"I fancy that while three men have made the telegraph to get dividends,
about a thousand men have preserved the forest to cut wood.
But if the telegraph pole is hideous (as I admit) it is not due to
doctrine but rather to commercial anarchy. If any one had a doctrine
about a telegraph pole it might be carved in ivory and decked with gold.
Modern things are ugly, because modern men are careless,
not because they are careful."
"No," answered my friend with his eye on the end of a splendid
and sprawling sunset, "there is something intrinsically deadening
about the very idea of a doctrine. A straight line is always ugly.
Beauty is always crooked. These rigid posts at regular intervals
are ugly because they are carrying across the world the real
message of democracy."
"At this moment," I answered, "they are probably carrying across the world
the message, 'Buy Bulgarian Rails.' They are probably the prompt
communication between some two of the wealthiest and wickedest of His
children with whom God has ever had patience. No; these telegraph
poles are ugly and detestable, they are inhuman and indecent.
But their baseness lies in their privacy, not in their publicity.
That black stick with white buttons is not the creation of
the soul of a multitude. It is the mad creation of the souls
of two millionaires."
"At least you have to explain," answered my friend gravely,
"how it is that the hard democratic doctrine and the hard telegraphic
outline have appeared together; you have.
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