Like any Whig, More exalted reason above the imagination at every point, and so he fails to understand the magic prestige of gold, making that beautiful metal into vessels of dishonour to urge his case against it, nor had he any perception of the charm of extravagance, for example, or the desirability of various clothing.  The Utopians went all in coarse linen and undyed wool—­why should the world be coloured?—­and all the economy of labour and shortening of the working day was to no other end than to prolong the years of study and the joys of reading aloud, the simple satisfactions of the good boy at his lessons, to the very end of life.  “In the institution of that weal publique this end is only and chiefly pretended and minded, that what time may possibly be spared from the necessary occupations and affairs of the commonwealth, all that the citizens should withdraw from the bodily service to the free liberty of the mind and garnishing of the same.  For herein they suppose the felicity of this life to consist.”

Indeed, it is no paradox to say that “Utopia,” which has by a conspiracy of accidents become a proverb for undisciplined fancifulness in social and political matters, is in reality a very unimaginative work.  In that, next to the accident of its priority, lies the secret of its continuing interest.  In some respects it is like one of those precious and delightful scrapbooks people disinter in old country houses; its very poverty of synthetic power leaves its ingredients, the cuttings from and imitations of Plato, the recipe for the hatching of eggs, the stern resolutions against scoundrels and rough fellows, all the sharper and brighter.  There will always be found people to read in it, over and above the countless multitudes who will continue ignorantly to use its name for everything most alien to More’s essential quality.

TRAFFIC AND REBUILDING

The London traffic problem is just one of those questions that appeal very strongly to the more prevalent and less charitable types of English mind.  It has a practical and constructive air, it deals with impressively enormous amounts of tangible property, it rests with a comforting effect of solidity upon assumptions that are at once doubtful and desirable.  It seems free from metaphysical considerations, and it has none of those disconcerting personal applications, those penetrations towards intimate qualities, that makes eugenics, for example, faintly but persistently uncomfortable.  It is indeed an ideal problem for a healthy, hopeful, and progressive middle-aged public man.  And, as I say, it deals with enormous amounts of tangible property.