The wonder and the mystery has gone from it.

A Cockney excursionist goes round it in a holiday trip; there are no _Golden cities, ten months journey deep, In far Tartarian wilds_;[5] nor do the confines of civilisation, melt as they once did, into any unknown and unexplored wonderlands.

And thus a large mass of sentiment that was once powerful in the world is now rapidly dwindling, and, so far as we can see, there is nothing that can ever exactly replace it.
Patriotism, for instance, can never again be the religion it was to Athens, or the pride it was to Rome.

Men are not awed and moved as once they were by local and material splendours.

The pride of life, it is true, is still eagerly coveted; but by those at least who are most familiar with it, it is courted and sought for with a certain contempt and cynicism.