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

268 Pans Pipes
the hand from the rose because of the thorn,
and from Hfe because of death : this it is to
be afraid of Pan, Highly respectable citizens
who flee life's pleasures and responsibilities
and keep, with upright hat, upon the midway
of custom, avoiding the right hand and the
left, the ecstasies and the agonies, how sur-
prised they would be if they could hear
their attitude mythologically expressed, and
knew themselves as tooth -chattering ones,
who flee from Nature because they fear the
hand of Nature's God ! Shrilly sound Pan's
pipes ; and behold the banker instantly
concealed in the bank parlour! For to
distrust one's impulses is to be recreant to
Pan.
There are moments when the mind refuses
to be satisfied with evolution, and demands
a ruddier presentation of the sum of man's
experience. Sometimes the mood is brought
about by laughter at the humorous side of
life, as when, abstracting ourselves from
earth, we imagine people plodding on foot,
or seated in ships and speedy trains, with the