Mardi was at last settling down into a serene old age; and that the
Indian summer, first discovered in your land, sovereign kings! was the
hazy vapor emitted from its tranquil pipe. But it has not so proved.
Mardi's peaces are but truces. Long absent, at last the red comets
have returned. And return they must, though their periods be ages. And
should Mardi endure till mountain melt into mountain, and all the isles
form one table-land; yet, would it but expand the old battle-plain.

"Students of history are horror-struck at the massacres of old; but in
the shambles, men are being murdered to-day. Could time be reversed,
and the future change places with the past, the past would cry out
against us, and our future, full as loudly, as we against the ages
foregone. All the Ages are his children, calling each other names.

"Hark ye, sovereign-kings! cheer not on the yelping pack too
furiously: Hunters have been torn by their hounds. Be advised; wash
your hands. Hold aloof. Oro has poured out an ocean for an everlasting
barrier between you and the worst folly which other republics have
perpetrated. That barrier hold sacred. And swear never to cross over
to Porpheero, by manifesto or army, unless you traverse dry land.

"And be not too grasping, nearer home. It is not freedom to filch.
Expand not your area too widely, now. Seek you proselytes?
Neighboring nations may be free, without coming under your banner. And
if you can not lay your ambition, know this: that it is best served,
by waiting events.

"Time, but Time only, may enable you to cross the equator; and give
you the Arctic Circles for your boundaries."