Or am I wrong? The
whole thing is a mystery to me. All I know is that if I had asked
those mechanics what they were doing with that railway car they would
have seemed to suspect me of meaning that it was my property and that
they had stolen it. Or perhaps they would have seemed merely to resent
my idle curiosity. If so, why not? When I walk abroad with a sheaf of
manuscript in my hand, mechanics do not stop me to ask `What's that?
What's it about? Who's going to publish it?' Nor is this because,
times having changed so, they are afraid of seeming to condescend.
They always did mind their own business. And now that their own
business is so much more lucrative than mine they still follow that
golden rule.
I stood gazing back at the procession till it disappeared round a bend
of the road. Its bequest of dust and smoke was quickly spent by a
prodigal young breeze. Landscape and seascape were reindued with their
full amenities. Ruskin would have been pleased. So indeed was I; but
that railway-car (in which, it romantically struck me, I myself might
once, might frequently, have travelled) was still upmost in my
brooding mind. To what manner of wretched end was it destined? No end
would have seemed bad enough for it to Ruskin. But I was born late
enough to acquiesce in railways and in all that pertains to them.
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