And Now Good-bye by James Hilton — Read

The next morning, Tuesday, there was no fog or rain, but a clear frosty sunlight and a high wind from the east that scoured the streets of Browdley till they looked like bones picked clean. Most of Howat's morning study hours were taken up by callers, and at eleven he went out with the intention, before anything else, of getting his first breath of fresh air for several days.

Once the pedestrian leaves the outskirts of Browdley he enters a flat, loamy, and not unpicturesque countryside, stud ded with small farms and semi-industrialised villages, with here and there a barn or an old mill that Rembrandt might have etched. There are paths through almost every field and in all directions, but one cannot, during an ordinary walk, lose sight of Browdley. Indeed, Browdley looks almost more massive and dominating at a distance of a few miles than closer by. Its factories huddle together into a compact pile, and on a misty day the observer might with a little effort fancy himself in sight of some medieval walled and fortified city, so sharply do the square cliff like factories mark the outlines of the place. There are dozens of tall chimney-stacks, but at such a moment they can seem almost decorative--the spires, perhaps, of the black cathedrals of industrialism.