The happiest dog in the world (8/7/03)
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“My host then proceeded to question me as to the habits and modes of life among the races on the upper earth, more especially among those considered to be the most advanced... I touched but slightly, though indulgently, on the antiquated and decaying institutions of Europe, in order to expatiate on the present grandeur and prospective pre-eminence of that glorious American Republic, in which Europe enviously seeks its model and tremblingly foresees its doom. ... [I dwelt upon] the excellence of democratic institutions, their promotion of tranquil happiness by the government of party, and the mode in which they diffused such happiness throughout the community by preferring, for the exercise of power and the acquisition of honours, the lowliest citizens in point of property, education, and character. Fortunately recollecting the peroration of a speech, on the purifying influences of American democracy and their destined spread over the world, made by a certain eloquent senator (for whose vote in the Senate a Railway Company, to which my two brothers belonged, had just paid 20,000 dollars), I wound up by repeating its glowing predictions of the magnificent future that smiled upon mankind — when the flag of freedom should float over an entire continent, and two hundred millions of intelligent citizens, accustomed from infancy to the daily use of revolvers, should apply to a cowering universe the doctrine of the Patriot Monroe.”
[
Vril: the power of the coming race. Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, 1871.]
The only thing about this that seems out of date, actually, is the idea that you could buy a Senator for a mere twenty grand. I haven’t checked the morning quotations, but I’m sure that now it takes at least a hundred.
____________Drop dead gorgeous (7/6/03)
