During my present journey, and whilst residing in France, I have had an opportunity of peeping behind the scenes of what are vulgarly termed great affairs, only to discover the mean machinery which has directed many transactions of moment. The sword has been merciful, compared with the depredations made on human life by contractors and by the swarm of locusts who have battened on the pestilence they spread abroad. These men, like the owners of negro ships, never smell on their money the blood by which it has been gained, but sleep quietly in their beds, terming such occupations lawful callings; yet the lightning marks not their roofs to thunder conviction on them “and to justify the ways of God to man.”
Why should I weep for myself? “Take, O world! thy much indebted tear!”
Mary Wollstonecraft
Germany, 1796
Source: Mary Wollstonecraft, Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, (1796), Cassell & Company Ltd, 1889
Further links:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3529/3529-h/3529-h.htm
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jun/14/mary-wollstonecraft-letters-classics-corner
https://librivox.org/letters-written-during-a-short-residence-in-sweden-norway-and-denmark-by-mary-wollstonecraft/
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mary-Wollstonecraft
http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/wollstonecraft.html
