Fashionable Philosophy | Page 3

when the whole system which is built upon
them would collapse.
Mrs Gloring [aside to Lord Fondleton]. Pray, Lord Fondleton, can you
tell me what a Rishi is?
Lord Fondleton. A man who has got into higher states, you know--what
I heard Mr Drygull call a transcendentalist the other day, whatever that
may be. I don't understand much about these matters myself, but I take
it he is a sort of evolved codger.
Mrs Allmash. Oh, how awfully interesting! Dear Mr Drygull, do tell us
some of the extraordinary things the Rishi can do.
Drygull. If you will only all of you listen attentively, and if Mr
Germsell will have the goodness to modify to some degree the
prejudiced attitude of mind common to all men of science, you will
hear him as plainly as I can at this moment beating a tom-tom in his
cottage in the Himalayas.
[Mr Germsell gets up impatiently, _and walks to the other end of the
back drawing-room_.
Drygull [_casting a compassionate glance after him_]. Perhaps it is
better so. Now please, Lady Fritterly, I must request a few moments of
the most profound silence on the part of all. You will not hear the
sound as though coming from a distance, but it will seem rather like a
muffled drumming taking place inside your head, scarcely perceptible
at first, when its volume will gradually increase.
Lord Fondleton [aside to Mrs Gloring]. Some bad champagne
produced the same phenomenon in my head last night.
Lady Fritterly [_severely_]. Hush! Lord Fondleton.
[There is a dead silence for some minutes.
Mrs Gloring [_excitedly_]. Oh, I hear it! It is something like a

woodpecker inside of one.
Drygull. Not a word, my dear madam, if you please.
Lady Fritterly [_after a long pause_]. I imagine I hear a very faint
something; there it goes--boom, boom, boom--at the back of my
tympanum.
Lord Fondleton. That's not like a woodpecker.
Mrs Gloring. No; it seems to me more like tic-tic-tic.
Mrs Allmash. How too tiresome! I can't hear anything. I suppose it is
on account of the rumble of the carriages.
Lord Fondleton [whispers to Mrs Gloring]. I hear something inside of
me; do you know what?
Mrs Gloring. No; what?
Lord Fondleton. The beating of my own heart. Can't you guess for
whom?
Mrs Gloring. No. Perhaps the Rishi makes it beat.
Lord Fondleton. Dear Mrs Gloring, you are the Rishi for whom--
Mrs Gloring. Hush!
Lady Fritterly. There, it is getting louder, like distant artillery, and yet
so near. Oh, Mr Drygull, what a wonderful man the Rishi must be!
Drygull. Yes; he knew that at this hour to-day I should need an
illustration of his power, and he is kindly furnishing us with one. This
is an experience which I think our friend over there [looking towards
Mr Germsell] would find it difficult to classify.
Germsell. Fussle, have the goodness to step here for a
moment--[_points to a woman beating a carpet in the back-yard of an

adjoining house_]. That is the tom-tom in the Himalayas they are
listening to.
Fussle. Well, now, do you know, I don't feel quite sure of that. I was
certainly conscious of a sort of internal hearing of something when you
called me, which was not that; it was as though I had fiddlestrings in
my head and somebody was beginning to strum upon them.
Germsell. Fiddlestrings indeed--say rather fiddlesticks. I am surprised
at a sensible man like yourself listening to such nonsense.
Fussle [_testily_]. It is much greater nonsense for you to tell me I don't
hear something I do hear, than for me to hear something you can't hear.
You may be deaf, while my sense of hearing may be evolving. Can you
hear what Lord Fondleton is saying to Mrs Gloring at this moment?
Germsell. No, and I don't want to.
Fussle. Ah, there it is. You won't hear anything you don't want to. Now
I can, and he ought not to say it;--look how she is blushing. Oh, I forgot
you are short-sighted. Well, you see, I can hear further than you, and
see further than you. Why should you set a limit on the evolution of the
senses, and say that no man in the future can ever hear or see further
than men have in the past? How dare you, sir, with your imperfect
faculties and your perfunctory method of research, which can only
cover an infinitesimal period in the existence of this planet, venture to
limit the potentialities of those laws which have already converted us
from ascidians into men, and which may as easily evolve in us the
faculty of hearing tom-toms in the Himalayas while we are sitting here,
as of that articulate speech or intelligent reasoning which, owing to
their operation, we