(2 of 2)
The "golden echo" that rings throughout his book is of an English era when thoughtful men and women (except for those in Brixton) were so unconstricted and free from world-worry that the occasional explosions of war and revolution fell on their ears like detonations from another planet. So inbred was their sense of imperturbable peace that, when World War I broke out, none suspected that it was sounding the knell of the golden echo. Indeed, Author Garnett; fussing with his fungi, saw no need to join the army. His friend John Maynard Keynes (who grew up to be the great economist) had assured him "that the war could not last much more than a year." Author Garnett closes his book with the dry words: "It was a great relief for us all to have Maynard's assurance on this point."