The Freemason's Daughter: A Novel — page 11: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

2 THE FREEMASONS DAUGHTER. chimneys hung like a heavy veil over the busy hive of human industry, impregnating the atmosphere with pestilence and death. But why compare Manchester to a hive? when hu- manity proclaims the simile a false one. The bee toils in pure air and sunshine, breathes the rich odours of a thousand flowers, and rests its wings in their enamelled cups; its labour is healthful exercise, cheered by the music of its merry song; the bee receives no injustice from its fellow-bee, and is suffocated only when its task is ended, and the rich hoard laid up. For the poor artisan, condemned to waste his days in the un- healthy, over-heated factory, life has no sunshine— labour no music; he works for another’s gain, and, like the silkworm, is gradually suffocated, while weaving a fortune for his master and a shroud for himself. Decidedly the great manufacturing city of England cannot be compared to a hive; for the hive is healthy, and at sunset the bee rests from its labour. It toils; not like a man, in an artificial ight; leaves not the warm shelter of its home on a day like the one we have endeavoured to describe: it can afford to rest, for it produces more than it consumes. Despite the inclemency of the day, a young man, of gentlemanly appearance, might be seen slowly making his way towards Cannon Street; he was thin almost to attenuation: the pedestrian who followed him might have taken him for a youth who had outgrown his strength ; while, on the contrary, the one who met him COniiclooecl SS (SO