Bromstead were a maze of exploitation roads that led nowhere, that

ended in tarred fences studded with nails (I don'tremember barbed

wire in those days; Ithink the Zeitgeist did not produce that until

later), and in trespass boards that used vehement language. Broken

glass, tin cans, and ashes and paper abounded. Cheap glass, cheap

tin, abundant fuel, and a free untaxed Press had rushed upon a world

quite unprepared todispose of these blessings when the fulness of

enjoyment was past.

I suppose one might have persuaded oneself that all this was but the

replacement of an ancienttranquillity, or at least an ancient

balance, by a new order. Only to my eyes, quickened by my father's

intimations, it was manifestly no order at all. It was a multitude

of incoordinated fresh starts, each more sweeping and destructive

than the last, and none of them everreally worked out to a ripe and

satisfactory completion. Each left a legacy of products, houses,

humanity, or what not, in itswake. It was a sort of progress that

had bolted; it was change out of hand, and going at an unprecedented

pace nowhere in particular.

No, the Victorian epoch was not the dawn of a new era; it was a

hasty, trial experiment, a gigantic experiment of the most slovenly

and wasteful kind. I suppose it was necessary; I suppose all things

are necessary. I suppose that before men will disciplinethemselves

to learn and plan, they must firstsee in a hundred convincingforms

the folly and muddle that come from headlong, aimless and haphazard

methods. The nineteenth century was an age of demonstrations, some

of them very impressive demonstrations, of the powers that have come

<<BackPagesTo menuForward>>