You may come to know that red in the breast. It is the red that drives away the dream of peace.... Yet the pity of him deludes you. You look again and again, and the curve of his back does not break the dream as before. You think that because you pity him, you cannot fall; and all the pull of the ground tells you that your _very thought of falling_ is a breath from the old shames--your dead, but as yet unburied heritage, from generations that learned the lie to self.
You touch the hair of the goat, and say it is Nature. But Pan is not Nature--a hybrid, half of man's making, rather. Your eyes fall to the cloven hoof, but return to the level, steady gaze, smiling with such soft sadness that your heart quickens for him, and you listen, as he says: "All Gods have animal bodies and cloven hoofs, but I alone have dared to reveal mine...." "How brave you are!" your heart answers, and the throb of him bewilders you with passion.... You who are so high must fall far, when you let go.
... And many of your generation shall want to fall. Pan has come to you because you _dare_.... You have murdered the old shames, you have torn down the ancient and mouldering churches. You do not require the blood, the thorn, the spikes, but I wonder if even you of a glorious generation, do not still require the Cross?... It is because you see so surely and are level-eyed, that Pan is back in the world for you; and it is very strange but true that you must first meet Pan and pass him by, before you can enter into the woodlands with that valid lord of Nature, whose back is a challenge to aspiration, and whose feet are of the purity of the saints.
... He is there, or it may be, if you are not through with the world, he is waiting in the wilderness. You must learn the hardest of all lessons--to wait. You must pass by all others who are not true to the dream. You must integrate your ideal of him--as you dream of the Shining One who will become the third of the Trinity. He must be true to the laws of beauty that the Old Mother has shown you. If he is less than the dream, pass on--for though you travel together for years, at the end you will look into the eyes of a stranger.... They are for those who have no dreams--the dalliances that dull our senses, the Arrivals for whom another is waiting.