For ages the army of
spirits, once so near, has been receding farther and farther from
us, banished by the magic wand of science from hearth and home, from
ruined cell and ivied tower, from haunted glade and lonely mere,
from the riven murky cloud that belches forth the lightning, and
from those fairer clouds that pillow the silvery moon or fret with
flakes of burning red the golden eve. The spirits are gone even from
their last stronghold in the sky, whose blue arch no longer passes,
except with children, for the screen that hides from mortal eyes the
glories of the celestial world. Only in poets' dreams or impassioned
flights of oratory is it given to catch a glimpse of the last
flutter of the standards of the retreating host, to hear the beat of
their invisible wings, the sound of their mocking laughter, or the
swell of angel music dying away in the distance. Far otherwise is it
with the savage. To his imagination the world still teems with those
motley beings whom a more sober philosophy has discarded. Fairies
and goblins, ghosts and demons, still hover about him both waking
and sleeping.
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