THE THRESHOLD OF THE GODS. 79, 
the best meaning of the word. Certain condi- 
tions of mundane things might have been 
necessary to. their existence here. If we 
should study nature closely for the purpose we 
might discover those conditions, 
And this fetches from its hiding-place my 
theory. It may be called the grove theory. 
No one can think of the gods as separable 
from the woods and waters. The ancients ad- 
mitted this. They went further, dedicating to 
each deity its grove or stream. It seems to 
me that this meant more than mere empty 
complimentary dedication. It was a recogni- 
tion and acknowledgment of the conditions 
upon which the gods would remain with them. 
In short, unsmitten, unshorn, pristine nature 
could accommodate these mysterious beings, 
and it only. The groves grown of virgin soil, 
the uncultivated flowers and fruits, the balm 
and spice of perfect trees—these prepared the 
air for the gods to breathe. Something, we 
may not know what—the keen pure essence 
of unchanged nature from some source now 
practically dried up, may be—fed them and 
kept them within the bounds of visibility. The 
dryads disappeared perforce, it may well be 
assumed, when their woods were desecrated, 
and the naiads when their fountains were pol- 
luted. The fauns faded into shadows and 
were blown away when the axe and saw had 
felled the groves and fragrant thickets. The 
satyr withdrew into the deepest recesses of the 
forests as man advanced, and Apollo and 
Diana fled away—whither ? 
Possibly some secret potency existed in the 
air that flowed through those virgin woods 
and over those unpolluted streams which could 
