And, on the other hand, go forth again to gaze upon the old cathedral
front, where you have smiled so often at the fantastic ignorance of the
old sculptors: examine once more those ugly goblins, and formless
monsters, and stern statues, anatomiless and rigid; but do not mock at
them, for they are signs of the life and liberty of every workman who
struck the stone; a freedom of thought, and rank in scale of being,
such as no laws, no charters, no charities can secure; but which it
must be the first aim of all Europe at this day to regain for her
children.
Let me not be thought to speak wildly or extravagantly. It is verily
this degradation of the operative into a machine, which, more than any
other evil of the times, is leading the mass of the nations everywhere
into vain, incoherent, destructive struggling for a freedom of which
they cannot explain the nature to themselves. Their universal outcry
against wealth, and against nobility, is not forced from them either by
the pressure of famine, or the sting of mortified pride. These do much,
and have done much in all ages; but the foundations of society were
never yet shaken as they are at this day. It is not that men are ill
fed, but that they have no pleasure in the work by which they make
their bread, and therefore look to wealth as the only means of
pleasure.
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