rk, as
the _fin-de-siecle_. Unto them it was the going-out of old fashions in
small things, such as changes in dress, the growth of wealth, or "the
mighty bicycle," with a very prevalent idea that things "are getting
mixed" or "checquered," or the old conditions of life becoming
strangely confused. And then men of more thought or intelligence,
looking more deeply into it, began to consider that the phrase did in
very truth express far more serious facts. As in an old Norman tale,
he who had entered as a jester or minstrel in comic garb, laid aside
his disguise, and appeared as a wise counsellor or brave champion who
had come to free the imprisoned emperor.

For it began to be seen that this _fin-de-siecle_ was developing with
startling rapidity changes of stupendous magnitude, which would ere
long be seen "careering with thunder speed along," and that all the
revolutions and reforms recorded in history were only feeble or
partial, scattered or small, compared to the world-wide unification of
human interests, led by new lights, which has begun to manifest itself
in every civilized country. That well nigh every person or real
culture, or education guided by pure science, has within a very few
years advanced to a condition of liberal faith which would have been
in my university days generally reprobated as "infidelity," is not to
be denied, and the fact means, beyond all question, that according to
its present rate of advance, in a very few years more, this reform
will end in the annulling of innumerable traditions, forms of faith
and methods. _Upharsin_ is writ on the wall.

More than this, is it not clear that Art and Romance, Poetry and
Literature, as hitherto understood or felt, are either to utterly
vanish before the stupendous advances of science, or what is perhaps
more probable, will, coalescing with it, take new forms, based on a
general familiarity with all the old schools or types? A few years ago
it seemed, as regarded all aesthetic creation, that man had exhausted
the old models, and knew not where to look for new. Now the aim of Art
is to interest or please, by gratifying the sense or taste for the
beautiful or human genius in _making_; also to instruct and refine;
and it is evident that Science is going to fulfill all these
conditions on such a grand scale in so many new ways, that, when man
shall be once engaged in them, all that once gratified him in the past
will seem as childish things, to be put away