In the Wrong Paradise, and Other Stories

3

The original text of this prophecy is printed at the close of Mr. Gowles’s narrative.

4

It has been suggested to me that some travelled priest or conjurer of this strange race may have met Europeans, seen hats, spectacles, steamers, and so forth, and may have written the prophecy as a warning of the dangers of our civilization. In that case the forgery was very cunningly managed, as the document had every appearance of great age, and the alarm of the priest was too natural to have been feigned.

5

How terribly these words were afterwards to be interpreted, the reader will learn in due time.

6

I afterwards found it was blue smalt.

7

I have never been able to understand Mr. Gowles’s infatuation for this stuck-up creature, who, I am sure, gave herself airs enough, as any one may see. – MRS. GOWLES.

8

This was the name of a native vintage.

9

Mr. Gowles was an ardent Liberal, but at the time when he wrote, the Union Jack had not been denounced by his great leader. We have no doubt that, at a word from Mr. Gladstone, he would have sung, Home Rule, Hibernia! – ED. Wandering Sheep.

10

From Wandering Sheep.

11

From Mr. E. Myers’s “Pindar.”

12

Poor Figgins always called M. Baudelaire “the Master.”

13

His photograph, thus arrayed, may be purchased at Mentone.

14

“Lift” is English for “elevator,” or “elevator” is American for “lift.”

15

This article was originally written for “Mind,” but the author changed his. The reference is to Kant’s Philosophy.

16

A similar phenomenon is mentioned in Mr. Howell’s learned treatise, “An Undiscovered Country.”

17

A chapter from Prof. Boscher’s “Post-Christian Mythology.” Berlin and New York, A.D. 3886.

18

Both these names are undoubtedly Greek neuter substantives.

19

Lieblein speaks (“Egyptian Religion,” 1884, Leipzig,) of “the mythical name Jo.” Already had Continental savants dismissed the belief in a historical Jo, a leader of the Demos.

20

There seems to be some mistake here.

21

“Le pierre sorti du soleil se retrouve au Livre des Souffles.” Lefèbure, “Osiris,” p. 204. Brugsch, “Shaï-n. sinsin,” i. 9.

22

“Beach-comber” is the local term for the European adventurers and long-shore loafers who infest the Pacific Archipelagoes. There is a well-known tale of an English castaway on one of the isles, who was worshipped as a deity by the ignorant people. At length he made his escape, by swimming, and was taken aboard a British vessel, whose captain accosted him roughly. The mariner turned aside and dashed away a tear: “I’ve been a god for months, and you call me a (something alliterative) beach-comber!” he exclaimed, and refused to be comforted.