"It is no use to be more polite, if we are less honest. No use to treat women with more respect outwardly, and with more shameless, brutal, systematic degradation secretly. Worse than no use to build hospitals, and kill people to put into them; and churches, and insult God by pretending to worship Him. Oh dear! what is it all coming to? Are we going like Rome, like France, like Greece, or is there time to stop? Can St. George fight such a Dragon? You know I am a coward, and it does frighten me. Of course I don't mean to run away, but is God on our side? Why does He not arise and scatter His enemies? If you could see what I see here! This used to be quite a peaceful little country village; now the chemical manufacturers have built works, a crowd of them, along the river, about two miles from here. The place where this hideous colony has planted itself, is, I am sure, the ugliest, most loathsome spot on the earth." (Arcadia, my dear, Arcadia.) "It has been built just as any one wanted either works or a row of cottages for the men,--all huddled up, backs to fronts, any way; scrambling, crooked, dirty, squeezed up; the horrid little streets separated by pieces of waste clay, or half-built-up land. The works themselves, with their chimneys and buildings, and discoloured ditches, and heaps of refuse chemical stuff lying about, make up the most horrible picture of 'progress' you can imagine. Because they are all so proud of it. The land, now every blade of grass and every tree is dead, is most valuable--I mean, they get enormous sums of money for it,--and every year they build new works, and say, 'What a wonderful place ---- is!' It is creeping nearer and nearer here. There is a forest of chimneys visible, to make up, I suppose, for the trees that are dying. We can hardly ever now see the farther bank of our river, that used to be so pretty, for the thick smoke that hangs over it. And worse than all, the very air is poisoned with their gases. Often the vilest smells fill the house, but they say they are not unhealthy. I wish they were--perhaps then they would try to prevent them. It nearly maddens me to see the trees, the poor trees, standing bare and naked, or slowly dying, the top branches dead, the few leaves withered and limp. The other evening I went to a farm that used to be (how sad that 'used to be' sounds) so pretty, surrounded by woods. Now half the trees are dead, and they are cutting down the rest as fast as possible, so that they can at least make use of the wood. The gas makes them useless. Yesterday I went to the house of the manager of some plate-glass works. He took me over them, and it was very interesting, and some of it beautiful. You should see the liquid fire streaming on to the iron sheets, and then the sparkling lakes of gold, so intensely bright, like bits out of a setting sun sometimes. When I was going away, the manager pointed proudly to the mass of buildings we had been through, and said, 'This was all corn-fields a few years ago!' It sounded so cruel, and I could not help saying, 'Don't you think it was better growing corn than making glass?' He laughed, and seemed so amused; but I came away wondering, if this goes on, what will become of England. The tide is so strong--they will try to make money, at any price. And it is no use trying to remedy one evil, or another, unless the root is rooted out, is it?--the love of money."