human
Why associate the two at all? he asked lazily.
gpt
Law is strictly a game of the wits. It is played under the convention of an appeal to justice, but justice is invoked merely to satisfy the imagination. If people understood this there would be no complaint about a gulf between the two. We imagine justice; we get law. Similarly, we imagine heaven; we get--what we deserve. If the imagination be satisfied, man will endure the sweat of Sisyphus; most of us suffer it in this world, anyway. Law and justice are like chemical incompatibles and there must be a gulf between them. And law is no better and no worse than other conventions of society. Who that studies human government in any form has ever been able to regard it otherwise than with contempt?
human
Certainly, interposed Fritzie Venable, with formal irony.
gpt
No one that takes care of the Kimberly interests at Washington.
human
The Kimberly interests at Washington, returned Nelson with complaisance,
gpt
Then I don’t see what contempt you should have for this government,
human
Only that it affords him no adequate exercise for his ingenuity,
gpt
I don’t care, protested Fritzie;
human
I am an American and I won’t have our government abused. I believe in sticking to your own.
gpt
Well, if _we_ haven’t stuck to our own, I should like to know who has? observed Charles Kimberly benevolently.
human
We’ve stuck for fifty years to our tariff builders, as Mustard would to a stot. MacBirney’s farmers are doing the work for us now, he continued.
gpt
Our beet growers guard the sugar schedule at Washington. These wonderful Western States; lowest in illiteracy, highest in political sagacity! It is really a shame to take the money.
human
I don’t see how _you_ conscientiously can take it,
gpt
I do it by educating my conscience, Doctor, responded Robert Kimberly.
human
Every one that takes the trouble to inquire knows I am a free trader. I abstain from the Reform Club, but that is out of deference to my partners. I contribute to both campaign funds; to the one for our shareholders, to the other for my conscience; for as I say, personally I am a free trader.
gpt
And a tariff beneficiary,