Excerpt from The Diamond Necklace And then, as to social forms, be it granted that they are of the most buckram quality, and bind men up into the pitiful est, straitlaced, commonplace existence, you ask, Where is the Romance? In the Scotch way one answers, Where is it not? That very spectacle of an Immortal Nature, with faculties and destiny extending through Eternity, hampered and bandaged up, by nurses, pedagogues, posture-masters, and the tongues of innumerable old women (named force of public opinion) by pre judice, custom, want of knowledge, want of money, want of strength, into, say, the meagre pattern-figure that, in these days, meets you in all thoroughfares: a god created Man, all but abnegating the char acter of Man; forced to exist, automatised, GBP6 5 mummy-wise (scarcely in rare moments audible or visible from amid his wrappages and cerements), as Gentleman or Gigman; and so selling his birthright of Eternity for the three daily meals, poor at best, which Time yields is not this spectacle itself highly romantic, tragical, if we had eyes to look at itp The highborn (highest-born, for he came out of Heaven) lies drowning in the despicablest puddles; the priceless gift of Life, which he can have but 07253, for he waited a whole Eternity to be born, and now has a whole Eternity waiting to see what he will do when born, tbz's priceless gift we see strangled slowly out of him by in numerable packthreads; and there remains of the glorious Possibility, which we fondly named Man, nothing but an inanimate mass of foul loss and disappointment, which we wrap in shrouds and bury underground, - surely with well-merited tears. To the Thinker here lies Tragedy enough; the epi. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.