ABSTRACT
The age of analysis and investigation is upon us! Science is in the ascendant, and all that cannot prove itself must perish. Fairyland, that delightful realm of extraordinary happenings and happy improbabilities, is deemed fit only for the minds of children. Natural science has denied the awesome dragon and picturesque griffon to give us in their stead the ugly mastodon. The pool which inspired Ponce de Leon to marvellous deeds has been proclaimed but a figment of soaring imagination. Reason has annihilated utterly the charming terror which the mischief of pixies and brownies once held for us. The telescope of the astronomer has uncompromisingly shown that broomstick-mounted witches do not in reality careen through the skies to sweep them clean. The world of fancy shudders and retreats before the merciless cry for proof, until even the heroes and gods of Olympus remain but a gorgeous memorial of marble and legend to a splendour that might have been. Reality binds us with molten chains to a leaden ball of unyielding fact, nor is there any escape. In all the world but one fairyland remains undemolished: Bohemia! That none can deny. Bohemia exists. It is in the world about us. It is real; yet quite magical— its fairyland, its reality, its fact, its varihued imagery.
