Thomas Carlyle

One Life; a little gleam of Time between two Eternities; no second chance to us forevermore! It were well for us to live not as fools and simulacra, but as wise and realities.

When the poor man’s integuments, no longer nourished from within, become dead skin, mere adscititious leather and callosity, wearing thicker and thicker, uglier and uglier; […] — yes then, you may say, his usefulness once more is quite obstructed; […] it is time that he take to bed, and prepare for departure, which cannot now be distant!

And Quack and Dupe, as we must ever keep in mind, are upper-side and under of the self-same substance; convertible personages: turn up your dupe into the proper fostering element, and he himself can become a quack; […]

Why, Plugson, even thy own host is all in mutiny: Cotton is conquered; but the ‘bare backs’ — are worse covered than ever!

And yet these grim old walls are not a dilettantism and dubiety; they are an earnest fact. It was a most real and serious purpose they were built for!

He is become a mere enchanted simulacrum of a Duke; bewitched under worse than Thessalian spells; without faculty of willing, except as she wills; his People and he the plaything of this Circe or Hecate, that has got hold of him.

It is one among their many greater advantages from this surprisal of the enemy, and sudden topsy-turvying of his plans.