Lost worlds
A friend of mine has just written a fascinating account of her family ' Hancox A House and a Family' They were rather an extraordinary lot, eminent physicians, explorers and inveterate letter writers. What struck me most though was the degree of idealism, a belief in self improvement and a kind of gung ho energy that I don't know seems largely missing from their social equivalents now. Actually I'm not quite sure what their social equivalents would be, so perhaps that is a wild statement. Anyway, there was a lot of deferred gratification and hard work and I think that struck me the most, that and just how much people got done and how much they professed and probably believed in doing 'good'. I don't really fell that is too much of a preoccupation now or maybe I just know the wrong people.