Such were some of the changes brought about in a quarter of a century. A person of cynical mind might well doubt whether they were changes for the better. For the rest, the people crowded hither and thither--underground, by tubes in all directions; above ground, on foot, and by vehicles of every description--mostly “motors.” By means of the latter insignificant persons tore through the streets, bound on errands of no importance. The private “motors,” of course, were owned by the pleasure-seekers of the age, who, for all their hurry, probably had nothing more urgent to do than to order luncheon at a fashionable restaurant, or purchase a box of cigarettes. Postal deliveries had been multiplied; telephone facilities increased. Everything was essentially modern; the great thing was to be up to date. But all the new facilities for saving time and trouble seemed to have resulted in leaving very little time for anything. Certainly there was no time for studying the past of England and of the British race; and as to the future, a great many persons believed that, for individuals, it was as mythical as Mrs Harris. The so-called educated classes, when not following the compulsory routine of their daily lives, were primarily engaged, as to the young men, in the frenzied pursuit of sport; and as to the young women, in the vital study of dress, varied by a steady perusal of their favourite authoresses in the domain of fiction. Newspapers, of course, were scanned--by the male population, at any rate; but people were not equal to the intellectual exertion of reading an unbroken column. News and notes had to be administered on the homœopathic principle, in scraps and snippets. And as the Bible had not yet been abridged, it necessarily followed that that was the very last book that up-to-date people could find time or interest to study. Lives of great men were still available to remind the moderns to make their lives sublime. But, then, the moderns could not find time or inclination to read the ancients. The sublime, in their view, was not only close to, but identical with, the ridiculous. Certainly they could not concern themselves with any nonsense about leaving footprints on the sands of time. Everybody, however, found time to read lengthy law reports arising from scandals in high life.