These latter articles are at no great distance; and it
is not impossible that some of the present race of men may live to
see them in part accomplished. But, besides this, there will be no
disease, no anguish, no melancholy, and no resentment. Every man
will seek with ineffable ardour the good of all' (ii. 870-72).
A very curious vein, not golden indeed but copper, let us say, is
hidden away in the earthy mass of Godwin. The dull, heavy-featured
creature sees an apocalyptic vision and becomes poetical. It is
partly absurd, but not because it is ideal, and there are lineaments
in it of the true Utopia. Godwin probably would have denounced the
Revelation of St. John the Divine as superstitious nonsense, but he
saw before him a kind of misty, distorted reflection of the New
Jerusalem, in which there shall be no more death, neither sorrow,
nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, where there shall
be no more curse, no night, no candle, no light of the sun. It
might have been thought that it was impossible to establish a
connection between Patmos and Skinner Street, but the first
postulate of Euclid's elements holds good universally, 'that a
straight line may be drawn from any one point to any other point.
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