The old Gods were dying, but not fast enough
Doctors Wear Scarlet (1960) by Simon Raven
....“So of course you know Dickie Fountain,” he said. “Now that one, my dear, has really caught our Walter’s eye. You should have heard Walter when Dickie came up to take his scholarship exam. ‘A real winner,’ Walter said, as though poor Dickie were in for the Stewards’ Cup. ‘Will go a long way,’ Walter boomed. But of course we should have elected him anyway, if only because he wrote such a charming essay. Do you know what he wrote about?”
“No.”
“‘The Dying Gods’, my dear. Not original, you think? Ah. But you see, it wasn’t one of those dreamy, melancholy little pieces, pretending to think Pan is still alive but only just, you know the kind of thing, and sometimes to be seen crying in the woods if you look very carefully. It was a great big angry essay, saying that the Gods were dying indeed but not fast enough, that they were still a menace and ought to have been done with long since. He got very cross about it and seemed really to believe what he was saying.”
