Page:The Diothas, or, A far look ahead (IA diothasorfarlook01macn).pdf/303

 To Hulmar and Reva, when I explained to them whose bright eyes had once looked on this strange-looking bird, whose soft hands had examined its outline, the fragment was no longer of merely historical interest. To them, listening to my account, it was much as if some one could tell us at the present day of having witnessed the erection of this same monolith on its original site, except that the date was twice as remote.

Reva, having first passed her hands, too, over that place, went away to rejoin some companions. Halmar, seated on the lower base of the pedestal, narrated to me the story of the obelisk after my times.

"The government of Nuiore," he began, "as organized at the period when this stone crossed the ocean, was most peculiar. Its utter want of sense, and knowledge of human nature as then existent, is so evident, that the intention of its originators became an enigma to succeeding generations. The most plausible explanation, however, is, that they had no intentions, if by that we mean settled principles of action. A set of incompetent bunglers had drifted into a position in which they were able to do much mischief, and did it. The result may be summed up in a few words. The revenues of one of the wealthiest cities of the world were surrendered as a prey to the organized offscourings of Europe.

"The direct contributors to the revenues were made a powerless minority: the tax-spending majority were reckless in lavishing what seemed to cost them nothing. The régime of aldermen, as the representatives of the proletariat were called, became too onerous, at last, for even the revenues of Nuiore to sustain. The city became