Excerpt from Kilmeny
I was not born to command men. The keen, audacious spirit which plans the building of bridges, lays down great lines of railways, and gets up prodigious companies, was always a mystery to me - a mystery as depressing as the things themselves. I used to be afraid of large mechanical works - used to wonder what sort of men first undertook to raise immense viaducts, drive tunnels through mountains, and plan huge ships. The mere size of a church made me sad. And when I met men who seemed to have splendid, matter-of-fact strength in their faces - men who had hard, clear, literal views of things - who were on equal terms with the newest enterprises, and were capable of imagining even newer and bigger things, I almost feared them. A tall man overawed me as a big building did. Then the great, rich people, who had such a royal way with them - the men who could stare a beggar out of countenance, who could quite honestly look at a tradesman or a waiter as a sort of divinely-appointed slave, who could do cruel things when the law allowed them, and laugh over the misfortune of their weaker opponent - they, too, were among my mysteries. The world was too big, and strong, and rich, and hard-hearted; and I feared it.
I used to make a world of my own, in which there were no gigantic walls, or gaunt buildings, or lonely squares with cold iron railings and melancholy trees.
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