Symzonia: Voyage of Discovery

Unhappily, in my eagerness to carry my point, I assured him that this would be no objection to the externals; that in the pursuit of gain, they defied plague, pestilence, and famine; that the rich merchants who sent out adventurers, never took the climate of a country into consideration, viewing it as of no concern to them how many of the lives of shipmasters and mariners might be sacrificed, nor how many widows and orphans were thus created, provided they could make money by their business; that the externals would come to Token Island so long as there was any thing to be gained by it, even if one half of their number should perish annually; and that the Symzonians could visit them in the temperate season, when they would be quite safe. The Best Man heard me out, and then told me I had said enough. It would be much less dangerous to his people, he believed, to visit Token Island in the hottest season, than to hold intercourse with such a depraved, covetous, and sordid people at any time of the year. The plan was inadmissible--I must prepare for my departure--The decree would be rigidly enforced. I expressed my reluctant acquiescence, and begged to be fully informed of his will and pleasure, that I might not in any respect deviate from the course I was desired to pursue. I closed by expressing a hope, that the numerous manuscripts which the Wise and the Good had bestowed upon me, might not be taken away, but that I might be permitted to carry them to my country, to instruct the externals in the wisdom they contained. After a moment's hesitation he replied, that good books could not do harm in any world, and I might retain them. This was joyful to my ears. I felt sure of instructive and profitable employment for life in translating these productions for the benefit of my fellow externals, and took my leave of the Best Man, with the comfortable reflection that I had not discovered a new world wholly in vain.