Leslie says, in his Recollections: "I remember seeing at Howard Payne's lodgings, at a breakfast which he gave to a large party, the then celebrated Robert Owen, who was at that time filling the papers with his scheme for remodeling society on a plan that was to transcend Utopia. I remember Payne telling me that when Wilberforce, on being urged to bring this plan before Parliament, replied that it was too late in the season, Owen exclaimed, "What, sir! put off the happiness of mankind till another session of Parliament!"" "I overheard Jove one day," said Silenus, "talking of destroying the earth; he said it had failed; they were all rogues and vixens, who went from bad to worse, as fast as the days succeeded each other. Minerva said she hoped not; they were only ridiculous little creatures, with this odd circumstance, that they had a blur, or indeterminate aspect, seen far or near; if you called them bad, they would appear so; and there was no one person or action among them which would not puzzle her owl, much more all Olympus, to know whether it was fundamentally bad or good." "It is the conviction of the purest men, that the net amount of man and man does not much vary. Each is incomparably superior to his companion in some faculty. Each seems to have some compensation yielded to him by his infirmity, and every hinderance operates as a concentration of his force." "Everything we do has its results. But the right and prudent does not always lead to good, or contrary measures to bad; frequently the reverse takes place. Some time since," said Goethe, "I made a mistake in one of these transactions with booksellers, and was disturbed that I had done so. But, as circumstances turned out, it would have been very unfortunate if I had not made that very mistake. Such instances occur frequently in life, and it is the observation of them which enables men of the world to go to work with such freedom and boldness."