View PDF version of this page

guished by their taste in moustaches; and there were ladies, tinkling with laughter, to whom this taste seemed to commend itself. There was a sound in the air of such words as ' pegs ' and ' tiffin,' and of giggles which marked the flirtations born of a fortnight's voyage. There was a funny man present, a well-informed man, a man who organised various kinds of amusement, and an extraordinary creature in brown velvet knickerbockers. I discovered this after a few hours' watching; and I discovered in the evening that there was also a musical man, who obliged the company with a song from a London music-hall. Here was the modern world, or a part of it, pure and undulterated—a world which is the special creation of the past fifty years, and which before the epoch of steam either was not or was undis-tinguishable. It is not an idle world ; it is the world of the professions and the businesses ; it is the world, in fact, which gives life to capital and capitalistic progress. For its pleasure Switzerland is spotted with white hotels ; and for its profit the' Alps are coloured and crowned with advertisements. For it trains run, steamers traverse the sea, and to Eome, to Calcutta, or even to the heart of Jeru-salem, are transferred in all their integrity the thoughts of Clapham and Bayswater. And yet, when I turned from this world to look at the ship's engines, at the rhythmical grey flash of the huge swaying cylinders, and the weight of the cranks 292 IN AN ENCHANTED ISLAND

View PDF version of this page