life?"

He paused, as if he were seeking for words with which to express his
thought. Then he said:

"This is how we stand. England was once a country of clearings
amongst the woods and wastes, with a few towns interspersed, which
were fortresses for the feudal army, markets for the folk, gathering
places for the craftsmen. It then became a country of huge and foul
workshops and fouler gambling-dens, surrounded by an ill-kept,
poverty-stricken farm, pillaged by the masters of the workshops. It
is now a garden, where nothing is wasted and nothing is spoilt, with
the necessary dwellings, sheds, and workshops scattered up and down
the country, all trim and neat and pretty. For, indeed, we should be
too much ashamed of ourselves if we allowed the making of goods, even
on a large scale, to carry with it the appearance, even, of
desolation and misery. Why, my friend, those housewives we were
talking of just now would teach us better than that."

Said I: "This side of your change is certainly for the better. But
though I shall soon see some of these villages, tell me in a word or
two what they are like, just to prepare me."

"Perhaps," said he, "you have seen a tolerable picture of these
villages as they were before the end of the nineteenth century. Such
things exist."

"I have seen several of such pictures," said I.

"Well," said Hammond, "our villages are something like the best of