Best Fantasy Stories

Chapter 26 GRIMM'S LAW AGAIN

Chapter 26

GRIMM'S LAW AGAINDinner was now announced, and Oxenden laid the manuscript aside;

whereupon they adjourned to the cabin, where they proceeded to

discuss both the repast and the manuscript.

"Well," said Featherstone, "More's story seems to be approaching

a crisis. What do you think of it now, Melick? Do you still think

it a sensational novel?"

"Partly so," said Melick; "but it would be nearer the mark to

call it a satirical romance."

"Why not a scientific romance?"

"Because there's precious little science in it, but a good deal

of quiet satire."

"Satire on what?" asked Featherstone. "I'll be hanged if I can

see it."

"Oh, well," said Melick, "on things in general. The satire is

directed against the restlessness of humanity; its impulses,

feelings, hopes, and fears—all that men do and feel and suffer. It

mocks us by exhibiting a new race of men, animated by passions and

impulses which are directly the opposite of ours, and yet no nearer

happiness than we are. It shows us a world where our evil is made a

good, and our good an evil; there all that we consider a blessing

is had in abundance—prolonged and perpetual sunlight, riches,

power, fame—and yet these things are despised, and the people,

turning away from them, imagine that they can find happiness in

poverty, darkness, death, and unrequited love. The writer thus

mocks at all our dearest passions and strongest desires; and his

general aim is to show that the mere search for happiness per se is

a vulgar thing, and must always result in utter nothingness. The

writer also teaches the great lesson that the happiness of man

consists not in external surroundings, but in the internal

feelings, and that heaven itself is not a place, but a state. It is

the old lesson which Milton extorted from Satan:

"'What matter where, if I be still the same—'

"Or again:

"'The mind is its own place, and of itself Can make a heaven of

hell, a hell of heaven—'"

"That's good too," cried Oxenden. "That reminds me of the German

commentators who find in the Agamemnon of AEschylus or the OEdipus

of Sophocles or the Hamlet of Shakespeare motives and purposes of

which the authors could never have dreamed, and give us a

metaphysical, beer-and-tobacco, High-Dutch Clytemnestra or Antigone

or Lady Macbeth. No, my boy, More was a simple sailor, and had no

idea of satirizing anything."

"How, then, do you account for the perpetual undercurrent of

meaning and innuendo that may be found in every line?"

"I deny that there is anything of the sort," said Oxenden. "It

is a plain narrative of facts; but the facts are themselves such

that they give a new coloring to the facts of our own life. They

are in such profound antithesis to European ways that we consider

them as being written merely to indicate that difference. It is

like the Germania of Tacitus, which many critics still hold to be a

satire on Roman ways, while as a matter of fact it is simply a

narrative of German manners and customs."

"I hope," cried Melick, "that you do not mean to compare this

awful rot and rubbish to the Germania of Tacitus?"

"By no means," said Oxenden; "I merely asserted that in one

respect they were analogous. You forced on the allusion to the

Germania by calling this 'rot and rubbish' a satirical

romance."

"Oh, well," said Melick, "I only referred to the intention of

the writer. His plan is one thing and his execution quite another.

His plan is not bad, but he fails utterly in his execution. The

style is detestable. If he had written in the style of a plain

seaman, and told a simple unvarnished tale, it would have been all

right. In order to carry out properly such a plan as this the

writer should take Defoe as his model, or, still better, Dean

Swift. Gulliver's Travels and Robinson Crusoe show what can be done

in this way, and form a standard by which all other attempts must

be judged. But this writer is tawdry; he has the worst vices of the

sensational school—he shows everywhere marks of haste, gross

carelessness, and universal feebleness. When he gets hold of a good

fancy, he lacks the patience that is necessary in order to work it

up in an effective way. He is a gross plagiarist, and over and over

again violates in the most glaring manner all the ordinary

proprieties of style. What can be more absurd, for instance, than

the language which he puts into the mouth of Layelah? Not content

with making her talk like a sentimental boarding-school,

bread-and-butter English miss, he actually forgets himself so far

as to put in her mouth a threadbare joke, which everyone has heard

since childhood."

"What is that?"

"Oh, that silly speech about the athaleb swallowing its victuals

whole."

"What's the matter with that?" asked Oxenden. "It's merely a

chance resemblance. In translating her words into English they fell

by accident into that shape. No one but you would find fault with

them. Would it have been better if he had translated her words into

the scientific phraseology which the doctor made use of with regard

to the ichthyosaurus? He might have made it this way: 'Does it

bite?' 'No; it swallows its food without mastication.' Would that

have been better? Besides, it's all very well to talk of imitating

Defoe and Swift; but suppose he couldn't do it?"

"Then he shouldn't have written the book."

"In that case how could his father have heard about his

adventures?"

"His father!" exclaimed Melick. "Do you mean to say that you

still accept all this as bona fide?"

"Do you mean to say," retorted Oxenden, "that you still have any

doubt about the authenticity of this remarkable manuscript?"

At this each looked at the other; Melick elevated his eyebrows,

and Oxenden shrugged his shoulders, but each seemed unable to find

words to express his amazement at the other's stupidity, and so

they took refuge in silence.

"What do you understand by this athaleb, doctor?" asked

Featherstone.

"The athaleb?" said the doctor. "Why, it is clearly the

pterodactyl."

"By-the-bye," interrupted Oxenden, "do please take notice of

that name. It affords another exemplification of 'Grimm's Law.' The

Hebrew word is 'ataleph,' and means bat. The Kosekin word is

'athaleb.' Here you see the thin letter of Hebrew represented by

the aspirated letter of the Kosekin language, while the aspirated

Hebrew is represented by the Kosekin medial."

"Too true," exclaimed Melick, in a tone of deep conviction; "and

now, Oxenden, won't you sing us a song?"

"Nonsense," said Featherstone; "let the doctor tell us about the

athaleb."

"Well," resumed the doctor, "as I was saying, it must be

undoubtedly the pterodactyl. It is a most extraordinary animal, and

is a species of flying lizard, although differing from the lizard

in many respects. It has the head and neck of a bird, the trunk and

tail of an ordinary mammal, the jaws and teeth of a reptile, and

the wings of a bat. Owen describes one whose sweep of wings

exceeded twenty feet, and many have been found of every gradation

of size down to that of a bat. There is no reason why they should

not be as large as More says; and I for my part do not suspect him

of exaggeration. Some have supposed that a late, lingering

individual may have suggested the idea of the fabulous dragon—an

idea which seems to be in the minds of nearly all the human race,

for in the early records of many nations we find the destruction of

dragons assigned to their gods and heroes. The figure of the

pterodactyl represents pretty closely that which is given to the

dragons. It is not impossible that they may have existed into the

period which we call prehistoric, and that monsters far larger than

any which we have yet discovered may have lingered until the time

when man began to increase upon the earth, to spread over its

surface, and to carve upon wood and stone representations of the

most striking objects around him. When the living pterodactyls had

disappeared the memory of them was preserved; some new features

were added, and the imagination went so far as to endow them with

the power of belching forth smoke and flames. Thus the dragon idea

pervaded the minds of men, and instead of a natural animal it

became a fabulous one.

"The fingers of the forelegs were of the ordinary dimensions,

and terminated with crooked nails, and these were probably used to

suspend themselves from trees. When in repose it rested on its hind

legs like a bird, and held its neck curving behind, so that its

enormous head should not disturb its equilibrium. The size and form

of the feet, of the leg, and of the thigh prove that they could

hold themselves erect with firmness, their wings folded, and move

about in this way like birds, just as More describes them as doing.

Like birds they could also perch on trees, and could crawl like

bats and lizards along the rocks and cliffs.

"Some think that they were covered with scales, but I am of the

opinion that they had a horny hide, with a ridge of hair running

down their backs—in which opinion I am sustained by More's account.

The smaller kinds were undoubtedly insectivorous, but the larger

ones must have been carnivorous, and probably fed largely on

fish."

"Well, at any rate," said Melick, gravely, "this athaleb solves

the difficult question as to how the Troglodytes emigrated to the

South Pole."

"How?" asked the doctor.

"Why, they must have gone there on athalebs! Your friends the

pterodactyls probably lingered longest among the Troglodytes, who,

seeing that they were rapidly dying out, concluded to depart to

another and a better world. One beauty of this theory is that it

cannot possibly be disproved; another is that it satisfies all the

requirements of the case; a third is that it accounts for the

disappearance of the pterodactyls in our world, and their

appearance at the South Pole; and there are forty or fifty other

facts, all included in this theory, which I have not time just now

to enumerate, but will try to do so after we have finished reading

the manuscript. I will only add that the athaleb must be regarded

as another link which binds the Kosekin to the Semitic race."

"Another link?" said Oxenden. "That I already have; and it is

one that carries conviction with it."

"All your arguments invariably do, my dear fellow."

"What is it?" asked the doctor.

"The Kosekin alphabet," said Oxenden.

"I can't see how you can make anything out of that," said the

doctor.

"Very well, I can easily explain," replied Oxenden. "In the

first place we must take the old Hebrew alphabet. I will write down

the letters in their order first."

Saying this he hastily jotted down some letters on a piece of

paper, and showed to the doctor the following:

Labials. Palatals. Linguals. A B C (or G) D E F Ch (or H) Dh (or

Th) I Liquids, L M N O P K T

"That," said he, "is substantially the order of the old Hebrew

alphabet."

"But," said the doctor, "the Kosekin alphabet differs in its

order altogether from that."

"That very difference can be shown to be all the stronger proof

of a connection between them," said Oxenden.

"I should like to know how."

"The fact is," said Oxenden, "these letters are represented

differently in the two languages in exact accordance with Grimm's

Law."

"By Jove!" cried Featherstone, "Grimm's Law again!"

"According to that law," continued Oxenden, "the letters of the

alphabet ought to change their order. Now let us leave out the

vowels and linguals, and deal only with the mutes. First, we have

in the Hebrew alphabet the medials B, G, and D. Very well; in the

Kosekin we have standing first the thin letters, or tenues,

according to Grimm's Law, namely, P, K, T. Next we have in the

Hebrew the aspirates F, Ch, Dh. In the Kosekin alphabet we have

corresponding to them the medials B, G, D. Next we have in the

Hebrew the tenues, or thin letters P, K, T. In the Kosekin we have

the corresponding aspirates F, Ch, Th. The vowels, liquids, and

sibilants need not be regarded just here, for the proof from the

mutes is sufficient to satisfy any reasonable man."

"Well," said Melick, "I for one am thoroughly satisfied, and

don't need another single word. The fact is, I never knew before

the all-sufficient nature of Grimm's Law. Why, it can unlock any

mystery! When I get home I must buy one—a tame one, if possible—and

keep him with me always. It is more useful to a literary man than

to any other. It is said that with a knowledge of Grimm's Law a man

may wander through the world from Iceland to Ceylon, and converse

pleasantly in all the Indo-European languages. More must have had

Grimm's Law stowed away somewhere about him; and that's the reason

why he escaped the icebergs, the volcanoes, the cannibals, the

subterranean channel monster, and arrived at last safe and sound in

the land of the Kosekin. What I want is Grimm's Law—a nice tidy

one, well trained, in good working order, and kind in harness; and

the moment I get one I intend to go to the land of the Kosekin

myself."