Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 1.djvu/590

582 and the cover, they allowed the box to pass into the city, and tried, by avoiding to speak of the affair among themselves, to forget what donkeys they had been.

The Grindwell government has many such alarms, and never appears entirely at its ease. It is fully aware of the combustible nature of the component parts of the Governing Machine. There is consequently great outlay of means to insure its safety. An immense number of public spies and functionaries are constantly employed in looking after the fires and lights about the city. Heavy restrictions are laid on all substances containing electricity, and great care is taken lest this subtile fluid should condense in spots and take the form of lightning. Fortunately, the unclouded sunshine seldom comes into Grindwell, else there would be the same fears with regard to light.

So long as this perpetual surveillance is kept up, the machine seems to work on well enough in the main; but the moment there is any remissness on the part of the police, — bang! goes a small explosion somewhere, — or, crack! a bit of the machinery, — and out rush the engineers with their bags of cotton-wool or tow to stop up the chinks, or their bundles of paper money to keep up the steam, or their buckets of oil and soft soap to pour upon the wheels.

One eccentric gentleman of my acquaintance persists in predicting that any day there may be a general blow-up, and the whole concern, engineers, financiers, priests, soldiers, and flunkies, all go to smash. He evidently wishes to see though, as far as personal comfort goes, one would rather be out of the way at such a time.

Most people seem to think, that, considering all things, the present head engineer is about the best man that could be found for the post he occupies. There are, however, a number of the Grindwell people—I can’t say how many, for they are afraid to speak—who feel more and more that they are living in a stifled and altogether abnormal condition, and wish for an indefinite supply of the light, heat, air, and electricity which they see some of the neighboring cities enjoying.

What the result is to be no one can yet tell. We are such stuff as dreams are made of, and our little life is rounded with—a crust; some say, a very thin crust, such as might be got up by a skilful patissier, and over which gilded court-flies, and even scarabœi, may crawl with safety, but which must inevitably cave in beneath the boot-heels of a real, true, thinking man. We cannot forget that there are measureless catacombs and caverns yawning beneath the streets and houses of modern Grindwell.

since the time of that dyspeptic heathen, Plotinus, the saints have been “ashamed of their bodies.” What is worse, they have usually had reason for the shame. Of the four famous Latin fathers, Jerome describes his own limbs as misshapen, his skin as squalid, his bones as scarcely holding together; while Gregory the Great speaks in his Epistles of his own large size, as contrasted with his weakness and infirmities. Three of the four Greek fathers—Chrysostom, Basil, and Gregory of Nazianzen—ruined their health early, and were wretched invalids for the remainder of their days. Three only of the whole eight were ablebodied men,—Ambrose, Augustine, and Athanasius; and the permanent influence of these three has been far greater, for good or for evil, than that of all the others put together.

Robust military saints there have