Who first invented work, and bound the free And holiday-rejoicing spirit down . . . . . . . . . To that dry drudgery at the desk's dead wood? . . . .… - Charles Lamb

Nothing comes to him, not spoiled by the sophisticating medium of moral uses. The Universe — that Great Book, as it has been called — is to him indeed, to all intents and purposes, a book, out of which he is doomed to read tedious homilies to distasting schoolboys. — Vacations themselves are none to him, he is only rather worse off than before ; for commonly he has some intrusive upper-boy fastened upon him at such times ; some cadet of a great family ; some neglected lump of nobility ; or gentry ; that he must drag after him to the play, to the Panorama, to Mr Bartley's Orrery, to the Panopticon, or into the country, to a friend's house, or his favourite watering-place. Wherever he goes, this uneasy shadow attends him. A boy is at his board, and in his path, and in all his movements. He is boy-rid, sick of perpetual boy.

Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one down without a feeling of disappointment.

Can we ring the bells backward? Can we unlearn the arts that pretend to civilize, and then burn the world? There is a march of science; but who shall beat the drums for its retreat?