Towards democracy

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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—