Those who are on good
terms with the first author they meet, run as much risk as men who
surrender their time to the first passer in the street; for to be open
to every book is for the most part to gain as little as possible from
any. A man aimlessly wandering about in a crowded city is of all men the
most lonely; so he who takes up only the books that he "comes across" is
pretty certain to meet but few that are worth knowing.
Now this danger is one to which we are specially exposed in this age.
Our high-pressure life of emergencies, our whirling industrial
organisation or disorganisation have brought us in this (as in most
things) their peculiar difficulties and drawbacks. In almost everything
vast opportunities and gigantic means of multiplying our products bring
with them new perils and troubles which are often at first neglected.
Our huge cities, where wealth is piled up and the requirements and
appliances of life extended beyond the dreams of our forefathers, seem
to breed in themselves new forms of squalor, disease, blights, or risks
to life such as we are yet unable to master.
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