Under
that strange patchwork quilt so imaginative a soul as Clarian could not
fail to dream. It was a great pity I had not been more circumspect, for the
boy was already too deeply steeped in those Acherontic waters. His mother,
like many other women, had loved to wander along the dreamy paths of
sentimental theology, clothing from her own beautiful mind the dim,
unsubstantial spectres that beckoned her, and accepting all their mystic
utterances, in blind faith, for genuine oracles of God. Into these by-ways
he had followed her, and his clearer vision had just sufficed to reveal to
him the ghosts, without teaching him how to master or dispel them. Thus,
Cowper's sweetness, which charmed her, became to him Cowper's dejection and
despairing sadness, perplexing enough to his young brain. Where she took up
and fed her soul upon John Wesley's conclusions, the boy found himself
involved in John Wesley's perplexities, and struggling in desperate wrestle
with the haunting shapes to which John Wesley had given successful
battle. Thus prepared, no wonder my eager little friend plunged headlong
into the sea of doubts, impatient to cry, "Eureka!" and plant his foot upon
the Islands of the Blessed. The new excitement completely swept his feet
from under him. 'Twas but a step from Coleridge and _Esemplastic_ matters
to Plotinus, and in a month he had taken that step,--the more readily, that
he was a right good Grecian, and found no unpleasant philological
difficulties in the "Enneades".
Pages:
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175