Think of it! Think of what this was but a few years ago, and think of what 'progress' has done to lay it waste! What will it be to-morrow ?" "Oh--oh!" she protested, laughing; "I did not suppose you were that kind of a Jeremiah!" "Well, I am.

I see no progress in prostrate forests, in soft-coal smoke, in noise! I see nothing gained in trimming and cutting and ploughing and macadamising a heavenly wilderness into mincing little gardens for the rich." He was smiling at his own vehemence, but she knew that he was more than half serious.
She liked him so; she always denied and disputed when he became declamatory, though usually, in her heart, she agreed with him.
"Oh--oh!" she protested, shaking her head; "your philosophy is that of all reactionaries--emotional arguments which never can be justified.
Why, if the labouring man delights in the harmless hurdy-gurdy and finds his pleasure mounted on a wooden horse, should you say that the island of his delight is 'vile'?
All fulfilment of harmless happiness is progress, my poor friend--" "But my harmless happiness lay in seeing the wild-fowl splashing where nothing splashes now except beer and the bathing rabble.

If progress is happiness--where is mine?
Gone with the curlew and the wild duck! Therefore, there is no progress.

_Quod erat_, my illogical friend." "But _your_ happiness in such things was an exception--" "Exceptions prove anything!" "Yes--but--no, they don't, either! What nonsense you can talk when you try to.

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