Anticipations of the reaction of mechanical and scientific progress upon human life and thoughtWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
History
Anticipations of the reaction of mechanical and scientific progress upon human life and thought
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Civilization; Communication and traffic; Social prediction; Twentieth century -- Forecasts
In the previous chapter I spoke of boating centres and horsey suburbs,
and picturesque hilly districts and living places by the sea, of
promenade centres and theatrical districts; I hinted at various fashions
in architecture, and suchlike things, but these exterior appearances
will be but the outward and visible sign of inward and more spiritual
distinctions. The people who live in the good hunting country and about
that glittering Grand Stand, will no longer be even pretending to live
under the same code as those picturesque musical people who have
concentrated on the canoe-dotted river. Where the promenaders gather,
and the bands are playing, and the pretty little theatres compete, the
pleasure seeker will be seeking such pleasure as he pleases, no longer
debased by furtiveness and innuendo, going his primrose path to a
congenial, picturesque, happy and highly desirable extinction. Just over
the hills, perhaps, a handful of opulent shareholders will be pleasantly
preserving the old traditions of a landed aristocracy, with servants,
tenants, vicar, and other dependents all complete, and what from the
point of view of social physiology will really be an arrested contingent
of the Abyss, but all nicely washed and done good to, will pursue home
industries in model cottages in a quite old English and exemplary
manner. Here the windmills will spin and the waterfalls be trapped to
gather force, and the quiet-eyed master of the machinery will have his
office and perhaps his private home. Here about the great college and
its big laboratories there will be men and women reasoning and studying;
and here, where the homes thicken among the ripe gardens, one will hear
the laughter of playing children, the singing of children in their
schools, and see their little figures going to and fro amidst the trees
and flowers....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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