Page:The Wreck of a World - Grove - 1890.djvu/117

Rh man since his sweetheart's sad loss that he had been before.

Nothing of note happened to our little settlement for the next year or two, save that it increased in numbers and prosperity, without losing the health and virtue which were the natural results of a simple and industrious life in a beautiful climate. My reading has introduced me to most of the ideal and actual communities of the world, but our social policy reminds me of none so much as of that sketched by Sir Thomas More in his Utopia. We had no coinage, no commerce, none of the mere gauds of life, only a free exchange of the products of our hands. Each man brought to market the excess of his productions over the needs of his family; each took thence so much and no more than he required. Those who are acquainted with that remarkable work of the chancellor of King Henry VIII. of England will know how closely the details of our economy correspond with those of his imaginary state. In the XXth century after Christ we had revived the glories of the Golden Age.