178 love's meinie. 



under a curse, which we may, if we will, 

 gradually remove, by doing as we are bid, 

 and believing what we are told ; and when we 

 are told, for instance, in the best book we 

 have about our own old history, that "unto 

 Adam also, and to his wife, did the Lord God 

 make coats of skins, and clothed them," we 

 are to accept it as the best thing to be done 

 under the circumstances, and to wear, if we 

 can get them, wolf skin, or cow skin, or 

 beaver's, or ermine's ; but not therefore to 

 confuse God with the Hudson's Bay Company, 

 nor to hunt foxes for their brushes instead of 

 their skins, or think the poor little black tails 

 of a Siberian weasel on a judge's shoulders 

 may constitute him therefore a Minos in 

 matters of retributive justice, or an ^acus in 

 distributive, who can at once determine how 

 many millions a Railroad Company are to 

 make the public pay for not granting them 

 their exclusive business by telegraph. 



133. And every hour of my life, since that 

 paragraph of ' Modern Painters ' was written, 

 has increased, I disdain to say my feeling, but 

 say, with fearless decision, my knowledge, of 

 the bitterness of the curse, which the habits of 



