Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/240

Rh but more gentle and beautiful. And both will become one in that great human kingdom which is growing up between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, between the North Sea and the South. For although South America does not as yet show either a people or character, which demands esteem or admiration; although it as yet appears subject to nature instead of elevating itself above her, is enervated by the sun instead of being inspired by its glowing and pure light, yet we still know that it was in this climate, beneath this sun, these palms, that the worshippers of the sun, the Peruvians, and those noble Aztecs lived; that it was in this climate, beneath this sun, and these palms in the East, that the most ancient wisdom, the most ancient poetry, was born on the earth; the Vedas of the Hindoos, their temples, the ruins of which still excite our admiration, their songs and poems Sakuntala Urvasi and Vikrama, and many more, graceful and noble, such as only could be composed beneath palm-trees and in an atmosphere such as this; those intellectual legends, the game of chess, the airy dance of the Bayadere, and many another art and science for the beautifying of life, which could only have birth where the life of nature holds its holiday. And that which has once flourished, may under similar circumstances, again come forth in new, or still more elevated forms. The Oriental tropical zone has produced its bloom; that of the West will bring forth hers in the light of Christianity. As yet we can merely surmise what it will one day become, surmise that from the glorious natural life which now is its most beautiful production.

But it was about the people and the states of North America that your Majesty wished to hear, and of these I will proceed to speak; for, however much your Majesty loves the beautiful in nature, I know that your Majesty loves still more that which gives to human weal and human happiness a still higher significance. Is not your Majesty one of the mothers of humanity, one of the