Conscious Of Superiority, They Always Strive To
Encroach On Their Neighbours; Unsatisfied With Their Portion, They
Eagerly Swallow It In Order To Have An Opportunity Of Taking What Is
Given To Others, Except They Are Prevented.
Some I chide, others,
unmindful of my admonitions, receive some blows.
Could victuals thus
be given to men without the assistance of any language, I am sure
they would not behave better to one another, nor more
philosophically than my cattle do.
The same spirit prevails in the stable; but there I have to do with
more generous animals, there my well-known voice has immediate
influence, and soon restores peace and tranquillity. Thus by
superior knowledge I govern all my cattle as wise men are obliged to
govern fools and the ignorant. A variety of other thoughts crowd on
my mind at that peculiar instant, but they all vanish by the time I
return home. If in a cold night I swiftly travel in my sledge,
carried along at the rate of twelve miles an hour, many are the
reflections excited by surrounding circumstances. I ask myself what
sort of an agent is that which we call frost? Our minister compares
it to needles, the points of which enter our pores. What is become
of the heat of the summer; in what part of the world is it that the
N. W. keeps these grand magazines of nitre? when I see in the
morning a river over which I can travel, that in the evening before
was liquid, I am astonished indeed!
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 51 of 291
Words from 13647 to 13905
of 79752
