nce. To certain smoke-dried spirits matter and motion and
elastic aethers, and the hypothesis of this or that other spectacled
professor, tell a speaking story; but for youth and all ductile and
congenial minds, Pan is not dead, but of all the classic hierarchy alone
survives in triumph; goat-footed, with a gleeful and an angry look, the
type of the shaggy world: and in every wood, if you go with a spirit
properly prepared, you shall hear the note of his pipe.

For it is a shaggy world, and yet studded with gardens; where the salt
and tumbling sea receives clear rivers running from among reeds and
lilies; fruitful and austere; a rustic world; sunshiny, lewd, and cruel.
What is it the birds sing among the trees in pairing time? What means
the sound of the rain falling far and wide upon the leafy forest? To
what tune does the fisherman whistle, as he hauls in his net at morning,
and the bright fish are heaped inside the boat? These are all airs upon
Pan's pipe; he it was who gave them breath in the exultation of his
heart, and gleefully modulated their outflow with his lips and fingers.
The coarse mirth of herdsmen, shaking the dells with laughter and
striking out high echoes from the rock; the tune of moving feet in the
lamplit city, or on the smooth ballroom floor; the hooves of many
horses, beating the wide pastures in alarm; the song of hurrying rivers;
the colour of clear skies; and smiles and the live touch of hands; and
the voice of things, and their significant look, and the renovating
influence they breathe forth--these are his joyful measures, to which
the whole earth treads in choral harmony. To this music the young lambs
bound as to a tabor, and the London shop-girl skips rudely in the
dance. For it puts a spirit of gladness in all hearts; and to look on
the happy side of nature is common, in their hours, to all created
things. Some are vocal under a good influence, are pleasing whenever
they are pleased, and hand on their happiness to others, as a child who,
looking upon lovely things, looks lovely. Some leap to the strains with
unapt foot, and make a halting figure in the universal dance. And some,
like sour spectators at the play, receive the music into their hearts
with an unmoved countenance, and walk like strangers through the general
rejoicing. But let him feign never so carefully, there is not a man but
has his pulses shaken when Pan trolls out a stave of ecstasy and sets
the world a-singing.

Alas if