
answer your question briefly by saying that we are very well off as to politics,
- because we have none. If ever you make a book out of this conversation, put
this in a chapter by itself, after the model of old Horrebow's Snakes in
Iceland.«
    »I will,« said I.
 

                                  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.
    »That's right,« said Hammond cheerily; »you can easily understand that now
we are freed from this folly it is obvious to us that by means of this very
diversity the different strains of blood in the world can be serviceable and
pleasant to each other, without in the least wanting to rob each other: we are
all bent on the same enterprise, making the most of our lives. And I must tell
you whatever quarrels or misunderstandings arise, they very seldom take place
between people of different race; and consequently since there is less unreason
in them, they are the more readily appeased.«
    »Good,« said I, »but as to those matters of politics; as to general
differences of opinion in one and the same community. Do you assert that there
are none?«
    »No, not at all,« said he, somewhat snappishly; »but I do say that
differences of opinion about real solid things need not, and with us
