[Footnote 1:  The beauty of our horses, the desire that the chariots should not be cumbersome, and the steep hills everywhere in Montalluyah, are the reasons why electricity is not used alone.  When the horses stop, the electric action is suspended, and the momentum is neutralized simultaneously by a governor or regulator.]

The man refused money, and for his sole reward requested that he might be brought into my presence.  The father told me of this, which seemed to him the more strange inasmuch as the petitioner refused to say what he required of me.

When brought before me, I asked Vyora what he sought?  He replied that his whole desire, his soul’s longing, was to be appointed a teacher, that he might instruct youth, and see little children grow wiser around him.

I regarded the man attentively, and put many searching questions.  He answered all in a remarkable way, and gave proofs of intellect, knowledge, and perception beyond the masters who had passed through the required ordeals, and was so gentle and modest withal, that it was delightful to speak with him.

The father of Vyora had possessed wealth, but from the cruelty and oppression of an enemy mightier than he, had lost both fortune and life, and at his death left a family dependent on charity.

The widow, a woman of remarkable gifts and keen sensibilities, prostrated by grief, died soon after, carried off suddenly by a disease called, “Karni ferola,” “Absorption of the vitality,” [1] which at that time baffled the skill of the physicians, who indeed had seldom suspected its presence till the disease was beyond cure.

     [Footnote 1:  Answering to “consumption;” this disease
     is now detected and cured in its germ.]

Vyora, himself an emaciated boy, unfitted for physical labour, was the eldest of many brothers and sisters, who looked up to him in their hunger.  He was driven to beg their food.

After the poor man had passed easily all the ordeals, I appointed him “a Character-Diver,” to discover the qualities and detect the faults of little children,[2] and raised him from indigence to affluence.

     [Footnote 2:  See p. 19.]

The ability, industry, and wisdom of the man, and the good he did were beyond all praise, and I soon appointed him head of all the Character-Divers in Montalluyah.

This incident, with many others, engaged my most serious reflection.  But for an accident, the powers of a truly superior mind would have been lost to humanity!  Vyora was but the type of numbers, evidencing how capriciously wealth and honours were then distributed.

III.

PERSEVERANCE.