Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/391

 evidently in co-action and co-agitation with the lower. To my agreeable surprise, however, I was passed through almost at once. But turning back to Brown, and seeing some little haggling going on, and old B. for once, as I thought, a trifle uncomfortable, I could not resist calling out that that sad Calvinism of his was at the bottom of it all.

The next moment, however, the old fellow tripped up to my side, quite proud of his comparative consequence. "Well, Green," he said emphatically, "I never! They do say, hereabout, that the empty heads get easiest through. Who would have thought that as between you and me! You must have so crammed my head all these years, that at last it is fuller than your own." I was rather put out by this unseasonable, or at least unexpected sally of old Brown's. But then who could think, just at that exciting moment, of anything else than Upper Solardom?

What struck us most, when at last really inside, was the uniformity of everything around. There seemed a great throng of people and a multitude of dwellings, although nowhere such as to cause any inconvenience. But the houses were all alike, and the people all seemed to have the same expression, and to be doing the same things—in short to live, move, and think in the same way. It seemed as though, having ascertained the best plan of a dwelling, for instance, they all took exactly to that pattern, and that, having determined the best rule as to habits of life and thought, they all followed that rule. There is one curious physical difference between them and us, in the absence of a stomach and bowel system like ours. As they imbibe, in their advanced