They tell us
that Mr. Scott's monstrous vision of a mountain of sea-water rising in a
solid dome, like the glass mountain in the fairy-tale, is actually a
fact, and men still go back to the fairy-tale. To what towering heights
of poetic imagery might we not have risen if only the poetizing of
natural history had continued and man's fancy had played with the
planets as naturally as it once played with the flowers! We might have
had a planetary patriotism, in which the green leaf should be like a
cockade, and the sea an everlasting dance of drums. We might have been
proud of what our star has wrought, and worn its heraldry haughtily in
the blind tournament of the spheres. All this, indeed, we may surely do
yet; for with all the multiplicity of knowledge there is one thing
happily that no man knows: whether the world is old or young.
* * * * *
A DEFENCE OF CHINA SHEPHERDESSES
There are some things of which the world does not like to be reminded,
for they are the dead loves of the world. One of these is that great
enthusiasm for the Arcadian life which, however much it may now lie open
to the sneers of realism, did, beyond all question, hold sway for an
enormous period of the world's history, from the times that we describe
as ancient down to times that may fairly be called recent.
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