B1059 <=> B1061 (BTG XLIII Beelzebub’s opinion of war, p. 1060)

“One must give them their due; in this they have attained perfection, and at the present time their thoughts flow in all directions without any intentional exertion of any part whatsoever of their presence.

“For instance, when after gorging and satisfying themselves these important and power-possessing beinbeings of the Earth are seated on their said divans, the association of thoughts which ought inevitably to flow in them receives shocks from the reflexes of their stomach and sex organs and wander freely in all directions, as they say there, ‘to their heart’s content,’ and so pleasantly free and easy, as if they, that is these thoughts of theirs, were ‘strolling of an evening in Paris along the Boulevard des Capucines.’

“When these power-possessing beings of your planet are seated on their soft divans, subjects like the following a-think in them.

“For instance, how to get his revenge on that acquaintance of his, John Smith, who a few days before looked at a woman he ‘liked,’ not with his right eye but with his left.

“Or this ‘digesting’ terrestrial power-possessing or important being thinks: ‘Why did not my horse come in first yesterday at the races as I expected, but some other?’

“Or, ‘Why do those stocks which are in fact quite worthless, go up every day on the market, higher and higher?’

“Or, finally, he thinks something of this kind: ‘If I were in John Smith’s shoes who invented a new method of breeding flies for making ivory from their skeletons, then from the profits obtained I would do this, that, and the other, and not as that fool, who, like a dog in the manger, will neither himself eat nor let others eat,’ and so on in the same strain.