for imitating other men's signatures, when he was quite willing to let any mortal man imitate his own! And these people talk always about Christianity, and go to church every Sunday, and flood the world with Bibles![1]
"I must own, Maria, that if nothing was to my taste in England, neither men nor meat, the fault lay partly in myself. I had brought a good stock of ill-temper and discontent with me from home, and I sought to be cheered up by a race which can only subdue its own ennui in the whirlpool of political and mercantile action. The perfection of machinery, which is there everywhere applied to some purpose, and which executes so many human tasks, had for me something mysterious and terrible; the artificial headlong action of wheels, shafts, cylinders, with a thousand small hooks, cogs, and teeth, which whirl so madly, filled me with dread. The definiteness, the exactness, the meted out and measured punctuality of life, tormented me quite as much, for as the machines in England seem like men, so the men seem to me like mere machines. Yes, wood, iron, and brass, these seem to have usurped the spirit of humanity, and often to be raging with fulness of intelligence, while Man,
- ↑ Hardly to be cited as inconsistent. Ananias and Sapphira were struck dead—very deservedly—for cheating the Christian community out of a small sum and lying.—Translator.
