“What are pig-headed ants?”
“A species of insect devoid alike of reason and all the nobler qualities which we ourselves possess. I say, when we find them, it becomes our duty to use strong measures to raise their condition, or remove them out of our way.”
“Just as a physician who fails to effect a cure would feel justified in killing his patient?”
“Again, sir, you misapprehend my meaning. It is the custom of Parisian sparrows, when they clamour for liberty, equality, and fraternity, to kill each other, in order to purify the government. Having no real grievances at home, we find it convenient to redress our wrongs and seek for sweets abroad. Thus we preserve our independence, and confer a benefit on the world at large. My time is precious—good morning!”
My noble constituents will readily understand how I stood petrified at the audacity of this fighting ant, who stoutly maintained that might alone was right, and that his corrupt form of government ought, forsooth, to be set up as a model.
I had it in my mind to tell him that the chief successes of his foreign policy were effected by the subtile diplomacy of maintaining intestine divisions in foreign states. In this way the time of their enemies is fully occupied, and their strength weakened.
But he retreated before superior force, well knowing that his arguments must be crushed by the criticism of a Philosophical French Sparrow.
I afterwards learned that the officer had retired to his property in the country, “there,” as the ants would say, “to practise those virtues God has imposed upon our race.”
The only good points about the government of Old Frivolity lie in the protection extended to the meanest subjects, and the way they manage the working neuters, in making them pull together to effect great ends. This latter would prove a great element of danger were it introduced among ingenious Parisian sparrows.
I started much impressed with a sense of the perfection of this oligarchy, and the boldness of its selfish measures, and left regretting that in governments, as in individuals, close scrutiny reveals many defects.