All towns may, if they so choose, become drilling towns; and the people of the towns, sacrificing themselves to the good of general humanity, may live diminished lives in the midst of noise, of darkness, and of deadly exhalation. But the world cannot become a pipeline, nor a well. No amount of ingenuity will ever make gas digestible by the million, nor substitute methane for wine. Neither the avarice nor the rage of men will ever feed them, and however the apple of Sodom and the grape of Gomorrah may spread their table for a time with dainties of ashes, and nectar of asps -- so long as men live by bread, the far away valleys must laugh as they are covered with the gold of God, and the shouts of His happy multitudes ring round the wine-press and the well.

Adapted from Ruskin, 1860, Unto This Last