The man could be frightfully keen...except when he was utterly obtuse. - David D. Levine

If only things were not as they are, she reflected, they would certainly be different.

And there you see the risk of automata," Fox replied. "They are all well and good as amusements, I grant you. But when they are built to perform the work of men, surely this must result in the atrophy of the mental processes they replace.

Wordlessly she gestured downward, to the hidden lower limbs which seemed to hold some unearthly power over men’s minds.