Pan. In the hushed recesses of Hurley backwater where the canoe may be
paddled almost under the tumbling comb of the weir, he is to be looked
for; there the god pipes with freest abandonment. Or under the great
shadow of Streatley Hill, ``annihilating all that's made to a green
thought in a green shade''; or better yet, pushing an explorer's prow
up the remote untravelled Thame, till Dorchester's stately roof broods
over the quiet fields. In solitudes such as these Pan sits and
dabbles, and all the air is full of the music of his piping.
Southwards, again, on the pleasant Surrey downs there is shouting and
jostling; dust that is drouthy and language that is sultry. Thither
comes the young Apollo, calmly confident as ever; and he meeteth
certain Mercuries of the baser sort, who do him obeisance, call him
captain and lord, and then proceed to skin him from head to foot as
thoroughly as the god himself flayed Marsyas in days of yore, at a
certain Spring Meeting in Phrygia: a good instance of Time's revenges.
And yet Apollo returns to town and swears he has had a grand day. He
does so every year. Out of hearing of all the clamour, the rural Pan
may be found stretched on Ranmore Common, loitering under Abinger
pines, or prone by the secluded stream of the sinuous Mole, abounding
in friendly greetings for his foster-brothers the dab-chick and
water-rat.

For a holiday, Mercury loveth the Pullman Express, and a short hour
with a society paper; anon, brown boots on the pier, and the pleasant
combination of Métropole and Monopole. Apollo for his part will urge
the horses of the Sun: and, if he leaveth the society weekly to
Mercury, yet he loveth well the Magazine. From which omphalos or hub
of the universe he will direct his shining team even to the far
Hesperides of Richmond or of Windsor. Both iron road and level highway
are shunned by the rural Pan, who chooses rather to foot it along the