The pale and ghastly
people, toiling among vile exhalations, looked more like demons than
human beings; the clanking wheels and engines, seen through the murky
atmosphere, looked like instruments of torture in this pandemonium.
What is to become of the country, with these evils rankling in its
very core? Sir, these manufacturers will be the ruin of our rural
manners; they will destroy the national character; they will not leave
materials for a single line of poetry!"
The Squire is apt to wax eloquent on such themes; and I could hardly
help smiling at this whimsical lamentation over national industry and
public improvement. I am told, however, that he really grieves at the
growing spirit of trade, as destroying the charm of life. He considers
every new shorthand mode of doing things, as an inroad of snug sordid
method; and thinks that this will soon become a mere matter-of-fact
world, where life will be reduced to a mathematical calculation of
conveniences, and every thing will be done by steam.
He maintains, also, that the nation has declined in its free and
joyous spirit, in proportion as it has turned its attention to
commerce and manufactures; and that, in old times, when England was an
idler, it was also a merrier little island.
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