Explore "The Fiddler of the Reels" by Thomas Hardy on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
"Talking of Exhibitions, World's Fairs, and whatnot," said the old gentleman, "I would not go round the corner to see a dozen of them nowadays. The only exhibition that ever made, or ever will make, any impression upon my imagination was the first of the series, the parent of them all, and now a thing of old times -- the Great Exhibition of 1851, in Hyde Park, London. None of the younger generation can realize the sense of novelty it produced in us who were then in our prime. A noun substantive went so far as to become an adjective in honour of the occasion. It was ‘exhibition' hat, ‘exhibition' razor-strop, ‘exhibition' watch; nay, even ‘exhibition' weather, ‘exhibition' spirits, sweethearts, babies, wives -- for the time.
"For South Wessex, the year formed in many ways an extraordinary chronological frontier or transit-line, at which there occurred what one might call a precipice in Time. As in a geological ‘fault,' we had presented to us a sudden bringing of ancient and modern into absolute contact, such as probably in no other single year since the Conquest was ever witnessed in this part of the country."