CHAPTER XIV: HOW MATTERS ARE MANAGED



Said I: "How about your relations with foreign nations?"

"I will not affect not to know what you mean," said he, "but I will
tell you at once that the whole system of rival and contending
nations which played so great a part in the 'government' of the world
of civilisation has disappeared along with the inequality betwixt man
and man in society."

"Does not that make the world duller?" said I.

"Why?" said the old man.

"The obliteration of national variety," said I.

"Nonsense," he said, somewhat snappishly. "Cross the water and see.
You will find plenty of variety: the landscape, the building, the
diet, the amusements, all various. The men and women varying in
looks as well as in habits of thought; the costume far more various
than in the commercial period. How should it add to the variety or
dispel the dulness, to coerce certain families or tribes, often
heterogeneous and jarring with one another, into certain artificial
and mechanical groups, and call them nations, and stimulate their
patriotism--i.e., their foolish and envious prejudices?"

"Well--I don't know how," said I.