Why the Nineteenth Century Shaped Who Americans Are Today: Part 2, the Industrial Revolution

A coal clinker from a railroad bed

The Industrial Revolution transformed the world. Even the parts of the world that it never touched directly have been shaped by it. Our world today is a wholly shaped by the Industrial Revolution and its implications. It's important to take a look at the background.

In the late 18th century the British engineer James Watt developed the modern steam engine, which transformed the way products were made. Prior to this development machinery was run by water power or power generated by humans or animals. Watt’s engine made it possible to run machinery using a furnace to hear water, create steam, and power a steam engine which in turn could power looms, presses, and other industrial machinery. Initially steam engines burned wood, but by the later 1700’s the mining of coal took on a sense of urgency as Britain’s forests continued to disappear.

Coal has been a major source of fuel since this time, and for over a century concerns have been raised about the environmental effect of burning coal. Not only does it contribute to climate change but the mining process destroys the area in which the mining takes place. I’m not going to rehearse the environmental effects of the use of coal right now.

There are four main types of coal—anthracite, bituminous, subbituminous, and lignite. Anthracite is the hardest, and most desirable because it produces more heat. It is also low sulfur. Bituminous has more sulfur and is softer but still produces a good amount of heat. Subbituminous is softer yet, and lignite is sometimes compared to hardened peat because it hasn’t undergone the same level of development under the ground.

When coal is burned it is not completely consumed by fire. Instead, impurities such as coke, slag and grit are left behind and coalesce into chunks called ‘clinkers.”  My father remembered his first job in the early 1930’s sifting clinkers in people’s basements to sort out any good pieces of coal.

Clinkers are actually a useful byproduct. When crushed they are often called “cinders” and they make a good pavement material.

Coal was also used to heat homes, the effects of which made the air in large cities in Britain and elsewhere toxic to breathe. Coal mining also necessitated (and still does) unsafe working conditions.  A black pall would constantly hang over cities.

The clinker pictured here came from an old railroad bed in New York where I lived a number of years ago. It is a reminder for me of the impact this mineral had on the development of industry.

It is clear that the goal of industry was to make inexpensive products that would create a ready market, an advantage over handmade products that were more expensive. We’ll get back to this in a minute.

What industry did in Britain, and later in the United States and Europe during the nineteenth century was to create the modern city. People left farms to work in a city in a factory. Public transportation did not exist until the advent of the railroad in the 1830’s and 40’s so workers had to live near the factories. Some factory owners built affordable housing nearby for workers to live in. What nobody took into account was the effect this had on society. People lived in close proximity to one another, and when disease made an appearance it tor through poor sections of a city. The 1854 cholera outbreak in London led to the development of the science of epidemiology, the study of how infectious disease spreads.

Many took notice of the effects of poverty and hardship on the poor laboring class in Britain. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels co-wrote The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845). They, and many other authors, wrote of the working conditions of factory workers which endangered their health and contributed to an early death. In addition, there were no laws regarding the employment of children, and children who started work in factories at an early age did not develop properly, and they suffered the loss of extremities because their smaller hands made them useful in particular jobs.


The manufacture of inexpensive cloth in the United States required the technology to make it. Robert Slater, a mill worker in England, memorized the plans for mill machinery and fled to Rhode Island with the plans in his head. He built a textile mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island in 1793, the same year as an important invention appeared in Connecticut.

Two of the most significant developments in the American Industrial Revolution came from the same person—Eli Whitney (1765-1825). Whitney ingeniously developed the idea of interchangeable parts, and famously demonstrated to government agents how he could put together a musket from parts picked out of barrels of identical parts. He also invented the cotton gin in 1793 which made it possible to grow cotton profitably. I have no idea if he understood the implications of this invention for the revival of the institution of slavery. The institution of slavery in its second phase was a violent and brutal partner to the Industrial Revolution. More on that next time.

Why the Nineteenth Century Shaped Who Americans Are Today (Part 1)

I’ve been thinking a lot about the major influences that have made us who we are in the present day. There are a lot of them—recently, World War II, Vietnam, the rise of immigration to the United States, the development of the automobile and the building of the interstate highway system, the advent of computer technology and the Internet, all of those and more. But there is one period of time that laid a foundation for all of the above.

I enjoy playing chess against my computer. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose. I notice a phenomenon that often happens in live games. One square becomes the focal point. Everything builds up until something breaks. American history, like the history of the rest of the world, tends to act in the same way.

The nineteenth century. Nineteenth doesn’t mean 1900-1999. Remember the first decade after the supposed birth of Christ (which actually happened around 5-4 BCE) there were only three digits in the years. In the first century there were only two. So the first century was 1-99, second 100-199, etc. The nineteenth century is by common acceptance 1800-1899, although technically it is 1801-1900 but we’ll not quibble about that.

Historically, when we’re talking about centuries it’s not necessarily about a strictly defined period of 100 years. Arguably, the end of the English Renaissance is with the death of Queen Elizabeth ! In 1603.  Similarly, it could be argued that in terms of historical trends and culture the nineteenth century ended in Europe in 1914 with the outbreak of World War I, when the world that had gradually come into being was destroyed—the world of empires, free trade, open borders, and pacifism, all the while below their feet a massive arms buildup was growing that would explode in 1914.

What is it about the nineteenth century? We’ll look at it in at least a couple of blog entries. I’m not sure how long it will take. I will include thoughts about a variety of historical artifacts.

In Western history the nineteenth century begins, to a degree, with the treaties of Paris (1814-15) ended the Napoleonic wars. Napoleon’s urge to conquer all of Europe was a culmination of the philosophical and military advances of the eighteenth century, a century that saw nearly constant warfare in Europe over a variety of issues including territory, claims to various thrones, etc.  Napoleon took over France in 1799 at the lowest point in the French Revolution.

The first artifacts are two pieces of paper money from Revolutionary France. They come from different periods in the Revolution but represent the same thing. The revolutionary government confiscated huge tracts of land from the nobility and also from the Roman Catholic Church. They may not have know what they were going to do with all that wealth in real estate but somebody came up with a seemingly brilliant idea (at the time). Let’s issue paper money based on the value of the land. The government held the land, and wasn’t going to sell it right away, so why not? The problem was inflation. It didn’t take long for hyperinflation to set in. Series after series of notes were issued to stay on top of the hyperinflation but it didn’t work. It didn’t work because real estate value fluctuates. You can ask any real estate agent about that.

What was supposed to be a source of stability for the Revolutionary government became a huge source of instability.

So, what does this have to do with today? Lots. Empires fell during this time. Not all, but some. More fell at the end of World War I. But this was the start. The map of Europe was redrawn for the better part of a century by the outcome of this period and set up Europe for another century of warfare, which in turn set up Europe for another half century of warfare.



Politically the United States tried as hard as possible to stay out of European wars but didn't entirely succeed. No troops were sent, but this period strongly influenced American politics and the economy, such as the Embargo during the War of 1812 that killed New England's trade with Britain. Jefferson's audacious Louisiana purchase in 1803 was brokered because Napoleonic France was broke. We were influenced by European politics and warfare in a way that we don't even know.

Next we'll look at the Industrial Revolution. After that, the advances in communication, slavery, the Civil War, and anything else that comes to mind. Put your hat on, it's going to be a bumpy ride!

An Encounter with the Past

I've read Frederick Douglass' first autobiography and am reading the second, an expansion of the first. I recalled the experience below today as I was reading.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Frederick Douglass

First Parish Church, Brunswick, Maine

About 20+ years ago when my family and I were in Maine I had the opportunity to go to an all day meeting for clergy at First Parish Church in Brunswick, Maine, where Bowdoin College is. The meetinghouse of First Parish dates from 1845. During a break the associate  pastor asked if anyone wanted a tour of the sanctuary, and many of us took her up on the offer. We all sat in the pews as she talked about the sanctuary. She was in the pulpit, and described how Frederick Douglass, the great abolitionist and orator, had spoken at the same pulpit, as well as General Grant, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow read one of his poems from the pulpit. You get the idea.

She then talked about some of the famous parishioners there, and mentioned Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Her husband, Calvin Stowe, was a professor at Bowdoin. She then said that it was during a worship service in the church that she had the vision that

inspired her to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which enlightened Northerners about the evils of slavery. She pointed in my general direction and said that in the pew where she was sitting there was a plaque commemorating the occasion. I looked down and saw the plaque. Ok, that made my year.





I have always been fascinated by historical places--places where important events happened. Not just the site of where something happened. Places like the above. As in, "Harriet Beecher Stowe sat in the exact place you're sitting, on the same pew, where she had this vision."

Historic buildings have a great appeal. A good example is the Old State House in Boston, famous of course for its connection to activities leading up to the American Revolution. And outside the front door is a circle of brick in the square that is the site of the Boston Massacre. The guards were posted right outside that building. 

It always saddens me when historic places are demolished to make way for a shopping mall or something else. When they are gone they are gone, never to return. They are sometimes our only physical link with events of the past that continue to shape our present and will shape our future.

We Need to Reconcile With the Past. Now.

George H. Lewis, 1830-1863

Here in the comfort of my Connecticut home I have again been contemplating the Civil War. It’s personal for me. My family has a very long memory. Not long enough in some respects, but long.

First off, I need to say that the turmoil of the protests sparked by George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police are of no surprise for me. We’re still fighting the Civil War and we still live with the implications of two and a half centuries of slavery.

Racism is the legacy of slavery. It is the perpetuation of a brutal system that kept generations of Africans and African Americans in bondage. Racism is not just prejudice. It is prejudice empowered.

Here’s my history with the war and what led up to it. My great great grandfather, George Hallam Lewis, died on February 11, 1863 of chronic diarrhea at the Eckington Hospital on the outskirts of Washington, DC, very close to the present National Arboretum. He enlisted in August, 1862 in the 15th Connecticut Regiment, Company F. They were dispatched to Washington where they guarded the bridges that led across the Potomac into Virginia, a very important assignment. Lincoln was terrified at the proximity of the capital to Confederate territory.

George left behind his wife and four small children, one of them my great grandfather, Samuel Clinton Lewis. He never saw them again.

George was good with horses. He lived on a farm in West Meriden, Connecticut. He was assigned to the Ambulance Corps which had just been formed. His unit gradually worked their way south in the fall of 1862 and eventually arrived in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Any Civil War buff knows about the Battle of Fredericksburg, in December. General Burnside ordered wave after wave of regiments up the hill toward Marye’s Heights to take the Confederate stronghold but did not succeed. That night many Union soldiers, wounded and not, spent the night on the field before Marye’s Heights with the Northern Lights overhead. The head of the Medical corps later recorded that Confederate sharpshooters aimed at Union ambulance workers trying to retrieve the wounded from the battlefield.

I don’t think George was there although he might have been. He had had problems with persistent diarrhea for awhile, probably either dysentery or cholera, both of which ripped through both sides with ferocity.

In January, after the Union army had been encamped in Falmouth, across the river from Fredericksburg, General Burnside decided he would try to take the city by going down the east bank of the river and crossing further south. It was an especially bad winter for mud, and the army succumbed to the famous Mud March. Many soldiers, made ill by the horrible conditions, died of pneumonia and other illnesses. George was one of them. Although he survived the Mud March it wasn’t by much. He was taken to the hospital on February 10 and died the next day.

This is a lot. But there’s more.

My great great grandmother, Elizabeth Hotchkiss Lewis, was at home with her children. She received word of George’s death through his uncle, Isaac C. Lewis.

Elizabeth’s brother Seth was down in the South. He had gone down for business reasons and stayed. He fought in the Confederate army until he was captured and spent time in prison. I’m not sure where. He is one person I need to research more. I know this, however. After the war was over he stayed for awhile with his sister Elizabeth in Meriden. Hm.

I have no ancestors (direct) who fought in the Confederate army. My wife does, however. She didn’t know that until recently.

Slavery? Yep. Both of us are in its legacy right up to our belt buckles. Anita’s last name is Hawkins. Her ancestor Admiral John Hawkins was one of the commanders of the navy that defeated the Spanish Armada, and who, in several expeditions to the Caribbean, established the British transatlantic slave trade. Guess what? I’m descended from him too.

Both of us have ancestors who owned plantations in the south and who held slaves. I have ancestors in New England who owned slaves. Damn it, our 1794 house was occupied by a family in 1820 who enslaved a young girl under the age of 14.

There are several points here.

FIrst, the issue of slavery is complex beyond anyone’s imagination. We all share in its legacy. Nobody is free of it.

Second, the Civil War is the period in which Americans were the most deeply divided. It undergirds the deep divisions facing us now.

Third, because the Civil War was fought between two regions of our country, both of which still remain a part of the United States, we need to find a way to reconcile the legacy of the South with today’s reality. If we don’t the divisions will continue.

The South conjured up the “Lost Cause” in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a pseudo-nostalgic way of dealing with the loss of the war and the end of slavery. Many of the statues of Robert E. Lee and others were erected in the early 20th century as a reminder. Here’s the tricky part. How does a large portion of our nation divorce itself from the legacy of a lost war? We can’t erase it, although I would argue that statues of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson and others belong in private statuary gardens and not in the medians of major thoroughfares in the South. The presence of these monuments in public spaces imposes a narrative on the whole of society that is unreasonable at best and is psychologically damaging at worst.

Those who still look at the war with nostalgia are living in a fool's paradise. Let's be honest. Yes, it was a conflict between two societies, one primarily agrarian (the South) and one much more heavily industrialized (the North). Yes, it was a constitutional crisis about how much control individual states have over their own internal affairs. But make no mistake. The Confederacy was founded on the principle that “its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition," said Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens in 1861.  The war was about slavery, a political system that made it possible, and the political failure to end slavery without resorting to war. That political failure started a slow burn in 1789 when the writers of the Constitution did not outright abolish slavery and instead protected it while doing to enslaved Africans exactly what they fought the Revolution over--no representation, counting them as part of the population for purposes of assigning congressional seats (the notorious 3/5 compromise courtesy of a Connecticut native, Roger Sherman), yet denying them citizenship and the basic rights thereof. There was nothing noble or glorious or romantic about slavery or the Civil War. Over 600,000 Americans died in that war. Nobody knows how many died in bondage.

The Civil War is still being fought and the legacy of 250 years of unspeakable brutality in slavery still overshadows us. We need to recognize that. A part of it was fought on the streets of Minneapolis when George Floyd was murdered by police. It has been fought in countless situations in which black Americans have been murdered by police for minor traffic violations. It is fought every time a protest in a city’s streets becomes violent. We need to reconcile ourselves with our past. I don’t have a solution. But we need to find a way to do it or we are screwed.

16th Century English with a Scottish Twist in the Kilt

Awhile back I wrote a blog entry on reading 15th/16th century English. I thought I’d follow up with another offering, except it’s not just more 15th/16th century English. Instead, it’s English from that period from Scotland. A whole different ballgame. Rather than delay the inevitable, let’s have a go at it.

First, we take a look at The warkis of the famous and worthy Knicht Schir David Lydesay of the Mont Alias, Lyon king of Irmes (1574). The book is a commentary on Biblical and theological issues with a lot of opinion mixed in. Near the beginning he offers an account of “The miserabill Transgresioun of Adam.” The spelling her should give you an idea that this will be some rough sledding

Most of the book with the exception of the preface is printed in black letter, what we would now call “Old English.” Depending on the font it can be difficult to read, sometimes not. Here’s what he has to say about Adam:

Father, how happinit ye mischanced (Quod I) schaw me the circumstance:
Declare me that cairfull care,
How Adam lost that pleasand place from him, and his succession.
E. (Quod he) efter my rude Ingyne,
I sall rehers the that rewyne:
Queen God the Plasmatour of all,
Into the Heuin Emperiall:
Did creat all the Angellis bricht,
He maid ane Angell most of micht.
To quhome he gain preeminence,
Abuse Thame all in Sapience:
Because all other he did prefer,
Namit he wes bricht Lucifer.
He was so plesand and so fair,
He thoucht him self without compair:
And grew so gay, and glorious,
He gan to be presumpteous.
And thoucht that he wild set his fait,
Into the North, and mak debait:
Again the Maieste Deuyne,
Quhilk wes the cause of his rewyne…… (pp. 27-28)

It will take more than a stiff drink to translate this little bit but I’ll give it a go:

Father, how happened you mischanced (Quoted I) [to] show me the circumstance:
Declare [to] me that careful care,
How Adam lost that pleasant place from him, and his succession.
He (Quoted he) after my rude engine,
I shall rehearse that ruin:
When God the Plasmator [creator] of all,
Into the Heaven Imperial:
Did create all the Angels bright,
To whom he gave preeminence,
Imbued them all in Sapience [wisdom]:
Because all other he did prefer,
Named he was bright Lucifer.
He was so pleasant and so fair,
He thought himself without compare:
And grew so gay, and glorious,
He began to be presumptuous.
And though that he would set his fate,
Into the North, and make debate:
Again the Majesty Divine,
Which was the cause of his ruin.

Right off the bat there are several differences here between English English and Scottish English. Considering the date of publication (1574) the Scottish English here has some  Germanic elements such as the use of “ch” for “gh” as in “bricht” instead of “bright.”  The letters “t” and “d” are also often transposed.  One other oddity is that instead of spelling words that in modern English would have a “wh” instead have “Qu.”  For example, “Queen” instead of “when” and “quhome” instead of “whom.”

Let’s take a look at another text. This is from The Palis of Honoure by Gawayne Douglas (1553):


Quhairfore my seluyn was richt fore aghast.
This wilderness abominable and wast
(In quahom na thing wes nature confortand)
Was dyrk as toyk the quhilk the see upcast,
The quhislyng wynd blew mony byttir blast,
Runtis tat lit and oneth myght I stand,
Out throu the code I crap on fut and hand,
The tyuar stank, the trees clattreyt fast,
The soil was not bot marres, slyik, and sand.

Whew. This will be tricky:

Wherefore my soul was right for aghast.
This wilderness abominable and vast
(in whom nothing was nature comforted)
Was dark as took that which the sea upcast,
The whistling wind blew many bitter blast,
R that light and only might I stand,
Out through the cold I crept on foot and hand,
The air stank, the trees clattered fast,
The soil was not but marsh, slick, and sand.

I may not have gotten it all correctly, but I think it’s pretty close. If you read the original spelling out loud you can hear the Scottish accent. Give it a try.

One more, this from The three Tailes of the three Priests of Peblis (1603) which records some bawdy tales about the clergy.

This pamphlet has two columns on each page, one in black letter and one in Roman font, each telling a different story. One of the stories in the Roman font begins:

Thair was a ritch man, quhilk lay fair sick in his bed like to die, quhairfoir his eldest sone came to him and besechit him to giue him his blessing. To quhome the Father said, Son, thou sal have Gods blessing and myne, and becaus thou has bene euer rude of condicions I giue and bequeath the al my Land. To quhome he answered and said: nay Father, I trust ze sall lyue and occupy them your self be Gods grace.

This text isn’t as bad to modernize so I’ll give it a try:

There was a rich man, which lay fair sick in his bed like to die, wherefore his eldest son came to him and beseeched him to give him his blessing. To whom the Father said, Son, thou shall have God’s blessing and mine, and because thou has been ever rude of conditions I give and bequeath thee all my Land. To whom he answered and said: nay, Father, I trust ye shall live and occupy them yourself be God’s grace.

There are a few interesting things in this text. As with the previous example “qu” replaces “w” in words such as “which.” Also, the letter “z” replaces “y.” The reason for that is a leftover from Old and Middle English. A now extinct letter that looks like a thunderbolt was used for “y.” The upper part of the letter looks like a “z.”  As with other early texts “u” and “v” are transposed, and words such as “condition” are spelled “condicion,” a “c” replacing a soft “t.”

Ten Days to San Francisco!!

From April 3, 1860 to October 24, 1861 the Post Office ran a service for quick delivery of mail between Missouri and California. Called the Pony Express, it employed small young men to ride quick ponies between stations so that the mail moved nonstop. Each rider would pass on the bag of mail to the next rider who was ready to go. The Pony Express was heavily subsidized and the cost of sending mail did not cover the actual cost. The service went bankrupt just as the Civil War was heating up.

I think of this in terms of the state the world is in right now. In the developed world most have become accustomed to instant high speed Internet service wherever they are, on their phones. We don’t have to wait. The disparity, of course, is economic in nature. In many rural parts of the world, in Africa, rural India, Central America, and other similar locations, people living in poverty have to walk miles to get clean water. Medical care is a luxury.

In the developed world we have lost patience to a degree that I question whether it can be recovered. I recall as a kid that I’d sometimes put an order for something or other in the mail, with a coupon clipped from the back of a cereal box. My parents would see that it got into the mail. The next day I’d ask if the item had come. My parents would tell me that I needed to be patient, that the order hadn’t reached the company yet and they wouldn’t know that I had wanted it. With time I grew to accept patience with such things as a normal part of life.

But now, we don’t need to be patient. Pre-plague, Amazon ramped up same day delivery for a price. Prime delivery was reduced from two days to one on many items, using their own in-house delivery system. Why wait if you don’t have to?

Then came the plague.

Prime deliver is now guaranteed in two weeks. Holy crap! Two weeks? I can’t wait that long. So I try eBay instead and I can often get it within a week. Whew. Dodged that bullet, ayuh.

There are some glimmers of hope. People at home with their children are learning how to work on projects with their children, which still strikes me as odd because growing up, I was accustomed to that. It was the norm. And, some have found that projects that don’t involve a phone or a computer can actually be fun. Quaint.

René Rapin (1621–1687) was a French Jesuit and a prolific poet. He wrote a book-length poem “On Gardens” which was translated into English in the later 17th century. In Book II “Of Trees” Rapin writes how it takes time for trees to mature:

Their Rise and Form proceed my Muse to sing,
Tho’ lofty Oaks sometimes from Suckers spring
With tow’ring Heads, and when transplanted spread,
And with their Branches cast a noble Shade
Yet of all Trees they rear the lofty’t Brow’
Which first from Seeds and swelling Acorns grow
I grant, before they to Perfection come,
They will in tardy Growth an Age consume.
Yet then they cast a more majestic Shade,
And Loss of Time with Goodness is repaid….

In other words, it takes time for a beautiful and majestic tree to mature. It can’t be rushed. The beauty of a mature tree only comes about by slow, steady growth.

But that Amazon Prime package had damned well come tomorrow, right?

A Raindrop from Hundreds of Millions of Years Ago

Several years ago Anita and I visited one of my sons in California. We decided to drive from the Los Angeles area to Colorado to visit Anita’s mother and sister. We decided to drive through the unearthly landscape of southeastern Utah to get there.

I have been to the Southwest a number of times now, but the landscape of Utah caught me by surprise. The natural sculptures were unearthly. Canyons, buttes and bluffs in a variety of colors ranging from gray to tan to red and all shades in between.

We decided not to stop at the national parks in the area and instead stopped at several rest areas. At each one I poked around for rocks. Wherever I go I bring back interesting rocks. One formation caught my eye. It was a mud flat. Not a fresh one, probably a rarity in a desert. Instead, it was a mud flat that was probably hundreds of millions of years old. It was delaminating so I felt not regrets in picking up a piece to take home. I found out later that it is called “mudstone.”
I love my piece of mudstone. It captures something very ephemeral—a rainstorm and the aftermath.

A rainstorm that happened hundreds of millions of years ago, before anything even remotely resembling a human being walked on the earth. What a thought.

My piece of mudstone is a light tan in color, almost gray. It records not only a few raindrops but also the sunny days that came after the storm. The surface is cracked, as a stretch of mud will do when it lies in the sun drying. Any one of us has seen this countless times and not given it a second thought.

I remember my mother commenting on a leaf that had been trapped on a patch of mud in our yard. She said that that’s how fossils were made, and wasn’t it interesting that a fossil that wold be found hundreds of millions of years later began with a patch of mud and a fallen leaf. What are the chances that that could happen?

Hundreds of millions of years ago Utah was at the edge of the Pacific Ocean. The western half of the state was under water, and the eastern half was a huge mud flat. That is probably the period that my stone was made. Just another rainy day when the mud dried a bit, and more silt was washed on top of the dried mud, preserving what was below. The same process repeated again and again as the layers of sediment stacked up to form many hundreds of feet of mudstone.

My piece of mudstone is a record of a moment in time that is gone forever.

Our lives are like that too— we are here for awhile and we blow away like dust. Shakespeare reflected on it well:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits, and

Are melted into air, into thin air:

And like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on; and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.


Prospero, The Tempest Act 4, scene 1, 148–158