“ON THE MAKE.”
Mr. Oseba was greatly interested in the “enterprise” of the Outeroos. I quote:—
“I have visited all the countries of the upper crust of Oliffa, and I have observed that the Outeroos are taking a lot of physical exercise. They are engaged in a mad scramble for dollars. Just why any man should want so many ‘dollars’ is not very clear, but it is very clear that they do want them. Men with very many dollars are, in most things, much like the men with very few dollars; they are alarmed at smallpox, the cold and the heat make them thirsty, and the shapely actress turns alike their shallow heads. Then, too, the grim chariot that carries waste from the ‘City of Confusion’ and deposits it in the ‘City of the Silent,’ calls about as promptly at the mansion of Lady Bountiful as at the hovel of the laundress.
“When the man of dollars dies, he is about as dead as his footman—under like circumstances. He’ll be dead about as long, and whatever his facilities for the transfer of wealth while in active business, he can take none of it with him. But, maybe, ’tis well, for if the old story be true, it would probably melt.
“The world has been aroused by the magic force of modern genius, and is being unified by Anglo-Saxon commercial enterprise. The nations are growing wealthy; gold is the sole object of ambition, of toil, of production, of trade. For gold the industrious strive, the duke marries, the boss robs, the politician ‘negotiates,’ the lawyer deceives, the judge decrees, the noble cheats, and the ‘parson’—takes up a collection. In this enormous confusion, a great many people get a lot of exercise—a few, ‘clip the coupons,’ and are happy.
“But the superior Outeroos are only veneered pagans, my children, and gold is the universal god. When Moses smashed the ‘golden calf’ the fragments must have been many, and each tiny piece must have multiplied into many full-grown bullocks.
“This deity, however, should never grow ‘jealous.’ His worshippers have at least one sturdy virtue, for among all the millions of them, there kneels not one hypocrite. While the other deities are occasionally scoffed and often neglected, the ‘golden calf’ is always in evidence. But he attends to business, and in all places he hath wonderful potency.
“Genius has quickened the hand of toil,” said Oseba, “but it has not removed the callous, and almost everywhere on the surface of Oliffa the opulence of the mansion tells the wretchedness of the hovel. The owner of the one schemes, the tenant of the other toils. The man who toils, toils for another; the man who ‘schemes’—well, the other fellow goes to him for a cheque at the end of the week. Until the great democracies of the Antipodes were established, every government of the world, regardless of title, style or form, conspired with cunning to rob credulity, with the schemer to rob the toiler.
“I have thus reasoned, my children, that you might realise by ‘looking upon this picture and then upon this,’ that Zelania has introduced to the world a social policy under which the people, in their organised capacity, have secured to the people, in their individual capacity, a fuller measure of the fruits of their mental and physical efforts than was ever enjoyed in any other country under the sun.
“It is not even a policy of the ‘greatest good to the greatest number,’ for, as the purest happiness consists in a participation of the general joy, it is a policy of the greatest good to all.
“Zelania’s motto is: ‘He who earns shall have, and he who strives shall enjoy.’ In this, the people builded better than they knew, and soon Zelania will be the most conspicuously conspicuous spot on Oliffa, and thousands of people will visit her marvellous shores, not more to enjoy the museums of the gods than to study the customs and the character of the first nation of emancipated men.
“Zelania, though she is now the foremost among the world’s social pioneers, was practically wrested from Nature by the present generation of men. The Zelanian Isles were Nature’s last best gift to the noblest race of her noblest creatures—the gods seeming to have waited for a proper tenantry for these more than Elysian fields.
“Zelania, my children, is the John in the Wilderness—the prophesied of old, the prophet of the new. She is the beacon of the present, the divine torch of the future.”
Oh, that is inspiring! Let’s take an amateur “soar.”
To the Goddess of Justice their prayers are read.
To that Goddess Zelanians bow low the head;
For she gave the Zelanians, nor seer nor priest,
She gave them the custom of Galilee’s feast.
For rich though her gifts to the present and past,
She saved for these Britons the “best for the last.”
Here built they a temple—’twas built on the plan
That he is most noble that’s most of a man;
They laid as foundations the “love of their kind”;
For strength of the structure, firm held they in mind
That no fortune or creed, but justice alone,
Should ever remain as the chief corner stone.
They builded the temple—’twas builded by men
Who were called from the shop, from the mountain and glen.
’Twas builded for men—not for some, as of yore—
’Twas builded of men, from the spires to the floor.
’Twas builded too strong for the strong to transgress,
But ’twas builded too weak, the most weak to oppress.
Pardon; let’s back to Leo’s notes, for Mr. Oseba’s modest candour better suits this prosy age.