Mackay was a hot bigot. He would not hear of religion. I have seen
him waste hours of time in argument with all sorts of poor human
creatures who understood neither him nor themselves, and he had had
the boyishness to dissect and criticise even so small a matter as the
riddler's definition of mind. He snorted aloud with zealotry and the
lust for intellectual battle. Anything, whatever it was, that seemed
to him likely to discourage the continued passionate production of
corn and steam-engines he resented like a conspiracy against the
people. Thus, when I put in the plea for literature, that it was
only in good books, or in the society of the good, that a man could
get help in his conduct, he declared I was in a different world from
him. 'Damn my conduct!' said he. 'I have given it up for a bad job.
My question is, "Can I drive a nail?"' And he plainly looked upon me
as one who was insidiously seeking to reduce the people's annual
bellyful of corn and steam-engines.
It may be argued that these opinions spring from the defect of
culture; that a narrow and pinching way of life not only exaggerates
to a man the importance of material conditions, but indirectly, by
denying him the necessary books and leisure, keeps his mind ignorant
of larger thoughts; and that hence springs this overwhelming concern
about diet, and hence the bald view of existence professed by Mackay.
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