Where did that
misty veil come from? the trembling lights and shadows, the half-heard
sounds and silence of the woods, the changing cloud, the dim reflection,
the atmosphere of mystery and peace?
So each man goes to the dictionary. He takes a word here, a word there,
common words that everybody knows. He puts them together: the result is
a presentation of the life of man, and lays hold of his inmost spirit.
"_Our birth is but a deep and a forgetting;
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting
And cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home!_"
To write, the soul chooses, and God stands ever by to help. That is why
great work always impresses us as inspired. God did it. It is God who
whispers the deathless thought and phrase: the subtler collocations
are divine.
Take the word _star_. To the child it means a bright point that glitters
and twinkles in the sky, and sets him saying an old nursery rhyme.
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