Perhaps no symptom of civilisation is more disquieting than the increasing tendency to compress the half-way…
- Date of account
- Published 1908
- Source
- The book of witches
- Reference
- The book of witches · selected passage 66
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
Perhaps no symptom of civilisation is more disquieting than the increasing tendency to compress the half-way worlds--built up by our forefathers with such lavish expenditure of imagination--into the narrow limits of that in which we are doomed to spend our working days--not too joyously
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyPerhaps no symptom of civilisation is more disquieting than the increasing tendency to compress the half-way worlds--built up by our forefathers with such lavish expenditure of imagination--into the narrow limits of that in which we are doomed to spend our working days--not too joyously. We have seen how the alchemist and the magician from semi-divine beings, vested with power over gods and men, have by degrees come to be confounded with the cheap-jack of a country fair. So it has been with many another denizen of the Unseeable. Consider, for example, the once formidable giant. Originally gods, or but little inferior to them, so that Olympus must exercise all its might to prevail against them; at one time a nation in themselves, located somewhere in Cornwall, with kings of their own, Corcoran, Blunderbore, and the rest, aloof from man except when, for their pastime or appetite, they raided his preserves, vulnerable, indeed, though only to a superhuman Jack; where are your giants now? Goliath, though defeated by David, was yet not dishonoured, in that he was warring not against a puny, sling-armed shepherd, but against the whole might of the Jewish Jehovah.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis is a historical account assembled under the reporting and publishing conventions of its period. It may preserve testimony, hearsay, retelling and editorial interpretation together.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyA modern comparison can identify recurring descriptions and possible explanations, but the account is not treated as independently verified evidence merely because it appeared in print.
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