B948 <=> B950 [BTG XLII Beelzebub in America, p. 949]
“’Help everything around you both the animate and the still inanimate to acquire a beautiful appearance.’
“And indeed, and especially in the last two centuries there, they have striven simply to attain a ‘beautiful exterior’ – but, of course, only in regard to those various objects external to them themselves, which chanced in the given period to become as they expressed it ‘fashionable.’
“During this said period, it has been of no concern to them whether any object external to them themselves had any substance whatsoever – all that was necessary was that it should have what they call ‘a striking appearance.’
“As regards the achievements of the contemporary beings of this continent in respect of actualizing the ‘external beauty’ of these fruits of theirs, then indeed, my boy, I have nowhere seen, not only on the other continents of the same planet but even on the other planets of that solar system, fruits so beautiful in appearance as those of the present time on this continent America; on the other hand, as regards the inner substance of these fruits, one can only use that favorite expression of our dear Teacher, which consists of the following words:
“’The greatest of all being-blessings for man is the action of castor oil.’
“And to what height they have carried their skill in making their famous preserves out of these fruits – as for this, as is said, ‘neither tongue can tell nor pen describe.’ You have to see them for yourself to experience in your common presence the degree of the impulse of ‘rapture’ to which one can be carried on perceiving with the organ of sight the external beauty of these American fruit preserves.
“Waking down the main streets of the cities of the beings of this continent, especially of the city New York, and seeing the display in any fruit store, it is hard to say at once just what it is the eyes behold. Is it an exhibition of pictures by the futurists of the city Berlin of the continent Europe, or is it a display of the famous perfumery stores for foreigners of the ‘world capital,’ that is, the city Paris?