This book contains the following pieces, all published first in The Fortnightly Review: Essayism and Modernity - William Blake. - Therianthropes and vents. - Constellations. - Pattern recognition and the periodic table. - Extremities of perception in an age of lenses. - Demotic ritual. - Science and disenchantment. - The self-subversion of the book. - Newton's prisms. - The Janus face of Metaphor. - Clues and labyrinths. - Ruin, the collector and sad mortality.