Ofterdingen and Kropotkin

Zembla, ctnd.

Gradus might be termed a Puritan. One essential dislike, formidable in its simplicity, pervaded his dull soul: he disliked injustice and deception. He disliked their union -they were always together- with a wooden passion that neither had, nor needed, words to express itself. [...] The generality was godly, the specific diabolical. [...] People who knew too much, scientists, writers, mathematicians, crystalographers and so forth, were no better than kings or priests: they all held an unfair share of power of which others were cheated.
[...]
I have considered in my earlier note...the particular dislikes, and hence the motives, of our "automatic man," as I phrased it at a time when he did not have as much body, did not offend the senses as violently as now; was, in a word, further removed from our sunny, green, grass-fragrant Arcady.

posted by Geist @ 2:26 am