That Very Mab. May Kendall
except what their mothers taught them on their knees. All of these are in just now.'
'What do you mean by "in"?'
'In fashion; and what is fashionable is to be believed in. Why, you might be the fashion again,' said the Owl excitedly. 'Why not? and then people would believe in you. What a game it all is, to be sure! But the fashions of this kind don't last,' the bird added; 'they get snuffed out by the scientific men.'
'Tell me exactly who the scientific men are,' said the fairy. 'I have heard so much about them since I came.'
'They are the men.' sighed the Owl, 'who go about with microscopes, that is, instruments for looking into things as they are not meant to be looked at and seeing them as they were never intended to be seen. They have put everything under their microscopes, except stars and First Causes; but they had to take telescopes to the stars, because they were so far off; and First Causes they examined by stethoscopes, which each philosopher applied to his own breast. But, as all the breasts are different, they now call First Causes no business of theirs. They make most things their business, though. They have had a good deal of trouble with the poets, because the poets liked to put themselves and their critics under their own microscopes, and they objected to the microscopes of the scientific men. You know what poets are?'
'Yes, indeed,' said Queen Mab, feeling at home on the subject. 'I have forgotten a good many things, I daresay, with living in Polynesia, but not about the poets. I remember Shakespeare very well, and Herrick is at my court in the Pacific.'
'Ah, he was a great man, Shakespeare, almost too large for a microscope!' said the Owl reflectively. They have put him under a good many since he died, however, especially German lenses. But we were talking about the philosophers – another name for the scientific men – the men who don't know everything.'
'I should have thought they did,' said Queen Mab.
'No,' said the Owl. 'It is the theologians who know everything, or at least they used to do so. But lately it has become such a mark of mental inferiority to know everything, that they are always casting it in each other's teeth. It has grown into a war-cry with both parties: "You think you know everything," and it is hard for a bird to find out how it all began and what it is all about. I believe it sprang originally out of the old microscope difficulty. The philosophers wanted to put theology under the microscope, and the theologians excommunicated microscopes, and said theology ought never to be looked at except with the Eye of Faith. Now the philosophers are borrowing an eye of Faith from the theologians, and adding it on to their own microscope like another lens, and they have detected a kind of Absolute, a sort of a Something, the Higher Pantheism. I could never tell you all about it, and I don't even know whether they have really put theology under the microscope, or only theologians.'
'And the people worship St. George still?' asked Queen Mab, who, being only a fairy, and owning no soul, had private theories of belief, based merely on observation of popular customs.
'Oh yes, St. George and the Dragon. They have them both together on the beads of their rosaries – the yellow things they count, and pray with, or pay with.' said the Owl rather vaguely.
'St. George and the Dragon! Why, St. George killed the Dragon.'
'Ah! the Dragon was not really killed.' said the Owl coolly. 'It was only syncope, and he kept quiet for a time, and grew seven other heads worse than the first. Some say St George worships the Dragon now, himself; but people always are saying unpleasant things, and probably it isn't true. At all events, the English worship St George and the Dragon till they don't seem to know which is which.'
'What, has St George grown like the Dragon then?' cried Queen Mab distractedly, wringing her hands.
'Oh no,' replied the Owl, with some condescending pity for the foreigner's ignorance. 'But the Dragon has grown vastly like St. George.'
'Is that all they worship?' said Queen Mab.
'Oh no, there are plenty of other patent religions. A hundred religions and only one sauce – melted butter, as the Frenchman said, but the sauce has outlived many of the patent religions.'
'I don't understand how religions are patent.' remarked her inquisitive Majesty.
'We call it a patent religion.' said the Owl, 'when it has only been recently invented, and is so insufficiently advertised, that it is only to be found in a very few houses indeed, and is not a commodity in general request. The Patentees then call themselves a Church, and devote their energies to advertising the new "Cult," as they generally style it. For example, you have Esoteric Buddhism, so named because it is not Buddhism, nor Esoteric. It is imported by an American company with a manufactory in Thibet, and has had some success among fashionable people.'
'What do the Esoteric Buddhists worship?'
'Teacups and cigarettes, standing where they ought not.' replied the owl; 'but I believe these things are purely symbolical, and that au fond the Priestess of Esoteric Buddhism herself adores the Dragon.'
'That is enough about that. Are there no patent religions warranted free from Dragon worship?'
'Well.' said the Owl dubiously, 'there are the Altruists. 'They worship humanity. As a rule, you may have noticed that adorers think the object of adoration better than themselves, – an unexpected instance in most cases, of the modesty of their species. But the Altruists worship Humanity.'
'And they don't think Humanity better than themselves?'
'Far from it. Their leading idea is that they are the cream of Humanity. Their principal industry is to scold and lecture Humanity. Whatever Humanity may be doing – making war or making peace, or making love to its Deceased Wife's Sister – the Altruists cry out, "Don't do that." And they preach sermons to Humanity, always beginning, "We think;" and they publish their remarks in high-class periodicals, and they invariably show that everyone, and especially Mr. Herbert Spencer, is in the wrong, and nobody pays the slightest attention to them. In their way the Altruists do to others as they would have others do to them, To my mind, while they pretend that Humanity is what they worship, they really want to be worshipped by Humanity.'
'Are there many of this sect?' asked Mab.
'There were twenty-seven of them.' said the Owl, 'but they quarrelled about canonising the Emperor Tiberius, and now there are only thirteen and a half.'
'Where do you get the fraction?' said Mab.
'That is a mystery.' said the Owl. 'Every religion should have its mystery, and the Altruists possess only this example; it is a cheap one, but they are not a luxurious sect.'
'Well.' said Mab mournfully at last, 'I must go back to Samoa; there is too much mystery here for me. But who is that?'
She broke off suddenly, for a new and mysterious object had just entered the glade, and was advancing towards the pool.
'Hush!' said the Owl. 'Do take care. It is a scientific man – a philosopher.'
It was a tall, thin personage, with spectacles and a knapsack, and what reminded Queen Mab of a small green landing-net, but was really intended to catch butterflies. He came up to the pond, and she imagined he was going to fish; but no, he only unfastened his knapsack and took some small phials and a tin box out of it Then, bending down to the edge of the water, he began to skim its surface cautiously with a ladle and empty the contents into one of his phials. Suddenly a look of delight came into his face, and he uttered a cry – 'Stephanoceros!'
Queen Mab thought it was an incantation, and, trembling with fear, she relaxed her hold of the bough and fell. Not into the pond! She had wings, of course, and half petrified with horror though she was, she yet fluttered away from that stagnant water. But alas, in the very effort to escape, she had caught the eye of the Professor; he sprang up – pond, animalcule all forgotten in the chase of this extraordinary butterfly. The fairy's courage failed her: her presence of mind vanished, and the wild gyrations of the owl, who, too late, realised the peril of his companion, only increased her confusion. In another moment she was a prisoner under the butterfly-net.
Beaming with delight, the philosopher turned her carefully into the tin box, shut the lid and hastened home, too much enraptured with his prize even to pause