Page:The Diothas, or, A far look ahead (IA diothasorfarlook01macn).pdf/247

 ments are directed toward avoiding such a state of matters as far as can be done.

"Yet there is no denying the fact, that the pre-occupations incident to their engagement, before marriage, and those that come after, are found to interfere considerably with that concentration of thought and effort from which alone brilliant success can spring. Many vioras, accordingly, resolutely kept clear from all such entanglements as may interfere with their prosecution of some favorite line of study.

"If they reach the age of twenty, bound by no engagement, a viora has the privilege of claiming admission to a certain department of the Muetra. This is a sort of scientific cloister, where, cut off from the distractions of the outer world, they may devote themselves to the line of investigation resolved upon.

"Their quarters are comfortable, even luxurious. They have access to extensive libraries, and the use of laboratories replete with every aid to research. They are assembled twice a day for a kind of gymnastic drill, and have full liberty to roam at will over all the grounds of the Muetra, the extent of which you remarked when looking that way from the roof-garden in Nuiore."

"Are they, then, not allowed to leave the precincts of the Muetra?" inquired I. "Extensive though they are, they must seem, at last, very like a prison."

"Probably so." said Utis; "but it is not our policy to make a residence there altogether too desirable. We do not wish our daughters to be debarred from the privilege of devoting their lives to science if, perchance, they have a real vocation that way. We consider, however, that