The Old and the Young

THE rain, which had fallen in torrents during the night, had churned
into a quagmire the long highroad that wound, in a succession of
twists and turns, as though in search of some less laborious ascent,
some less abrupt slope, over the broken surface of the vast, deserted
plain.

The damage done by the storm appeared all the more depressing,
inasmuch as there were already signs, here and there, of the
disregard, not to say the contempt, shewn for the labours of those who
had planned and constructed ...