Page:Headlong Hall - Peacock (1816).djvu/47

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HEADLONG HALL.
39

Foster, "extend themselves to the meanest individuals of the community. That boatman, singing as he sails along, is, I have no doubt, a very happy, and, comparatively to the men of his class some centuries back, a very enlightened and intelligent man."

"As a partisan of the system of the moral perfectibility of the human race," said Mr. Escot,–who was always for considering things on a large scale, and whose thoughts immediately wandered from the lake to the ocean, from the little boat to a ship of the line,–"you will probably be able to point out to me the degree of improvement that you suppose to have taken place in the character of a sailor, from the days when Jason sailed through the Cyanean Symplegades, or Noah moored his ark on the summit of Ararat."

"If you talk to me," said Mr. Foster, "of