“‘Well, don’t we produce distinguished Irishmen, and make Americans of the Europeans and Europeans of the Americans? Think of all the connoisseurs who wouldn’t buy a work of art in their own country, when they could go to Europe and pay ten times the value for the pot-boilers that does be turned out in the studios of Paris and London.’
“‘There’s nothing like home industry,’ ses the whale, ‘in a foreign country, I mean.’
“‘After all, who knows anything about a work of art but the artist, and very little he knows about it either. A work of art is like a flower; it grows, it happens. That’s all. And unless you charge the devil’s own price for it, people will think you are cheating them.’
“‘Wisha, I suppose the best any one can do is to take all you can get and if you want to be a philanthropist give away what you don’t want,’ ses the grasshopper.
“‘All worth missing I catches,’ ses the whale, ‘and all worth catching I misses, like the fisherman who lost the salmon and caught a crab. How’s things in Europe? I didn’t see the papers this morning.’
“‘Europe is in a bad way,’ ses the grasshopper. ‘She was preaching civilization for centuries, so that she might be prepared when war came to annihilate herself.’
“‘It looks that way to me,’ ses the whale. ‘Is there anything else worth while going on in the world?’
“‘There’s the Irish question,’ ses the grasshopper.
“‘Where’s that Ireland is?’ ses the whale. ‘Isn’t that an island to the west of England?’
“‘No,’ ses the grasshopper, ‘but England is an island to the east of Ireland.’