Beauty is not consulted here. In those places in or near the
city, where Nature, reluctant to be driven utterly away, still tries to
keep a foothold, she is parched and scorched by the feverish breath of
forges and furnaces. Standing here, one may see the cloud of smoke, which
waves in the wind like a pall over the city, slowly moving and settling
down upon the land. One may almost hear the roar of the continual fires,
the throb of the engines, the heavy beat of the trip-hammers, and the
rattle of the spindles, by which the work of the world is done; and their
noises, blended by the distance into one monotonous sound, seem like the
voice of the restless, hard-working, unsettled spirit of gain. Manchester
is built and is worked for profit, not for pleasure; beauty is driven away
from her as a thing at variance with practical life; and even the sky above
her and the fields around her yield only at rare moments and for short
seasons those precious and gracious shows of beauty which are the free and
blessed gift of love to all the world. Smoke, steam, coal-dust, blackened
walls, and bare fields lie outside the Exhibition; and now let us go
within.
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