This is an urban age. The men of the villages, alas, are leaving
behind them the green fields and purple moors of their childhood,
are foolishly crowding into the narrow lanes and purlieus of the
great cities. Strange decadent sins and morbid pleasures entice
them thither. But I desire in these books to utter a word once more
in favour of higher and purer ideals of life and art. Those who
sicken of the foul air and lurid light of towns may still wander
side by side with me on these heathery highlands. Far, far below,
the theatre and the music-hall spread their garish gas-lamps. Let
who will heed them. But here on the open hill-top we know fresher
and more wholesome delights. Those feverish joys allure us not.
O decadents of the town, we have seen your sham idyls, your tinsel
Arcadias. We have tired of their stuffy atmosphere, their dazzling
jets, their weary ways, their gaudy dresses; we shun the sunken
cheeks, the lack-lustre eyes, the heart-sick souls of your painted
goddesses. We love not the fetid air, thick and hot with human
breath, and reeking with tobacco smoke, of your modern Parnassus--
a Parnassus whose crags were reared and shaped by the hands of the
stage-carpenter! Your studied dalliance with your venal muses is
little to our taste.
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