Already half the world is
full of war; you want to go to war to make things right, but it won't;
it will only make more war!"
"Well, I--"
"Don't you see what you've done, you boys?" she said. "Don't you see
what you've done with your absurd telegram? That started the rest; they
thought they _all_ had to send telegrams like that."
"Well, the faculty--"
"Even they mightn't have thought of it if it hadn't been for the first
one. Vengeance is the most terrible thought; once you put it into
people's minds that they ought to have it, it runs away with them."
"Well, it isn't mostly vengeance we're after, at all. There's a lot more
to it than just getting even with--"
She did not heed him. "You're all blind! You don't see what you're
doing; you don't even see what you've done to this peaceful place here.
You've filled it full of thoughts of fury and killing and massacre--"
"Why, no," said Ramsey. "It was those Dutch did that to us; and,
besides, there's more to it than you--"
"No, there isn't," she interrupted. "It's just the old brutal spirit
that nations inherit from the time they were only tribes; it's the tribe
spirit, and an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
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