Page:Letters from Abroad.pdf/106

 which is the doctrine of the green-turbanned sages, asserting that two is truth and one is an illusion.

Then came the day of the great meeting, presided over by the Philosopher President, when the pandits of opposite factions met to fight their dialectic duels finally to decide the truth. The din of debates grew into a tumultuous hubbub; the supporters of both parties threatened violence and the throne of truth was usurped by shouts. When these shouts were about to be transmuted into blows, there appeared in the arena the the pair of lovers, who, on the full moon light of April were secretly wedded, though such intermarriage was against the law. When they stood in the open partition between the two parties, a sudden hush fell upon the assembly.

How this unexpected and yet ever to be expected event, mixed with texts liberally quoted from the proscribed love-lyrics, ultimately helped to reconcile the hopeless contradiction in logic, is a long story. It is well-known to those who have had the privilege to pursue the subsequent verdict of the judges, that both doctrines are held to be undoubtedly true; that, one is in two and therefore two must find itself in one. The acknowledgment of this principle helped to make the intermarriage valid, and since then the two Republics have successfully carried out their disarmament, having discovered for the first time, that the gulf between them was imaginary.