It's a set of poems and short prose pieces that Project Gutenberg
provided. I have not come across these before. In the title piece, Leda, Huxley
offers these lines...
The smell of his own sweat
Brought back to mind his Libyan desert-fane
Of mottled granite, with its endless train
Of pilgrim camels, reeking towards the sky
Ammonian incense to his horned deity;
The while their masters worshipped, offering
Huge teeth of ivory, while some would bring
Their Ethiop wives - sleek wine skins of black silk,
Jellied and huge from drinking asses' milk
Through years of tropical idleness, to pray
For offspring (whom he ever sent away
With prayers unanswered, lest their ebon race
Might breed and blacken the earth's comely face).
Do we read Brave New World differently once we know these lines? Or do we ascribe to Huxley merely the adopted assumptions of his times?
