Transports of delight

“…Formerly, it was the practice for the Boyars, like their ancestors the Scythians, to ride on horseback, from which they seldom were seen dismounted in the streets. It was only about thirty years ago that they adopted the more effeminate habit of riding in carriages; and this practice is congenial to their vain and indolent disposition, that now they would not cross to the opposite side of a street without entering into them. But the circumstance which most distinguishes Bucharest is melancholic dissoluteness of manners among all classes. The town abounds with wine-houses; and, to attract customers, a number of women are kept in each house, who are ready at a call to dance and sing for the guests. To these houses the Boyars repair from their own families and pass their evenings among the most shameless class of females that ever disgraced the sex. In this way it is that Bucharest is rendered infamous for profligacy beyond any other city in Europe. The number of this unfortunate class is so great, that it was proposed to lay a capitation tax to them, as the most profitable source of revenue that could be resorted to and it is expected that the proposal will be carried into effect."

The Reverend Robert Walsh, Narrative of a Journey from Constantinople to England, London, 1828, talking about Bucharest. The whole book is here.

“The beauty of cycling is that you are a part of the world around you — and yet you move through it untouched.”

Boris Johnson


I think that if I could un-invent one feature of modern life, it would be the car. How
wonderful Kyoto would be if there were no cars! Anyone who has spent time in Venice knows what spiritual succor comes from the quiet of a city without cars, where the only sounds are of people's footsteps. At the risk of being called a reactionary, I will shout, "Down with the car!"
Donald Keene, Chronicles of My Life: An American in the Heart of Japan (2008)

A true conservative policy would involve the following measures: a cessation of all motorway construction; a high fuel tax; a restriction of motor traffic in towns; the installation of cycle lanes; an expansion of the railways and a restoration of the branch lines.

Sir Roger Scruton

I walk everywhere, rejecting the internal combustion engine as an effete surrender to laziness and the ignoble advantage of convenience.

Guy Davenport

Civilization was over when the first automobile rolled. I'm not being funny. A civis lives in a city. The whole concept of city was negated by the automobile. Quite literally the Late Pleistocene is eating the Eocene. It is an elegant cycle in world history. Dinosaur to car to zilch.
Guy Davenport