"There's two ways for 'em to end. If they're made out of the top
of society, they get so refined, so idealized, that every
particle flies off on its own special path to the sun, and the
Community 's broke; and if they're made of the lower mud, they
keep going down, down together,--they live to drink and eat, and
make themselves as near the brutes as they can. It isn't easy to
believe, Sir, but it's true. I have seen it. I've seen every
one of them the United States can produce. It's FACTS, Sir; and
facts, as Lord Bacon says, `are the basis of every sound
speculation.' "
The last sentence was slowly brought out, as quotations were not
exactly his forte, but, as he said afterwards,--"You see, that
nailed the parson."
The parson nodded gravely.
"You'll find no such experiment in the Bible," threw in the young
doctor, alluding to "serious things" as a peace-offering to his
reverend friend.
"One, I believe," dryly.
"Well," broke in the farmer, folding up his wool, "that's neither
here nor there. This experiment of Knowles's is like nothing
known since the Creation. Plan of his own. He spends his days
now hunting out the gallows-birds out of the dens in town here,
and they're all to be transported into the country to start a new
Arcadia. A few men and women like himself, but the bulk is from
the dens, I tell you. All start fair, level ground, perpetual
celibacy, mutual trust, honour, rise according to the stuff
that's in them,--pah! it makes me sick!"
"Knowles's inclination to that sort of people is easily
explained," spitefully lisped the doctor.
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