ly was, and whether the women in Fantaisie were as handsome as the
men. Then she said that the Vraibleusians were the most intellectual
and the most scientific nation in the world, and that the society at her
house was the most intellectual and the most scientific in Vraibleusia.
She told him also that she had hoped by this season the world would have
been completely regulated by mind; but that the subversion of matter was
a more substantial business than she and the Committee of Management
had imagined: she had no doubt, however, that in a short time mind must
carry the day, because matter was mortal and mind eternal; therefore
mind had the best chance. Finally, she also told him that the passions
were the occasion of all the misery which had ever existed; and that
it was impossible for mankind either to be happy or great until, like
herself and her friends, they were 'all soul.'

Popanilla was charmed with his company. What a difference between the
calm, smiling, easy, uninteresting, stupid, sunset countenances
of Fantaisie and those around him. All looked so interested and so
intelligent; their eyes were so anxious, their gestures so animated,
their manners so earnest. They must be very clever! He drew nearer.
If before he were charmed, now he was enchanted. What an universal
acquisition of useful knowledge! Three or four dukes were earnestly
imbibing a new theory of gas from a brilliant little gentleman in black,
who looked like a Will-o'-the-wisp. The Prime Minister was anxious
about pin-making; a Bishop equally interested in a dissertation on
the escapements of watches; a Field-Marshal not less intent on a new
specific from the concentrated essence of hellebore. But what most
delighted Popanilla was hearing a lecture from the most eminent lawyer
and statesman in Vraibleusia on his first and favourite study of
hydrostatics. His associations quite overcame him: all Fantaisie rushed
upon his memory, and he was obliged to retire to a less frequented part
of the room to relieve his too excited feelings.

He was in a few minutes addressed by the identical little gentleman who
had recently been speculating with the three dukes.

The little gentleman told him that he had heard with great pleasure that
in Fantaisie they had no historians, poets, or novelists. He proved to
Popanilla that no such thing as experience existed; that, as the world
was now to be regulated on quite different principles from those by
which it had