teep grassy lawns
sloping to the river, with the rhythmic hum of the mill, the loud
factory bell marking the hours like the voice of time itself, the
workers pouring through the garden in the summer morning on their way to
Wilmslow church, and receiving flowers and friendly salutation from the
group at the open door of the great house. It was little wonder that
these recollections acquired a fascination for William Greg that never
passed away, and gave that characteristic form to his social ideas which
they never lost.

At Bury and at Quarry Bank the two brothers were unresting in their
efforts both to acquire knowledge for themselves and to communicate it
to their neighbours. They delivered courses of lectures, and took
boundless trouble to make them interesting and instructive. In these
lectures William Greg took what opportunities he could find to enforce
moral and religious sentiment. 'I lay it down,' he said, 'as an
indubitable fact that religion has double the effect on Saturday that it
has on Sunday; and weekday morality, incidentally introduced, meets with
far more attention than the tautology of Sabbath subjects, treated in
the style in which they generally are by professed teachers.' A more
questionable diligence displayed itself in the zealous practice of
experiments in animal magnetism and mesmerism. With a faith that might
have moved mountains the two brothers laid their hands upon all sorts of
sick folk, and they believed themselves to have wrought many cures and
wonders. William Greg described animal magnetism as a 'discovery bearing
more immediately and extensively on the physical happiness of the world
than any which the last three centuries have witnessed.' The cowardice
of doctors and others, who believed but were afraid to speak, stirred
all the generous fire of youth. 'Here, of itself,' he cries out to his
sister (September 4, 1829), 'is a bitter satire upon human nature, and a
sufficient answer to all who moralise on the impropriety of flying in
the face of received opinions and public prejudice. I assure you it is a
knowledge of how often the ridicule and contempt of the world has
crushed truth in the embryo or stifled it in the cradle, which makes me
so eager to examine and support those opinions which mankind generally
condemn as visionary and irrational.' In later times these interests
became a bond between W. R. Greg and Miss Martineau. He finally let the
subject drop, with the conviction that