Series 03: John Brady Nash letters, January 1914-December 1915 - Page 260
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[Page 260]
that for the rest of time all the world would be at peace, and that the pen being mightier than the sword the differences of opinion that would arise shall be settled without recourse to the savage methods that pertained to the decadent centuries of our ancestors. Worthy deluded people they fit companions for the angels, who, midst their controversies, quarrelled just up to the striking point, at this remembering that, war clubs hurt far more than words do, no taunts yet uttered are as sharp as arrows; forgetting that others with less than well stored brains or of higher physical metel metlecourage and equally well filled minds, feared not the sensory discomfort or even death, which follows in the train of combat beyond the heights to where the noises of tongues and the spilling of ink can ever reach.
Ah no! Place six, or twelve, or any number, of children in a room before they have learned the gifts of God as displayed by the voice or the uses of paper with pencil, and within brief span one will be the ruler directing the conduct of the others, and if there be some equality of mental or physical powers powers a physical contest will settle the issues.
It is today as ever Might is right. The pugilist who in a ring can defeat his adversary walks for the conqueror and all acclaim him victor. So the nation that can win in the great game of war will in A.D. 1915, as adown the centuries say to those who are the defeated; "thus far and no farther, these are the limits of your frontiers, you must have only so many ships, this man will not be allowed to rule over those people, he must go to St Helena, this city belongs to us, that town belongs to our friend, we shall build a new Gibraltar at these straits, passage along this canal is for so & so during such and such hours at cost per ton of this many shillings, you must pay us so much in such time, and so on, & so on, & so on.