A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder James De Mille

115
observed that women are a little less fond of death than men, and a
little less unwilling to receive gifts. For this reason they are very
numerous among the wealthy class, and abound in the offices of
administration. Women serve in the army and navy as well as men, and
from their lack of ambition or energetic perseverance they are usually
relegated to the lower ranks, such as officers and generals. To my
mind it seemed as though the women were in all the offices of honor
and dignity, but in reality it was the very opposite. The same is true
in the family. The husbands insist on giving everything to the wives
and doing everything for them. The wives are therefore universally the
rulers of the household while the husbands have an apparently
subordinate, but, to the Kosekin, a more honorable position.
As to the religion of the Kosekin, I could make nothing of it. They
believe that after death they go to what they call the world of
darkness. The death they long for leads to the darkness that they
love; and the death and the darkness are eternal. Still, they persist
in saying that the death and the darkness together form a state of
bliss. They are eloquent about the happiness that awaits them there in
the sunless land--the world of darkness; but for my own part, it
always seemed to me a state of nothingness.
CHAPTER XVII
BELIEF AND UNBELIEF
The doctor was here interrupted by Featherstone, who, with a yawn,
informed him that it was eleven o'clock, and that human endurance had
its limits. Upon this the doctor rolled up the manuscript and put it
aside for the night, after which supper was ordered.
"Well," said Featherstone, "what do you think of this last?"
"It contains some very remarkable statements," said the doctor.
"There are certainly monsters enough in it," said Melick--
"'Gorgons, and hydras, and chimeras dire.'"
"Well, why not?" said the doctor.