Laudator Temporis Acti

Anthony Trollope (1815-1882), Doctor Thorne, chapter XV ("Courcy"):

Come, my friend, and discourse with me. Let us know what are thy ideas of the inestimable benefits which science has conferred on us in these, our latter days. How dost thou, among others, appreciate railways and the power of steam, telegraphs, telegrams, and our new expresses? But indifferently, you say.

"Time was I've zeed vifteen pair o' 'osses go out of this 'ere yard in vour-and-twenty hour; and now there be'ant vifteen, no, not ten, in vour-and-twenty days! There was the duik,—not this 'un; he be'ant no gude; but this 'un's vather,—why, when he'd come down the road, the cattle did be a-going, vour days an eend. Here'd be the tooter and the young gen'lemen, and the governess and the young leddies, and then the servants,—they'd be al'ays the grandest volk of all,—and then the duik and the doochess, Lord love 'ee, zur; the money did fly in them days! But now,—" and the feeling of scorn and contempt which the lame ostler was enabled by his native talent to throw into that word "now" was quite as eloquent against the power of steam as anything in their favour that has been spoken at dinners, or written in pamphlets by the keenest admirers of latter-day lights.

Labels: Luddism