"This was the first moment..."

The first Time Patrol story, "Time Patrol," includes a vivid description of Victorian London as perceived by a time traveler, Manse Everard. The passage is quoted here.

Once again, there is a reference to the decline of Western civilization. These references, in the Time Patrol series, are dated 1858, 1894 and 1902. Each time, the reference is attributed to a Time Patrolman who knows what will happen in 1914.

There are a few other points of interest:

"The train was almost familiar, not very different from the carriages of British railways anno 1954, which gave Whitcomb occasion for sardonic remarks about inviolable traditions." (Time Patrol, p. 25)

British humor! This can raise a smile even though we do not read exactly what Whitcomb said. But it seems appropriate that time travelers should travel in a train that has not significantly changed its design from 1894 to 1954.

"In a couple of hours it let them off at a sleepy village station among carefully tended flower gardens..." (ibid.)

The station is among flower gardens but some British village railway stations are noted for their flower gardens. This kind of peaceful scene shows us part of what the Time Patrol protects, not only the superhuman Danellians in the far future but also the many periods when human beings are able to live comfortably. Dominic Flandry prolongs the Terran Empire for this reason - as well as for his own continued pleasure.

We recognize the private agent whom Everard and Whitcomb meet at the Wyndham estate:

"...he was tall, thin, hawk-faced, and accompanied by a burly, mustached fellow with a limp who seemed a kind of amanuensis." (ibid.)

Unmistakable. Well, I did not recognize them on a first reading but I was comparatively young then. Everard does not seem to recognize them even though it was one of that mustached fellow's memoirs that has brought him and Whitcomb to Victorian England.