Towards democracy
‘
460 Towards Democracy t
Science—the investigations into ghostly geometries of four or five dimensions, or into the values of ¢ and g in the Lunai = Theory, or into the alternation of generations in some obscure Annelids ;
How bewildering! how impossible to sum up and”
estimate !
And then to think how slight it all is—
A little remnant of faded thought ;
A little dust just crumbled through the fingers, hardly more;
The residue and deposit of ages;
The dead leaves, the skeleton foliage, which generations : of trees have cast upon the earth—and which with infinite! care we sort and catalogue!
And then to leave the mouldy stuffy vault, and go out, , and breathe freely,
How lovely!
One living bud upon a little branch,
One face that looks and passes in the street,
And these contain it all.
How lovely! To think there are all tnese books—and one need not?
read them ; To think of all the patient purblind accumulations, alWi
the dry-as-dust, the fatuous drivel, the maundering vanity, thes
endless repetitions of vain things, The endless care and industry and science used to sonm
out the pearls from the vast heap—