Europe annexes piece by piece
the dark places of the earth, gives to them her laws. The Empire
swallows the small State; Russia stretches her arm round Asia. In
London we toast the union of the English-speaking peoples; in Berlin
and Vienna we rub a salamander to the deutscher Bund; in Paris we
whisper of a communion of the Latin races. In great things so in
small. The stores, the huge Emporium displaces the small
shopkeeper; the Trust amalgamates a hundred firms; the Union speaks
for the worker. The limits of country, of language, are found too
narrow for the new Ideas. German, American, or English--let what
yard of coloured cotton you choose float from the mizzenmast, the
business of the human race is their captain. One hundred and fifty
years ago old Sam Johnson waited in a patron's anteroom; today the
entire world invites him to growl his table talk the while it takes
its dish of tea. The poet, the novelist, speak in twenty languages.
Nationality--it is the County Council of the future. The world's
high roads run turnpike-free from pole to pole. One would be blind
not to see the goal towards which we are rushing.
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