A DARWINIAN REVERIE.

Freethought Review, Volume I, Issue 3, 1 December 1883, Page 13

A DARWINIAN REVERIE.

One evening when he was more than commonly out of sorts, after sitting some time in moody silence, he roused himself, and taking up a book that lay on her table, he glanced at its title and turned over the leaves. It happened by ill luck to be a volume of Darwin that Mrs. Lee had just borrowed from the library of Congress. "Do you understand this sort of thing 1 ?" asked the Senator abruptly, in a tone that suggested a sneer.—" Not very well," replied Mrs. Lee, rather curtly.— Why do you want to understand it V persisted the Senator. . " What good will it do you ?" " Perhaps it will teach us to be Modest," answered Madeleine, quite equal to the occasion.—''Because it says we descend from monkeys f rejoined the Senator, roughly. "Do you think you are descended from monkeys V —•'' Why not?" said Madeleine.—" Why not?" repeated Radcliffe, laughing harshly. " I don't like the connection. Do you mean to introduce your distant relatives into society They would bring more amusement into it than most of its present members," rejoined Mrs. Lee, with a gentle smile that threatened mischief. But Radcliffe would not be warned; on the contrary, the only effect of Mrs. Lee's defiance was to exasperate his ill temper, and whenever he lost his temper he became senatorial and Websterian. " Such books," he said, " disgrace our civilisation ; they degrade and stultify our divine nature; they are only suited for Asiatic despotisms where men are reduced to the level of brutes ; that they should be accepted by a man like Baron Jacobi, I can understand; he and his masters have nothing to do in the world but to trample on human rights. Mr. Carrington, of course, would approve those ideas ; he believes in the divine doctrine of flogging negroes; but that you, who profess philanthropy and free principles, should go with them, is astonishing ;it is incredible; it is unworthy of you."—"You are very hard on the monkeys," replied Madeleine, rather sternly, when the Senator's oration was concluded. "The monkeys never did you any harm ; they are not in public life ; they are not even voters; if they were, you would be enthusiastic about their intelligence and virtue. After all we ought to be grateful to them, for what would men do in this melancholy world if they had not inherited gaiety from the monkeys—as well as oratory." Extract from " Democracy," an American novel.