OF OLD AND NEW TABLES 305
Let the shopkeeper rule there where everything that still shineth, is shopkeepers' gold. It is no longer the time of kings. For what to-day calleth itself a people, deserveth no kings.
Behold, how these peoples now themselves act like shopkeepers. They seek the smallest profits out of every sort of rubbish.
They lie in ambush for each other ; they obtain things from each other by lying in wait. That is called by them 'good neighbourliness.' Oh, blessed remote time, when a people said unto itself : ' I will be* master over peoples ! '
For, my brethren, what is best, shall rule ; what is best, will rule ! And where the teaching soundeth different, the best is lacking.
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If they had bread for nothing, alas ! for what would they cry ! Their maintenance that is their proper entertainment. And they shall have a hard life!
Beasts of prey they are. In their ' working ' there is even preying, in their ' earning ' there is even outwitting ! Therefore they shall have a hard life !
Thus they shall become better beasts of prey, finer, cleverer, more like man. For man is the best beast of prey.
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