The Monarchy of the Middle Classes: France, Social, Literary, Political, Second Series, Volume 1

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Page 279 - ... purpose under several well-known and popular forms. The quantity of opium which, from habit, some children become capable of taking, is almost incredible, and the effects are correspondingly destructive. Even when the infants have a healthy appearance at birth, they almost, uniformly, become, in a few months, puny and sickly in their aspect, and a very large proportion fall victims to bronchitis, hydrocephalus, and other diseases, produced by want of care, and the pernicious habits we have detailed.
Page 274 - The family sits round the table, and each rapidly appropriates his portion on a plate, or, they all plunge their spoons into the dish, and with an animal eagerness satisfy the cravings of their appetite. At the expiration...
Page 193 - Furthermore, (continues he,) the study of truth is perpetually joined with the love of virtue ; for there is no virtue which derives not its original from truth ; as, on the contrary, there is no vice which has not its beginning from a lie.
Page 274 - ... rock, recoils perpetually on the wearied operative. The mind gathers neither stores nor strength from the constant extension and retraction of the same muscles. The intellect slumbers in supine inertness ; but the grosser parts of our nature attain a rank development. To condemn man to such severity of toil is, in some measure, to cultivate in him the habits of an animal. He becomes reckless.
Page 232 - The laboring class here is certainly much higher on the social scale than with us. Every opportunity of collecting information on this subject confirms my first impression, that there are very few really poor people in France. In England, a poor man and a laborer are synonymous terms ; we speak familiarly of the poor, meaning the laboring class ; not so here."* — Plea, &c., pp.
Page 312 - ... plus poétique, la plus humaine, la plus favorable à la liberté, aux arts et aux lettres; que le monde moderne lui doit tout, depuis l'agriculture jusqu'aux sciences abstraites, depuis les hospices pour les malheureux jusqu'aux temples bâtis par MichelAnge, et décorés par Raphaël.
Page 273 - The dull routine of a ceaseless drudgery, in which the same mechanical process is incessantly repeated, resembles the torment of Sisyphus — the toil, like the rock, recoils perpetually on the wearied operative. The mind gathers neither stores nor strength from the constant extension and retraction of the same muscles. The intellect slumbers in supine inertness ; but the grosser parts of our nature attain a rank development.
Page 273 - When this example is considered in connexion with the unremitted labour of the whole population engaged in the various branches of the cotton manufacture, our wonder will be less excited by their fatal demoralization. Prolonged and exhausting labour, continued from day to day, and from year to year, is not calculated to develop the intellectual or moral faculties of man. The dull routine of a ceaseless drudgery, in which the same mechanical process is incessantly repeated, resembles the torment of...
Page 86 - You aremuch admired for every thing you are known " to have done during the last month ; for as yet, there "is no evidence before the public that you are incendiaries " or even political rebels. Much as every thoughtful man " must lament the waste of property, much as the country " must suffer by the burnings of farm produce now going " on, were you proved to be the incendiaries, we should " defend you by saying, that you have more just and moral " cause for it than any king or faction, that ever...

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