 

 guries. 



VI. 



Next morning he was up betimes ; and the 

 prospects of Humanity looked more glorious 

 than ever. He gathered some of* the finest pats 

 from the butter-tree, and some fresh French rolls 

 from the bread-tree. He discovered a cow close 

 at hand, that allowed him at once to milk it ; and 

 a little roast-pig ran up to him out of the under- 

 wood, and, fawning on him with its trotters, said, 

 "Come, eat me." The professor vivisected it 

 before Virginia's door, that its automatic noise, 

 which the vulgar call cries of pain, might awak- 

 en her ; and he then set it in a hot dish on the 

 table. 



" It has come ! it has come ! " he shouted, 

 rapturously, as Virginia entered the room, this 

 time in a blue-silk dressing-gown, embroidered 

 with flowers of gold. 



" What lias come?" said Virginia, pettishly, 

 for she was suffering from a terrible headache, 

 and the professor's loud voice annoyed her. 

 " You don't mean to say that we are rescued, 

 are we ? " 



" Yes," answered Paul, solemnly ; " we are 

 rescued from all the pains and imperfections of 

 a world that has not learned how to conform to 

 the laws of matter, and is but imperfectly ac- 



