"Oh, yes; they have a God. The principle is just the same. It's only the form that makes it different from ours."
"Ah, the practice! And after all, that is man's only reality: the ideal is the grander existence. And do these strange worshippers have habitations, and go about clad as we do?"
"They have houses--ours are not like theirs, thanks to good fortune--in which the idea, as in their churches, is to get as many under one roof as possible. They build floor over floor, and then wear their lives out climbing from one to the other. They are not only herders but climbers as well. Then the craze to encroach one upon another is so great that all try to live at a few isolated spots. There are millions of broad acres--the area is so great that for want of a comparison I cannot convey to you anything but a hazed idea--upon which the sun shines and over which the fresh air circulates, yet these people hang out of ten-story windows and pant for breath or hide away in some dark, damp rooms and stare their eyes out under the glare of firelight."
"Horrors! my son. And they would teach us how to live?"
"Not only that, but they cover the streets with rock and steel and then force iron-wheeled cars over the rough surface or harsh-sounding rails until the roar and the clatter make them deaf or drive them insane."
"And when they sleep at night they huddle together under the same quilt, and when they arise and go about their walled dens or out upon the filth-breeding, dust-driven streets they cover themselves with all sorts of coarse material far rougher than our matting on the floor or the material with which we sack our products of the field. Their feet are bound up in close-fitting skins on which are nailed or sewn stiff leather soles, and their heads are weighted down with all manner of hot, ill-shaped and wind-catching hats or other gear."
"Yes. And it is fashioned, mostly, so as to expose as much as possible the person's form, or its lines, and it may be worn, or donned, in piecemeal. It is only to be commended for street sweeping or fly baiting. And what a mixture; and so untidy and so uncomfortable! It makes me creep all over when I think of it, and of how they swelter on a hot day and freeze on a cold one."