There is, indeed,
no difference in the main with respect to the dangers of ignorance
and the advantages of knowledge between those who hold different
opinions--for it is to be observed, that those who are most
distrustful of the advantages of education, are always the first to
exclaim against the results of ignorance. This fact was pleasantly
illustrated on the railway, as I came here. In the same carriage
with me there sat an ancient gentleman (I feel no delicacy in
alluding to him, for I know that he is not in the room, having got
out far short of Birmingham), who expressed himself most mournfully
as to the ruinous effects and rapid spread of railways, and was
most pathetic upon the virtues of the slow-going old stage coaches.
Now I, entertaining some little lingering kindness for the road,
made shift to express my concurrence with the old gentleman's
opinion, without any great compromise of principle. Well, we got
on tolerably comfortably together, and when the engine, with a
frightful screech, dived into some dark abyss, like some strange
aquatic monster, the old gentleman said it would never do, and I
agreed with him. When it parted from each successive station, with
a shock and a shriek as if it had had a double-tooth drawn, the old
gentleman shook his head, and I shook mine. When he burst forth
against such new-fangled notions, and said no good could come of
them, I did not contest the point.
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