So I approach the date on which my story of the Fifty Years Revolution begins. The old world ended, with its strange mixture of beauty and ugliness, happiness and sorrow, good and evil—so much to be proud of; so much, looking back, of which perhaps to be ashamed. Yet the most rabid radical or the most caustic critic of the Britain that had fought and won a twenty-year battle for freedom a century before, that for a hundred years had helped to keep the peace of the world, and spread civilisation to its distant corners, cannot but feel that if, in this sequence of rapid change, much has been gained, something, too, has been lost.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "So I approach the date on which my story of the Fifty Years Revolution begins. The old world ended, with its strange mixture of beauty and ugliness, happiness and sorrow, good and evil—so much to be proud of; so much, looking back, of which perhaps to be ashamed. Yet the most rabid radical or the most caustic critic of the Britain that had fought and won a twenty-year battle for freedom a century before, that for a hundred years had helped to keep the peace of the world, and spread civilisation to its distant corners, cannot but feel that if, in this sequence of rapid change, much has been gained, something, too, has been lost." in the context of "Winds of Change, 1914–1939 (1966), p. 46" to mean that wisdom is timeless.