Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1887 - Virginibus Puerisque, and other papers

PAN'S PIPES
nPHE world in which we live has been
variously said and sung by the most
ingenious poets and philosophers : these
reducing it to formulae and chemical in-
gredients, those striking the lyre in high-
sounding measures for the handiwork of
God. What experience supplies is of a
mingled tissue, and the choosing mind has
much to reject before it can get together
the materials of a theory. Dew and thunder,
destroying Atilla and the Spring lambkins,
belong to an order of contrasts which no
repetition can assimilate. There is an un-
couth, outlandish strain throughout the web
of the world, as from a vexatious planet in
the house of life. Things are not congruous
and wear strange disguises : the consummate