FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 245 



with the resulting changes in methods and 

 manner of living and extent of intercourse, 

 the close observation of occurrences and 

 the analysis of processes, the co-ordination 

 of the results of this observation and analy 

 sis, and the deductions therefrom, have 

 combined to make an era unique in the 

 world s history, and which we cannot im 

 agine as continuing at the same rate of 

 progress for another hundred years, without 

 something akin to vertigo. 



This is the fin de siecle / and I suppose 

 that we are all its children, with all that 

 that implies. The year 1900 is close upon 

 us. It is a pertinent inquiry, therefore, 

 what the twentieth century will bring to 

 us. Will our great cities increase in the 

 next hundred years in the same ratio as in 

 the past ; and will the enemies of private 

 ownership of land have succeeded in what 

 seems to be their darling project, in so 

 controlling public affairs as to induce the 

 building over of all the breathing-places in 

 these cities, so far happily kept out of the 

 market ? If so, we must be prepared for 

 a great cockney population, whose sole 

 knowledge of the country and of plant life, 

 if they be readers, will be drawn from 

 history and current literature, and if they 



