had all worn Actaeon's badge; and how Philip turned it to a jest,
Pertinax the Emperor made no reckoning of it; Erasmus declared it
was best winked at, there being no remedy but patience, _Dies
dolorem minuit_; Time, Age must mend it; and how according to
the best authorities, bars, bolts, oaken doors, and towers of
brass, are all in vain. "She is a woman," as the old Pedant
wrote to a fellow Philosopher....




_The Great Work_


Sitting, pen in hand, alone in the stillness of the library,
with flies droning behind the sunny blinds, I considered in my
thoughts what should be the subject of my great Work. Should I
complain against the mutability of Fortune, and impugn Fate and
the Constellations; or should I reprehend the never-satisfied
heart of querulous Man, drawing elegant contrasts between the
unsullied snow of mountains, the serene shining of stars, and
our hot, feverish lives and foolish repinings? Or should I
confine myself to denouncing contemporary Vices, crying "Fie!"
on the Age with Hamlet, sternly unmasking its hypocrisies, and
riddling through and through its comfortable Optimisms?

Or with Job, should I question the Universe, and puzzle my sad
brains about Life--the meaning of Life on this apple-shaped
Planet?