it was like listening to a child babbling of its hoard of shells.
it was like watching a fool playing with buttons.but i was expected to do more than listen or watch.he demanded that ishould admire;and the utmost that i could say was:--"are these things so?then i am very sorry for you."that made him angry,and he said that insular envy made me unresponsive.so,you see,i could not make him understand.
about four and a half hours after adam was turned out of the garden of eden he felt hungry,and so,bidding eve take care that her head was not broken by the descending fruit,shinned up a cocoanut-palm.that hurt his legs,cut his breast,and made him breathe heavily,and eve was tormented with fear lest her lord should miss his footing,and so bring the tragedy of this world to an end ere the curtain had fairly risen.had i met adam then,i should have been sorry for him.to-day i find eleven hundred thousand of his sons just as far advanced as their father in the art of getting food,and immeasurably inferior to him in that they think that their palm-trees lead straight to the skies.
consequently,i am sorry in rather more than a million different ways.
in the east bread comes naturally,even to the poorest,by a little scratching or the gift of a friend not quite so poor.in less favored countries one is apt to forget.then i went to bed.
and that was on a saturday night.
sunday brought me the queerest experiences of all--a revelation of barbarism complete.i found a place that was officially described as a church.it was a circus really,but that the worshippers did not know.there were flowers all about the building,which was fitted up with plush and stained oak and much luxury,including twisted brass candlesticks of severest gothic design.
to these things and a congregation of savages entered suddenly a wonderful man,completely in the confidence of their god,whom he treated colloquially and exploited very much as a newspaper reporter would exploit a foreign potentate.but,unlike the newspaper reporter,he never allowed his listeners to forget that he,and not he,was the centre of attraction.with a voice of silver and with imagery borrowed from the auction-room,he built up for his hearers a heaven on the lines of the palmer house (but with all the gilding real gold,and all the plate-glass diamond),and set in the centre of it a loud-voiced,argumentative,very shrewd creation that he called god.one sentence at this point caught my delighted ear.it was apropos of some question of the judgment,and ran:--"no!i tell you god doesn't do business that way."he was giving them a deity whom they could comprehend,and a gold and jewelled heaven in which they could take a natural interest.