The Vandals "I observe," said my friend from Ruritania, "
that there is trouble because someone has discovered that a year ago an ancient burial ground, sixty feet long and overgrown with bushes, was flattened in order to prepare the ground for culti- vation. Yet in another part of your country I have seen a hundred' acres of old and very beautiful parkland in front of a famous house torn up so that coal could be extracted from beneath it."
" So what ? " I said.
" If," continued the Ruritanian, " the burial ground is precious and important, why should a whole year pass before anyone notices that it has been done away with ? And if you protect, however laxly, small, remote plots of ground which have meant very lit* to anyone for 4,000 years, why are you so ready to despoil large and conspicuous areas which mean a great deal to the people who own them or live near them ? I do not understand.'
Previous page
