The Slanderers by Warwick Deeping

AS the child is nurtured in the world's wisdom by the inconsistencies of its elders, so the dreamer is constrained by the baser instincts of humanity to recognize the ineffectualness of his own visions. The harp and the lyric strain suffice not for the strenuous life. Rather is the strong man's song the song of the Norseman of old, the cry of the heart unto whom battle is glorious. The gilded harness and the flashing sword, these pertain to the spiritual vikings of history, giants renewing the world, causing evil to quake at the white gleam of their sails.

The man Gabriel had been wakened once again from dreams. He was no longer the transcendental lover, blind to the physical philosophy of the sage in the street. Yesterday earth had been to him a primitive Eden where no sin lurked in the glory of the opening year. All this was changed as with the stroke of a wand. Purgatory had displaced paradise. Where quiet valleys had stood bright with sunlight the man saw a deep abyss steeped in gloom. There the satyr ran squealing after his prey. Thence came the hot roar of the bacchanal, the canting of the hypocrite, the whine of the miser scrambling for blood-stained gold. The din that rose from the pit was as the hoarse discords of a great city. The breath of it ascended like heavy smoke from some smouldering Sodom.