"And in the face of all these questions," I cried, surveying the list
ruefully again, "we go on accumulating researches and multiplying books
without end, vituperating the benefactors who destroyed the library of
Alexandria, and exhuming the civilisations that the earthquakes of Time
have swallowed under. The Hamlet of centuries, 'sicklied o'er with the
pale cast of thought,' the nineteenth of that ilk mouches along,
soliloquising about more things in heaven and earth than were dreamt of
in any of its predecessors' philosophies. Ah me! Analysis is paralysis
and introspection is vivisection and culture drives one mad. What will be
the end of it all?"

"The end will be," answered the Poet, "that the overstrung nerves of the
century will give way, and that we shall fall into the simple old faith
of Omar Khayyam:

"A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread, and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness--
O Wilderness were Paradise enow."

"Yes," said I, "the only wisdom is to live. Action is substance and
thought shadow." And so--paradoxically enough--I began to think out

A WORKING PHILOSOPHY

The solar system turns without thine aid.
Live, die! The universe is not afraid.
What is is right! If aught seems wrong below,
Then wrong it is--of thee to leave it so.
Then wrong it first becomes for human thought,