There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music … - Lord Byron

I love not man the less, but nature more

I love not man the less, but nature more

I have a great mind to believe in Christianity for the mere pleasure of fancying I may be damned.

But suppose it past, — suppose one of these men, as I have seen them meagre with famine, sullen with despair, careless of a life which your lordships are perhaps about to value at something less than the price of a stocking-frame ; suppose this man surrounded by those children for whom he is unable to procure bread at the hazard of his existence, about to be torn for ever from a family which he lately supported in peaceful industry, and which it is not his fault than he can no longer so support; suppose this man — and there are ten thousand such from whom you may select your victims, — dragged into court to be tried for this new offence, by this new law, — still there are two things wanting to convict and condemn him, and these are, in my opinion, twelve butchers for a jury, and a Jefferies for a judge!