But, even admitting you do not return to the Old World, you forget that it is your intention to colonise this territory." "It seems, however, that God has willed it otherwise." "What God does not will in one way, he may bring about in another.
What reason have you for supposing that the _Nelson_ may not return with colonists ?" "It will be from the other world then," said Willis.
"Yes, from the other world," replied Jack, "but not in the sense you imply." "Besides, should the _Nelson_ not reappear, that is no reason why another accident may not drive another ship upon the coast that will be more fortunate; what has happened to-day may surely happen again to-morrow.

And in the event of colonists arriving, will there not be sick to cure, boundaries to determine, differences of opinion to decide, and opposing claims to adjudge." "Certainly, Mr.Wolston." "Well, admitting these necessities, what profession will each of you select?
Let us begin with you, Master Fritz." "The career," replied Fritz, "that would be most congenial to my taste is that of a conqueror." "A conqueror!" "Yes; Alexander, Scipio, Timour the Tartar, and Gengis Khan are the sort of men I should like to resemble.

They have made a tolerable figure in the world, and I should have no objection to follow in their footsteps." "But you forget that their footsteps are marked with tears, disasters, terror, and bloodshed." "These are indispensable." "Why ?" "Once, when a great commander was asked the same question, he replied, that you cannot make omelets without breaking eggs." "Yes," remarked Becker, "but if you had read the anecdote entire, you would have seen that he was asked in return, 'What use there was for so many omelets.'" "Added to which," continued Wolston, "that is not a normal career; there is no diploma required for it; it is an accident arising out of adventitious circumstances, sometimes fostered by ambition, but no course of study can produce a conqueror." "What, then, is the use of military schools ?" "They are, to the best of my knowledge, instituted for rearing defenders for one's country, and not with a view to the subjugation of another's." "My poor Fritz," said Mrs.Becker laughing, "I hope when you conquer half the world, you will find an occupation for your mother more in consonance with your dignity than mending your stockings." "Then, again," continued Wolston, "war cannot be waged by a single individual." "There must be an enemy somewhere," suggested Willis.
"The difficulty does not, however, lie there," observed Jack; "for, if we have no enemies, it is easy enough to make them." "There must, at all events, be armies, magazines, and a treasury--or eggs, as the great commander in question hinted." "True," replied Fritz; "but there is the same difficulty as regards all professions; there can be no barristers without briefs, no physicians without patients." "You will admit, however, that clients and patients are not so rare as hundreds of thousands of armed men and millions of money." "Brother," said Jack, "your cavalry are routed and your infantry outflanked." "If you are determined to be a conqueror, let it be by the pen rather than by the sword--or, what do you say to oratory?
It is not easier, perhaps, but, at all events, eloquence is not denied to ordinary mortals.

You will not then, to be sure, rank with the Hannibals, the Tamerlanes, or the Caesars; but you may attain a place with Demosthenes, who was more dreaded by Philip of Macedon than an army of soldiers." "Or Cicero," remarked Becker, "who preserved his country from the rapacity of Cataline." "Or Peter the Hermit," remarked Frank, "who by his eloquence roused Europe against the Saracens." "Or Bossuet," added Wolston, "and then you may venture to assert in the face of kings that _God alone is Great_, should they, like Louis XIV., assume the sun as an emblem, and adopt such a silly scroll as '_Nec pluribus impar_.'" "Bossuet, Peter the Hermit, Cicero, and Demosthenes, are not so bad, after all, as a last resource," remarked Mrs.Wolston, "and I would recommend you to enrol yourself in that list of conquerors, Master Fritz." "The more especially," observed Jack, "as you have no impediment in your voice, and would not have to undergo a course of pebbles like Demosthenes." "So far as that goes, Jack," replied Fritz, "you would possess a like advantage for the profession as myself; but I will take time to reflect." Then, turning towards his mother, he said, "Conqueror or Jack Pudding, mother, you shall always find me a dutiful son." His mother was more gratified by this expression of attachment than she would have been had he laid at her feet the four thousand golden spurs found, in 1302, on the field of Courtray.
"And now, Ernest, what profession do you intend to adopt?
what is your dream of the future ?" "I, Mr.Wolston! Well, having no taste for artillery, brilliant charges, blood-stained ruins, and the other _agremens_ of war, I cannot be a hero.

Do you know when I feel most happy ?" "No, let us hear." "It is towards evening, when I am reposing tranquilly on the banks of the Jackal." "Ah, I thought so," cried Jack; "no position so congenial to the true philosopher as the horizontal." "When the sun," continued Ernest, gravely, "is retiring behind the forest of cedars that bounds the horizon; when the palms, the mangoes, and gum trees, mass their verdure in distinct and isolated groups; when nature is making herself heard in a thousand melodious voices; when the hum of the insect is ringing in my ears, and the breeze is gently murmuring through the foliage; when thousands of birds are fluttering from grove to grove, sometimes breaking with their wings the smooth surface of the river; when the fish, leaping out of their own element, reflect for an instant from their silvery scales the departing rays of the sun; when the sea, stretching away like a vast plain of boundless space, loses itself in the distance, then my eyes and thoughts are sometimes turned upwards towards the azure of the firmament, and sometimes towards the objects around me, and I feel as if my mind were in search of something which has hitherto eluded its grasp, but which it is sure of eventually finding.