and preserve this history, so heis disheartened upon leaving, for he fears that all will be lost, and the South itself will fallpermanently into a position of near obscurity, known to all as a mere shadow rather thanas a force in its own right. As he continues on his way, though, Ransom is once again fueled by hisdetermination to seek the wisdom of his forebearers, and rekindle the spirit and greatnessof the old South. He admits this experience has left him unnerved, and walks on withcourage shaken (ln 47), but nevertheless intact. He reluctantly leaves this old world thathe so desperately wants to remain in, and goes back to the one of today, still hoping touncover the wisdom of the traditions he treasures so dear.As stated before, Old Mansion serves merely as a starting point for what wouldblossom into an incredibly varied journey into the past, as Ransom and other continued tofight the machinations of the modern world in favor of returning to the one that existstoday as a distant memory. He and his contemporaries devoted a great deal of effort tothis battle against seemingly inevitable ebb of homogenized industrialization into theirbeloved South, as they heralded a return to nature and to the land as the only way for theSouth to return to its former splendor. More important to Ransom than the crops that theagrarian lifestyle ultimately produced, was the unique simplicity that this way of lifeembodied, since he feared the control all things generic and impersonal seemed to betaking all around him. Today, Ransom and the other Fugitives appear to have lost thisbattle: the South has continued in its march toward complete commercialization, and thesimplicity and stability the sought exists today only in tiny pockets that have beenisolated in one way or another from the ever expanding core of technology. And unlesssome unexpected turnaround in current trends happens in the future, the ideals they weretrying to promote will be as m...
