Stray Studies from England and ItalyGreene, John Richard
History
Stray Studies from England and Italy
Greene, John Richard
Italy -- Description and travel
There are dreams which men have been dreaming for generation after
generation which require nothing for their realization but the
appearance of such a capitalist as we have imagined. To take what may
seem perhaps an odd instance, just because it is an odd instance, let us
remember what a wonderful amount of hope and anticipation has been
thrown by a great religious party into the restoration of the Jews.
Rightly or wrongly, it is the one theme which sends a throb of
excitement through the life of quiet parsonages and kindles a new fire
even in the dreariest May meetings at Exeter Hall. But in point of
actual fact there is not the slightest necessity to await any great
spiritual revolution for the accomplishment of such a dream if its
accomplishment were really desirable. A league of Evangelical bankers
who fully believed in the prophecies they are so fond of quoting could
turn the wildest fancies of Dr. Cumming into sober earnest with very
little trouble indeed. Any emigration agent would undertake the
transport of Houndsditch bodily to Joppa; the bare limestone uplands of
Judæa could be covered again with terraces of olive and vine at
precisely the same cost of money and industry as is still required to
keep up the cultivation of the Riviera; and Mr. Fergusson would furnish
for a due consideration plans and estimates for a restoration of the
Temple on Zion. We are not suggesting such a scheme as an opportunity
for investing money to any great profit, but it is odd to live in a
world of wealthy people who believe firmly that its realization would
make this world into a little heaven below and yet never seem to feel
that they have the means of bringing it about in their cheque-books. Or
to take a hardly less odd instance, but one which has actually been
brought a little nearer to practical realization. Some time ago a body
of Welsh patriots determined to save the tongue and literature of the
Cymry from extinction by founding a new Welsh nation on the shores of
Patagonia. Nothing but Welsh was to be spoken, none but Welsh books were
to be read, and the laws of the colony were to be an amalgam of the
codes of Moses and of Howel the Good. The plan failed simply because its
originators were poor and unable to tide over the first difficulties of
the project. But conceive an ardent capitalist with a passion for
nationalities embracing such a cause, and at the cost of a few hundreds
of thousands creating perhaps a type of national life which might
directly or indirectly affect the future of the world. Such a man might
secure himself a niche in history at less cost and with less trouble
than he could obtain a large estate and a share in the commission of the
peace for a midland county.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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