The world grows
somewhat interesting to us heirs of all the ages. Year by year,
Science with broom and duster tears down the moth-worn tapestry,
forces the doors of the locked chambers, lets light into the secret
stairways, cleans out the dungeons, explores the hidden passages--
finding everywhere only dust. This echoing old castle, the world,
so full of mystery in the days when we were children, is losing
somewhat its charm for us as we grow older. The king sleeps no
longer in the hollow of the hills. We have tunnelled through his
mountain chamber. We have shivered his beard with our pick. We
have driven the gods from Olympus. No wanderer through the moonlit
groves now fears or hopes the sweet, death-giving gleam of
Aphrodite's face. Thor's hammer echoes not among the peaks--'tis
but the thunder of the excursion train. We have swept the woods of
the fairies. We have filtered the sea of its nymphs. Even the
ghosts are leaving us, chased by the Psychical Research Society.
Perhaps of all, they are the least, however, to be regretted. They
were dull old fellows, clanking their rusty chains and groaning and
sighing. Let them go.
And yet how interesting they might be, if only they would.
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