Until now, the wonderful American writer Bill Bryson has always stayed on the right side of that line, consistently a nostalgist, never a pessimist. You have to be careful when you look backward. The rails were what made it easier to cast light onto all the injustices of dim and distant places. Of course, it was also a time when 5-year-olds worked in factories. A simpler era, the feeling went, beer and accents stronger, and people moving only at the pace a horse could take them. In the 1880s, the English experienced an intense collective wistfulness for the period before 1850, which was the year that railroads had finally connected the country. The world is always in decline if you want it to be.
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