paradise
strapped about his middle? It was a baffling problem. Yet they did it.
Even now, as he spoke, out there across the world, millions of people on
an island the size of Ipsilon or even smaller than Naxos, were rushing
to and fro like maniacs. For of course he was under the impression that
Manhattan, with the adjacent coast beyond the river, was all there was
of America. For all he knew the subway ran to San Francisco and New
Orleans was a mile or two below Staten Island. Listening to him, it was
perfectly easy to visualize the growth of ancient tales of foreign
parts. When I think of him nowadays, and observe the noise and
chaffering of political people who are vociferously claiming for such as
he what they call self-determination or what in those illiterate days
was known as autonomy, I am constrained to a great amazement. We shall
see some strange signs and portents later, if I am not in error.

"For if there is one thing more than another which one gets from this
old land, it is the conviction that it will not cease to be old because
a few zealots march round it blowing the trumpets of a new and
incomprehensible thing called Liberty. It is an amiable but disastrous
illusion on the part of the western nations that they have created a
monopoly in freedom and truth and the right conduct of life. As I have
adumbrated to you more than once, I am not so sure of all this. The
hoarse, guttural voice of Gruenbaum, whom the high priests of Liberty set
against a wall the other day and shot dead, comes back to me across the
years. 'An illusion, founded on a misconception.' Well, I wouldn't call
that an entirely true definition of democracy as we in the west
understand it. But if you took this late resident of Hoboken, now safely
restored to his traditional environment, I should certainly say that
your wonderful democracy was of no more use to him than some fabulously
expensive and delicate scientific instrument, or the Bodleian Library at
Oxford, or the Elgin marbles would be. The trouble is, you see, that so
many of us in the world, inarticulate for the most part, don't want your
progress, your tremendous journeys through the air, your new religions,
or your improved breakfast foods. And we could endure even such a war as
is going on now, if we only had peace in our hearts. For peace is not a
merely negative thing, the absence of strife. It is something in itself,
something you could definitely discern in the atmosphere of