Mr. MacBorrowdale. Not to say that in the intermediate country you are punished by bad inns and bad wine; of which I confess myself intolerant. I knew an unfortunate French tourist, who had made the round of Switzerland, and had but one expression for every stage of his journey: Mauvaise auberge!
Lord Curryfin. Well, then, what say you to the electric telegraph, by which you converse at the distance of thousands of miles? Even across the Atlantic, as no doubt we shall yet do.
Mr. Gryll. Some of us have already heard the doctor's opinion on that subject.
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. I have no wish to expedite communication with the Americans. If we could apply the power of electrical repulsion to preserve us from ever hearing anything more of them, I should think that we had for once derived a benefit from science.
Mr. Gryll. Your love for the Americans, doctor, seems something like that of Cicero's friend Marius for the Greeks. He would not take the nearest road to his villa, because it was called the Greek Road.{1} Perhaps if your nearest way home were called the American Road, you would make a circuit to avoid it.
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. I am happy to say I am not put to the test. Magnetism, galvanism, electricity, are 'one form of many names.'{2} Without magnetism we should never have discovered America; to which we are indebted for nothing but evil; diseases in the worst forms that can afflict humanity, and slavery in the worst form in which slavery can cast. The Old World had the sugar-cane and the cotton-plant, though it did not so misuse them. Then, what good have we got from America? What good of any kind, from the whole continent and its islands, from the Esquimaux to Patagonia?
1 Non enim te puto Graecos ludos desiderare: praesertim quum
Graecos ita non âmes, ut ne ad villain quidem tuam via
Grasca ire soleas.—Cicero: Ep. ad Div, vii. i.
2 (Greek phrase)—Æschylus: Prometheus.
Mr. Gryll. Newfoundland salt-fish, doctor.
The Rev. Dr. Opindan. That is something, but it does not turn the scale.
Mr. Gryll. If they have given us no good, we have given them none.