Afterwards I said:
'Who told you that flowers are proper to birthdays? or that birthdays
are of any importance?'
'I suppose that nothing can happen so important as birth,' says she:
'and perfumes must be ploper to birth, because the wise men blought
spices to the young Jesus.'
This _naivete_ was the cause of my immediate recovery: for to laugh is
to be saved: and I laughed right out, saying:
'But you read the Bible too much! all your notions are biblical. You
should read the quite modern books.'
'I have tlied,' says she: 'but I cannot lead them long, nor often. The
whole world seems to have got so collupted. It makes me shudder.'
'Ah, well now, you see, you quite come round to my point of view,' said
I.
'Yes, and no,' says she: 'they had got so _spoiled_, that is all.
Everlybody seems to have become quite dull-witted--the plainest tluths
they could not see. I can imagine that those faculties which aided them
in their stlain to become lich themselves, and make the lest more poor,
must have been gleatly sharpened, while all the other faculties
withered: as I can imagine a person with one eye seeing double thlough
it, and quite blind on the other side.
Pages:
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461