Time & Perspective Quote by Andrew Lang

It lands like a time capsule with the lid off: breezy, forward-looking, and a little too pleased with itself. Coming from Andrew Lang, a late-Victorian poet and critic, the line reads less like a manifesto than a barometer. The word “idea” does a lot of quiet work, converting lived experience into something discussable in drawing rooms and periodicals - safer, more abstract, easier to praise without committing to the people involved. That’s the Victorian liberal move: endorse “evolution” while keeping your hands clean.

The claim that homosexuality is “not really taboo any more” also betrays its own narrow vantage point. Taboo for whom? In 19th-century Britain, male homosexual acts were criminalized; the Wilde trials had turned private life into public spectacle; “decency” was an instrument of law and class discipline. So the sentence is less a description of reality than a statement of aspiration from a cultural gatekeeper who wants to position himself on the winning side of history.

What makes it effective is the tone: confident, incremental, almost managerial. “Our culture is evolving” borrows the prestige of science and inevitability, smuggling moral change in under the authority of progress. Then the emotional payoff: “This is an exciting time to be living.” It’s self-placement as much as solidarity - a writer narrating modernity arriving, with himself conveniently in the frame. The subtext isn’t just tolerance; it’s the thrill of feeling enlightened while the old order still holds the power to punish.