"Human sacrifices indeed, but not such as are made by stabbing people with knives and bleeding them to physical death. Human sacrifices in the sense of a terrible loss of human capital, of a de-humanisation caused by the browbeating of the Heart—this and nothing else was the meaning of my drama.
"And what country is a fuller commentary on the truth of my Bacchæ than England?
"Here is a country that, had Dionysus been properly worshipped by its people, might be the happiest, brightest of all nations, a model for all others, and living like the gods in perpetual bliss—that is, in perfect equilibrium of thought and action, reason and sentiment, beauty and moderation. They have done much and successfully for Pythian Apollo; they have established a solid fabric of Liberty and Imperial Power; various intellectual pursuits they have cultivated with glory; and in their pæans to Apollo they have shown exquisite beauties of expression and feeling.
"But Dionysus they persistently want to neglect, to discredit, to oust.
"Instead of bowing humbly and openly to the god of enthusiasm, of unreasoned lilt of sentiment and passion, and of the intense delight in all that lives and throbs and vibrates with pleasure and joy; they affect to suppress sentiments, to rein in all pleasures, and to cast a slur on joy.
"And then the god, seeing the scorn with which they treat him, avenges himself, and blinds and maddens them, as he did King Pentheus of Thebes, King Perseus of Argos, the daughters of Minyas of Orchomenos, Proitos of Tiryns, and so many others. The god Dionysus puts into their hearts absurd thoughts and fantastic prejudices, and some of them spend millions of money a year to stop the use of the Bacchic gifts in a country which has long been the least drinking country in the white world, and as a matter of fact drinks far too little good and noble wine.
"Others again are made by angry Dionysus to μαἱνεσθαι or rage by adding to the 250 unofficial yearly fogs of the country, fifty-two official ones, which they call Sundays.
"Again others, instigated by the enraged god Dionysus, drive people to furor by their intolerable declamations against alleged cruelties to animals, while they are themselves full of cruel boredom to human beings.