Page:Crotchet Castle - Peacock (1831).djvu/31

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CHAP. II.

THE MARCH OF MIND.

Quoth Ralpho: nothing but the abuse
Of human learning you produce.
Butler.

"God bless my soul, sir!" exclaimed the Reverend Doctor Folliott, bursting, one fine May morning, into the breakfast-room at Crotchet Castle, I am out of all patience with this march of mind. Here has my house been nearly burned down, by my cook taking it into her head to study Hydrostatics, in a sixpenny tract, published by the Steam Intellect Society, and written by a learned friend who is for doing all the world's business as well as his own, and is equally well qualified to handle every branch of human knowledge.