Oh that I were but the Grand Monarch! What improvements would I make!
What a scope for invention, Aby! A kingdom! A revenue of four hundred
millions of livres, and a standing army of three hundred thousand men!
All which, if the king were a wise man, it is very evident, Abimelech,
he might employ in improvements; and heaven knows there is a want of
them. What are their petty corvees, by which these straight roads have
been patched up, and their everlasting elms planted? I would assemble
all my vassals--[Your son Frank, Aby, has given me much information
concerning the present governments of Europe, and the origin of manors,
fiefs, and lordships. I can assure you he is a very deep young man;
though I could wish he were not quite so peremptory and positive; and
has informed me of some things which I never heard of before, though I
am twice his age. But he seems to have them so fast at his finger's
ends that I suppose they must be true. I had often heard of entails,
and mortmain, and lands held in fee or fief, I don't know which, and
all that you know, Abimelech. One's deeds and one's lawyers tell one
something, blindly, of these matters; but I never knew how it had all
happened. He told me that--Egad I forget what he told me. But I know he
made it all out very clear. Still I must say he is cursed
positive.]--However, Aby, as I was saying, I would assemble all my
vassals, all my great lords and fief holders, and they should assemble
their vassals, and all hands should be set to work: some to plan,
others to plant; some to grub, some to dig, some to hoe, and some to
sow. The whole country should soon be a garden! Tell me, Aby, is not
the project a grand one[1]? What a dispatch of work! What a change of
nature! I am ravished with the thought!

[Footnote 1: The plan is in reality much grander than the good knight
suspected; if embraced at the will of a nation, instead of at the will
of an individual.]