A MODERN UTOPIA
It ignored the high possibility of a synthesis of languages in the future; it came from a literary man who wrote only English, and, as I read him—he was a little vague in his proposals—it was to be a purely English-speaking movement. And his ideas were coloured too much by the peculiar opportunism of his time; he seemed to have more than half an eye for a prince or a millionaire of genius; he seemed looking here and there for support and the structural elements of a party. Still, the idea of a comprehensive movement of disillusioned and illuminated men behind the shams and patriotisms, the spites and personalities of the ostensible world was there."
I added some particulars.
"Our movement had something of that spirit in the beginning," said my Utopian double. "But while your men seem to be thinking disconnectedly, and upon a very narrow and fragmentary basis of accumulated conclusions, ours had a fairly comprehensive science of human association, and a very careful analysis of the failures of preceding beginnings to draw upon. After all, your world must be as full as ours was of the wreckage and decay of previous attempts; churches, aristocracies, orders, cults. . . ."
"Only at present we seem to have lost heart altogether, and now there are no new religions, no new orders, no new cults—no beginnings any more."
"But that's only a resting phase, perhaps. You were saying———"
"Oh!—let that distressful planet alone for a time! Tell me how you manage in Utopia."
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