y have all the thinking and feeling
to ourselves. Yet there is a great deal to be said for this. A
highly-bred and trained English, French, Austrian, or Italian gentleman
(much more a lady) is a great production,--a better production than
most statues; being beautifully colored as well as shaped, and plus all
the brains; a glorious thing to look at, a wonderful thing to talk to;
and you cannot have it, any more than a pyramid or a church, but by
sacrifice of much contributed life. And it is, perhaps, better to
build a beautiful human creature than a beautiful dome or steeple--and
more delightful to look up reverently to a creature far above us, than
to a wall; only the beautiful human creature will have some duties to
do in return--duties of living belfry and rampart--of which presently.
[1] This lecture was given December 6, 1864, at Rusholme Town Hall,
Manchester, in aid of a library fund for the Rusholme Institute.
[2] Note this sentence carefully, and compare the "Queen of the Air,"
section 106.
[3] 2 Peter, iii. 5-7.
[4] Compare the 13th Letter in "Time and Tide."
[5] Modern "education" for the most part signifies giving people the
faculty of thinking wrong on every conceivable subject of importance to
them.
[6] "Inferno," xxiii. 125, 126; xix. 49, 50.
[7] Compare section 13 above.
[8] See note at end of lecture. I have put it in large type, because
the course of matters since it was written has made it perhaps better
worth attention.
[9] Since this was written, the answer has become definitely--No; we
have surrendered the field of Arctic discovery to the Continental
nations, as being ourselves too poor to pay for ships.
[10] I state this fact without Professor Owen's permission: which of
course he could not with propriety have granted, had I asked it; but I
consider it so important that the public should be aware of the fact
that I do what seems to be right though rude.
[11] That was our real idea of "Free Trade"--"All the trade to myself."
You find now that by "competition" other people can manage to sell
something as well as you--and now we call for Protection again.
Wretches!
[12] I meant that the beautiful places of the world--Switzerland,
Italy, South Germany, and so on--are, indeed, the truest
cathedrals--places to be reverent in, and to worship in, and that we
only care to drive through them; and to eat and drink at their most
sacred places.
[13] I was singularly struc
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