kid. Ah me!
Why were there no "Britain's Best" nor "Camberwell Eurekas" to be hired
when _we_ were young?

Or maybe the "Britain's Best" or the "Camberwell Eureka" stands leaning
against a gate; maybe it is tired. It has worked hard all the afternoon,
carrying these young people. Mercifully minded, they have dismounted, to
give the machine a rest. They sit upon the grass beneath the shade of
graceful boughs; it is long and dry grass. A stream flows by their feet.
All is rest and peace.

That is ever the idea the cycle poster artist sets himself to convey--rest
and peace.

But I am wrong in saying that no cyclist, according to the poster, ever
works. Now I come to reflect, I have seen posters representing gentlemen
on cycles working very hard--over-working themselves, one might almost
say. They are thin and haggard with the toil, the perspiration stands
upon their brow in beads; you feel that if there is another hill beyond
the poster they must either get off or die. But this is the result of
their own folly. This happens because they will persist in riding a
machine of an inferior make. Were they riding a "Putney Popular" or
"Battersea Bounder," such as the sensible young man in the centre of the
poster rides, then all this unnecessary labour would be saved to them.
Then all required of them would be, as in gratitude bound, to look happy;
perhaps, occasionally to back-pedal a little when the machine in its
youthful buoyancy loses its head for a moment and dashes on too swiftly.

You tired young men, sitting dejectedly on milestones, too spent to heed
the steady rain that soaks you through; you weary maidens, with the
straight, damp hair, anxious about the time, longing to swear, not
knowing how; you stout bald men, vanishing visibly as you pant and grunt
along the endless road; you purple, dejected matrons, plying with pain
the slow unwilling wheel; why did you not see to it that you bought a
"Britain's Best" or a "Camberwell Eureka"? Why are these bicycles of
inferior make so prevalent throughout the land

Or is it with bicycling as with all other things: does Life at no point
realise the Poster?

The one thing in Germany that never fails to charm and fascinate me is
the German dog. In England one grows tired of the old breeds, one knows
them all so well: the mastiff, the plum-pudding dog, the terrier (black,
white or rough-haired, as the case may be, but always quarrelsome), the
collie, the bulldog;