d discountenance vril altogether, except in cases of war. Apropos
of war, it is perfectly absurd to stint a people so intelligent, so
rich, so well armed, to a petty limit of territory sufficing for
10,000 or 12,000 families. Is not this restriction a mere philosophical
crotchet, at variance with the aspiring element in human nature, such as
has been partially, and with complete failure, tried in the upper world
by the late Mr. Robert Owen? Of course one would not go to war with the
neighbouring nations as well armed as one's own subjects; but then,
what of those regions inhabited by races unacquainted with vril, and
apparently resembling, in their democratic institutions, my American
countrymen? One might invade them without offence to the vril nations,
our allies, appropriate their territories, extending, perhaps, to the
most distant regions of the nether earth, and thus rule over an empire
in which the sun never sets. (I forgot, in my enthusiasm, that over
those regions there was no sun to set). As for the fantastical notion
against conceding fame or renown to an eminent individual, because,
forsooth, bestowal of honours insures contest in the pursuit of them,
stimulates angry passions, and mars the felicity of peace--it is opposed
to the very elements, not only of the human, but of the brute creation,
which are all, if tamable, participators in the sentiment of praise and
emulation. What renown would be given to a king who thus extended his
empire! I should be deemed a demigod." Thinking of that, the other
fanatical notion of regulating this life by reference to one which,
no doubt, we Christians firmly believe in, but never take into
consideration, I resolved that enlightened philosophy compelled me to
abolish a heathen religion so superstitiously at variance with modern
thought and practical action. Musing over these various projects, I felt
how much I should have liked at that moment to brighten my wits by
a good glass of whiskey-and-water. Not that I am habitually a
spirit-drinker, but certainly there are times when a little stimulant
of alcoholic nature, taken with a cigar, enlivens the imagination. Yes;
certainly among these herbs and fruits there would be a liquid from
which one could extract a pleasant vinous alcohol; and with a steak cut
off one of those elks (ah! what offence to science to reject the animal
food which our first medical men agree in recommending to the gastric
juices of mankind!) one would ce