[The Monikins by J. Fenimore Cooper]@TWC D-Link book
The Monikins

CHAPTER XXX
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A.X.'s.
That a political rolling-pin, though a very good thing to level rights and privileges, is a very bad thing to level houses, temples, and other matters that might be named.
That the system of governing by proxy is more extended than is commonly supposed; in one country a king resorting to its use, and in another the people.
That there is no method by which a man can be made to covet a tail, so sure as by supplying all his neighbors, and excluding him by an especial edict.
That the perfection of consistency in a nation, is to dock itself at home, while its foreign agents furiously cultivate caudae abroad.
That names are far more useful than things, being more generally understood, less liable to objections, of greater circulation, besides occupying much less room.
That ambassadors turn the back of the throne outward, aristocrats draw a crimson curtain before it, and a king sits on it.
That nature has created inequalities in men and things, and, as human institutions are intended to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak, ergo, the laws should encourage natural inequalities as a legitimate consequence.
That, moreover, the laws of nature having made one man wise and another man foolish--this strong, and that weak, human laws should reverse it all, by making another man wise and one man foolish--that strong, and this weak.

On this conclusion I obtained a peerage.
That God-likes are commonly Riddles, and Riddles, with many people, are, as a matter of course, God-likes.

That the expediency of establishing the base of society on a principle of the most sordid character, one that is denounced by the revelations of God, and proved to be insufficient by the experience of man, may at least be questioned without properly subjecting the dissenter to the imputation of being a sheep-stealer.
That we seldom learn moderation under any political excitement, until forty thousand square miles of territory are blown from beneath our feet.
That it is not an infallible sign of great mental refinement to bespatter our fellow-creatures, while every nerve is writhing in honor of our pigs, our cats, our stocks, and our stones.
That select political wisdom, like select schools, propagates much questionable knowledge.
That the whole people is not infallible, neither is a part of the people infallible.
That love for the species is a godlike and pure sentiment; but the philanthropy which is dependent on buying land by the square mile, and selling it by the square foot, is stench in the nostrils of the just.
That one thoroughly imbued with republican simplicity invariably squeezes himself into a little wheel, in order to show how small he can become at need.
That habit is invincible, an Esquimaux preferring whale's blubber to beefsteak, a native of the Gold Coast cherishing his tom-tom before a band of music, and certain travelled countrymen of our own saying, "Commend me to the English skies." That arranging a fact by reason is embarrassing, and admits of cavilling; while adapting a reason to a fact is a very natural, easy, every-day, and sometimes necessary, process.
That what men affirm for their own particular interests they will swear to in the end, although it should be a proposition as much beyond the necessity of an oath, as that "black is white." That national allegories exist everywhere, the only difference between them arising from gradations in the richness of imaginations.
And finally:-- That men have more of the habits, propensities, dispositions, cravings, antics, gratitude, flapjacks, and honesty of monikins, than is generally known.
THE END..


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