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Zamua-2 Directory 04
Page 09
Nevertheless I knew that I could get it to agree with me if I could so effectually button-hole and fasten on to it as to eat it. Most men have an easy method with turtle soup, and I had no misgiving but that if I could bring my first premise to bear I should prove the better reasoner. My difficulty lay in this initial process, for I had not with me the argument that would alone compel Mr. Sweeting think that I ought to be allowed to convert the turtles--I mean I had no money in my pocket. No missionary enterprise can be carried on without any money at all, but even so small a sum as half-a-crown would, I suppose, have enabled me to bring the turtle partly round, and with many half-crowns I could in time no doubt convert the lot, for the turtle needs must go where the money drives. If, as is alleged, the world stands on a turtle, the turtle stands on money. No money no turtle. As for money, that stands on opinion, credit, trust, faith--things that, though highly material in connection with money, are still of immaterial essence.
As Romulus was the founder of the political institutions of Rome, so Numa was the author of the religious institutions. Instructed by the nymph Egeria, whom he met in the sacred grove of Aricia, he instituted the Pontiffs, four in number, with a Pontifex Maximus at their head, who had the general superintendence of religion; the Augurs, also four in number, who consulted the will of the gods on all occasions, both private and public; three Flamens, each of whom attended to the worship of separate deities--Jupiter,[5] Mars, and Quirinus; four Vestal Virgins, who kept alive the sacred fire of Vesta brought from Alba Longa; and twelve Salii, or priests of Mars, who had the care of the sacred shields.[6] Numa reformed the calendar, encouraged agriculture, and marked out the boundaries of property, which he placed under the care of the god Terminus. He also built the temple of Janus, a god represented with two heads looking different ways. The gates of this temple were to be open during war and closed in time of peace.
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