Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

My Lady Ludlow Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

I am an old woman now, and things are very different to what they were in my youth. Then we, who travelled, travelled in coaches, carrying six inside, and making a two days'journey out of what people now go over in a couple of hours with a whizz and a flash, and a screaming whistle, enough to deafen one. Then letters came in but three times aweek: indeed, in some places in Scotland where I have stayed when I was a girl, the postcame in but once a month;-but letters were letters then; and we made great prizes ofthem, and read them and studied them like books. Now the post comes rattling in twicea day, bringing short jerky notes, some without beginning or end, but just a little sharpsentence, which well-bred folks would think too abrupt to be spoken. Well, well! they mayall be improvements, -I dare say they are; but you will never meet with a Lady Ludlow inthese day