! It was ridiculo

Her and the prospect of a peaceful night filled the festive diners
with undimmed gaiety. They ate, they drank, they laughed, they
flirted, all in the delightful consciousness that they were citizens
of the departing nineteenth century,
with the probability of being citizens of the even grander twentieth
century. XXIX After dinner the two physicians went to Doctor Wilhelm's
cabin, where they sat together discussing the resultant

of modern

civilisation. "I very much fear, very much, indeed," said Frederick,
"that our world-wide means of communication, which mankind
is supposed to own, really own mankind. At least so far, I see no
signs that the tremendous working capacity of machines has lessened
human labour. Nobody will deny that our modern machine slavery, on so
tremendous
a scale, is the most imposing slavery that has ever existed. And there
is no denying that it is slavery. Has this age of machinery subtracted
from the sum of human misery? No,
most emphatically, no! Has it enhanced happiness and increased the
chances for happiness