Introduction
tortions of the metropolitan maniac. I go down to my native town, Caerleon-on-Usk; in my day a little place of dreams and wonder and quiet. Now I find the white road from Newport scarred with villas, red and rancid; I find, instead of the green brake that hung over the river, a smear of red villas, as it were, a bleeding sore. The first object to greet the eye is a huge red lunatic asylum, the second object is a huge red factory: the madhouse and the factory are the two great marks of progress; the one feeds the other. Here, in London, every day sees a comely house destroyed, a green tree cut down, the foundation-stone laid of some monstrous affliction. The Strand, that street of delights, is gone; Regent street, all gaiety, is gone. Ugly stupid nonsense in steel and stone has taken their place. Day by day London reeks more foully of progress and vulgarity. Now and then American correspondents write to me of coming over to see London and England. I tell them to come quickly, lest they find that both, in their true life and spirit, have
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