As for the outer land, it is gone past hope; through the
breach pours a roaring salt cataract, digging out a hole on the
inside of the bank, which remains as a deep sullen pond for years to
come. Hundreds, thousands of pounds are lost already, past all hope.
Be it so, then. At the next neap, perhaps, they will be able to mend
the dyke, and pump the water out; and begin again, beaten but not
conquered, the same everlasting fight with wind and wave which their
forefathers have waged for now 800 years.
He who sees--as I have seen--a sight like that, will repine no more
that the primaeval forest is cut down, the fair mere drained. For
instead of mammoth and urus, stag and goat, that fen feeds cattle
many times more numerous than all the wild venison of the primaeval
jungle; and produces crops capable of nourishing a hundred times as
many human beings; and more--it produces men a hundred times as
numerous as ever it produced before; more healthy and long-lived--and
if they will, more virtuous and more happy--than ever was Girvian in
his log-canoe, or holy hermit in his cell.
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