In the happy days of Queen Victoria men used to write Utopias to suggest the likelihood of even greater happiness in the future. In the unhappy days in which it is our lot to live, Utopias are written in order to make us still more unhappy. Mr. Aldous Huxley, in his Brave New World, has shown his usual masterly skill in producing this result upon the reader, for he has undertaken to make us sad by the contemplation of a world without sadness.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "In the happy days of Queen Victoria men used to write Utopias to suggest the likelihood of even greater happiness in the future. In the unhappy days in which it is our lot to live, Utopias are written in order to make us still more unhappy. Mr. Aldous Huxley, in his Brave New World, has shown his usual masterly skill in producing this result upon the reader, for he has undertaken to make us sad by the contemplation of a world without sadness." in the context of "Bertrand Russell, Review of Brave New World in the New Leader 11th March 1932. Reprinted in Donald Watt, Aldous Huxley, the critical heritage. London: Routledge & K. Paul, 1975." to mean that wisdom is timeless.