Then hail thee thrice—let this suffice,
Thou art Creation’s Paradise.
Oh! float away—like mist in May,
Or rainbow tints ’mid ocean spray.
“I wake to sense—please, no offence,—
Forgive my drowsy indolence.”
Well, indeed that is pretty; but let us down from Leo’s fancies to Mr. Oseba’s facts, and while I shall strive to retain a seasoning of Mr. Oseba’s richness, time and the love of ease whisper persuasively of the virtues of the blue pencil.
With more animated eloquence, Mr. Oseba resumed his oration. “The audience,” says Leo Bergin, “gave the most profound attention.”
“Knowledge,” said Mr. Oseba, “is a priceless treasure, but,” with a smile he continued, “many a good story has been spoiled by over-inquisitiveness. Poetic fancy suffers from flirtations with cause and conscience. Unless inquiry has been thorough, my children, it is wiser, in most cases, to note impressions than to assume to record facts, so I shall give you but a ‘bird’s-eye’ view of these enchanting isles, with the characters as they appeared before the visual camera when I made my observations.
“Had I gone fossicking among the weary ones of Zelania, I should doubtless have found many excellent people who, in some phase of the inquiry, would have questioned the correctness of my conclusions. I might have heard some sighs, amid the almost universal joy—some smiles with the general congratulations, and some discordant groans mingled with the generous applause—but where there is not sufficient diversity of interest to produce mental friction, there is more danger from decomposition than from revolution.
“Yes, I incline to think had I stood on the corner and listened I would have met some well-to-do gentlemen who disliked the land tax; some business men who disliked the labor laws; some farmers, who wanted a free ride and no rent; some patriotic men who failed to admire many of ‘Richard’s’ taking ways. I might also have found healthy gentlemen from ‘Home’ who, though their conditions were bettered by coming, have little love for ‘the colonials,’ and who, by virtue of their unwillingness to grasp the true situation, regard every statement of a fact as an extravagance, and every forward movement as a revolution. Then, I should have felt it necessary to inquire how much of such criticism was due to private interest, to defeated ambition, to party or factional prejudice, or to differences in opinion as to who would best grace the conspicuous chair.