A treatise on sugar-refining (the dreariest subject I can think of) could have been given a more lively appearance.

"In A.D.1813, I was twenty-two years old," he begins earnestly and goes on with every appearance of calm, horrible industry.

Don't imagine, however, that there is anything archaic in my find.

Diabolic ingenuity in invention though as old as the world is by no means a lost art.

Look at the telephones for shattering the little peace of mind given to us in this world, or at the machine guns for letting with dispatch life out of our bodies.