It is true that dust, in our towns and in our houses, is
often not only a nuisance but a serious source of disease: while in many
countries it produces ophthalmia, often resulting in total blindness.
Dust, however, as it is usually perceived by us, is, like dirt, only
matter in the wrong place, and whatever injurious or disagreeable
effects it produces are largely due to our own dealings with nature. So
soon as we dispense with horsepower and adopt purely mechanical means of
traction and conveyance, we can almost wholly abolish disease-bearing
dust from our streets, and ultimately from all our highways; while
another kind of dust, that caused by the imperfect combustion of coal,
may be got rid of with equal facility so soon as we consider pure air,
sunlight, and natural beauty to be of more importance to the population
as a whole than are the prejudices or the vested interests of those who
produce the smoke.
But though we can thus minimize the dangers and the inconveniences
arising from the grosser forms of dust, we cannot wholly abolish it; and
it is, indeed, fortunate we cannot do so, since it has now been
discovered that it is to the presence of dust we owe much of the beauty,
and perhaps even the very habitability of the earth we live upon.
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