If Interlaken was the eye of God, then why had He failed to notice Paroldo?
Pomona gazed at the scenery outside the window, lost in thought. In Greek theater, "parodo" referred to the passage through which the chorus entered. Greek mythology was passed down south of the Alps, while Northern European mythology was believed on the other side. There was also Catholicism and Protestantism. They all converged together; if each sang its own tune, it would be as chaotic and disorderly as the Hogwarts school song.
Unless these cultural elements could be integrated, Europe had not actually done very well in this regard. If it had, there would not be so many countries, large and small.
The New World had not done much better. Americans shattered every civilization into scraps of paper, then assembled them according to the needs of Hollywood films, creating a stream of information that stimulated the senses and assaulted sight and hearing. It was like poisoned milk mixed with White Snakeroot: after drinking it, every muscle in the body trembled, like epilepsy and like possession.
Nancy, the mother of Abraham Lincoln, the American president devoted to freeing enslaved people, died of this very illness. White Snakeroot was a common weed in the New World. It looked like an ordinary little white flower blooming in the wilderness, but it was highly poisonous. Cows that ate it would die, and people who drank milk from cows that had eaten White Snakeroot would die as well. During the nineteenth century, people tried every possible means to find the culprit that was poisoning their livestock. It was not until the early twentieth century that they learned the truth.
There were many ways to poison someone. It was not necessary to use a deadly poison that killed with a single sip.