Yeast: a Problem by Charles Kingsley
page 43 of 369 (11%)
page 43 of 369 (11%)
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Eulenspiegels, or, finally, for the edification of Argemone as to
her own history, past, present, or future, are questions which we must leave unanswered, till physicians have become a little more of metaphysicians, and have given up their present plan of ignoring for nine hundred and ninety-nine pages that most awful and significant custom of dreaming, and then in the thousandth page talking the boldest materialist twaddle about it. In the meantime, Lancelot, contrary to the colonel's express commands, was sitting up to indite the following letter to his cousin, the Tractarian curate:-- 'You complain that I waste my time in field-sports: how do you know that I waste my time? I find within myself certain appetites; and I suppose that the God whom you say made me, made those appetites as a part of me. Why are they to be crushed any more than any other part of me? I am the whole of what I find in myself--am I to pick and choose myself out of myself? And besides, I feel that the exercise of freedom, activity, foresight, daring, independent self- determination, even in a few minutes' burst across country, strengthens me in mind as well as in body. It might not do so to you; but you are of a different constitution, and, from all I see, the power of a man's muscles, the excitability of his nerves, the shape and balance of his brain, make him what he is. Else what is the meaning of physiognomy? Every man's destiny, as the Turks say, stands written on his forehead. One does not need two glances at your face to know that you would not enjoy fox-hunting, that you would enjoy book-learning and "refined repose," as they are pleased to call it. Every man carries his character in his brain. You all know that, and act upon it when you have to deal with a man for |
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