human
You were speaking just now of households: that sounded to me a little like the customs of past times; I should have thought you would have lived more in public.
gpt
Phalangsteries, eh? said he.
human
Well, we live as we like, and we like to live as a rule with certain house-mates that we have got used to. Remember, again, that poverty is extinct, and that the Fourierist phalangsteries and all their kind, as was but natural at the time, implied nothing but a refuge from mere destitution. Such a way of life as that, could only have been conceived of by people surrounded by the worst form of poverty. But you must understand therewith, that though separate households are the rule amongst us, and though they differ in their habits more or less, yet no door is shut to any good-tempered person who is content to live as the other house-mates do: only of course it would be unreasonable for one man to drop into a household and bid the folk of it to alter their habits to please him, since he can go elsewhere and live as he pleases. However, I need not say much about all this, as you are going up the river with Dick, and will find out for yourself by experience how these matters are managed.
gpt
Your big towns, now; how about them? London, which--which I have read about as the modern Babylon of civilization, seems to have disappeared.
human
Well, well, said old Hammond,
gpt
Tell me, then, said I,
human
Time was when if you mounted a good horse and rode straight away from my door here at a round trot for an hour and a half; you would still be in the thick of London, and the greater part of that would be 'slums,' as they were called; that is to say, places of torture for innocent men and women; or worse, stews for rearing and breeding men and women in such degradation that that torture should seem to them mere ordinary and natural life.
gpt
I know, I know, I said, rather impatiently.
human
That was what was; tell me something of what is. Is any of that left?
gpt
Not an inch, said he;
human
Indeed, said I,