Your halls are too stifling with carbonic acid
gas; for us, we breathe oxygen.
And the oxygen of the hill-tops is purer, keener, rarer, more
ethereal. It is rich in ozone. Now, ozone stands to common oxygen
itself as the clean-cut metal to the dull and leaden exposed
surface. Nascent and ever renascent, it has electrical attraction;
it leaps to the embrace of the atom it selects, but only under the
influence of powerful affinities; and what it clasps once, it
clasps for ever. That is the pure air which we drink in on the
heather-clad heights--not the venomous air of the crowded casino,
nor even the close air of the middle-class parlour. It thrills and
nerves us. How we smile, we who live here, when some dweller in the
mists and smoke of the valley confounds our delicate atmosphere,
redolent of honey and echoing the manifold murmur of bees, with
that stifling miasma of the gambling hell and the dancing saloon!
Trust me, dear friend, the moorland air is far other than you
fancy. You can wander up here along the purple ridges, hand locked
in hand with those you love, without fear of harm to yourself or
your comrade.
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