I often get letters from Captain Poke. He is not very explicit on the subject of our voyage, it is true; but, on the whole, I have decided that the little ship he constructed was built on the model of, and named after, our own Walrus instead of our own Walrus being built on the model of, and named after, the little ship constructed by Captain Poke. I keep the latter, therefore, to show my friends as a proof of what I tell them, knowing the importance of visible testimony with ordinary minds.
As for Bob and the mates, I never heard any more of them. The former most probably continued a “kickee” until years and experience enabled him to turn the tables on humanity, when, as is usually the case with Christians, he would be very likely to take up the business of a “kicker” with so much the greater zeal on account of his early sufferings.
To conclude, my own adventures and observations lead to the following inferences, viz.:
That every man loves liberty for his own sake and very few for the sake of other people.
That moral saltation is very necessary to political success at Leaplow, and quite probably in many other places.
That civilization is very arbitrary, meaning one thing in France, another thing at Leaphigh, and still a third in Dorsetshire.
That there is no sensible difference between motives in the polar region and motives anywhere else.
That truth is a comparative and local property, being much influenced by circumstances; particularly by climate and by different public opinions.
That there is no portion of human wisdom so select and faultless that it does not contain the seeds of its own refutation.
That of all the ’ocracies (aristocracy and democracy included) hypocrisy is the most flourishing.