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France, that still more beneficent class, the
Haute Bourgeoisie.
    I know what you are going to say; you are going to say that there
were squires before the railways in England. Pray have you
considered how many squires there were to go round? About half a
dozen squires to every town, that is (say) four gentlemen, and of
those four gentlemen let us say two took some interest in the place.
It wasn't good enough … and heaven help the country towns now if
they had to depend on the great houses! There would be a smart dog-cart
once a day with a small (vicious and servile) groom in it, an actor, a
foreign money-lender, a popular novelist, or a newspaper owner jumping
out to make his purchases and driving back again to his host's within
the hour. No, no; what makes the country town is the Army, the Navy,
the Church, and the Law—especially the retired ones.
    Then think of the way in which the railways keep a good man's
influence in a place and a bad man's out of it. Your good man loves
a country town, but he must think, and read, and meet people, so in
the last century he regretfully took a town house and had his little
house in the country as well. Now he lives in the country and runs
up to town when he likes.
    He is always a permanent influence in the little city—especially if
he has but £400 a year, which is the normal income of a retired
gentleman (yes, it is so, and if you think it is too small an
estimate, come with me some day and make an inquisitorial tour of my
town). As for the vulgar and cowardly man, he hates small towns
(fancy a South African financier in a small town!), well, the
railway takes him away. Of old he might have had to stay there or
starve, now he goes to London and runs a rag, or goes into
Parliament, or goes to dances dressed up in imitation of a soldier;
or he goes to Texas and gets hanged—it's all one to me. He's out of
my town.
    And as the railways have increased the local refinement and virtue,
so they have ennobled and given body to the local dignitary. What
would the Bishop of Caen (he calls himself Bishop of Lisieux and
Bayeux, but that is archaeological pedantry); what, I say, would the
Bishop of Caen be without his railway? A Phantom or a Paris magnate.
What the Mayor of High Wycombe? Ah! what indeed! But I cannot waste
any more of this time of mine in discussing one aspect of the
railway; what further I have to say on the subject shall be
presented in due course in my book on The Small Town of
Christendom [Footnote: The Small Town of Christendom: an
Analytical Study . With an Introduction by Joseph Reinach. Ulmo
et Cie. £25 nett.] I will close this series of observations with a
little list of benefits the railway gives you, many of which would
not have occurred to you but for my ingenuity, some of which you may
have thought of at some moment or other, and yet would never have
retained but for my patient labour in this.
    The railway gives you seclusion. If you are in an express alone you
are in the only spot in Western Europe where you can be certain of
two or three hours to yourself. At home in the dead of night you may
be wakened by a policeman or a sleep-walker or a dog. The heaths are
populous. You cannot climb to the very top of Helvellyn to read your
own poetry to yourself without the fear of a tourist. But in the
corner of a third-class going north or west you can be sure of your
own company; the best, the most sympathetic, the most brilliant in
the world.
    The railway gives you sharp change. And what we need in change is
surely keenness. For instance, if one wanted to go sailing in the
old days, one left London, had a bleak drive in the country, got
nearer and nearer the sea, felt the cold and wet and discomfort
growing on one, and after half a day or a day's gradual introduction
to the thing, one would at last have got on deck, wet and wretched,
and half the fun over. Nowadays what happens? Why, the other day, a
rich man was sitting in London with a poor friend; they