Have you ever heard what some philosophers say--that men were all animals once ?' 'No, ma'am.' 'It is of no consequence.

But there is another thing that is of the greatest consequence--this: that all men, if they do not take care, go down the hill to the animals' country; that many men are actually, all their lives, going to be beasts.

People knew it once, but it is long since they forgot it.' 'I am not surprised to hear it, ma'am, when I think of some of our miners.' 'Ah! But you must beware, Curdie, how you say of this man or that man that he is travelling beastward.

There are not nearly so many going that way as at first sight you might think.

When you met your father on the hill tonight, you stood and spoke together on the same spot; and although one of you was going up and the other coming down, at a little distance no one could have told which was bound in the one direction and which in the other.