He could not present to himself the
idea of a man who found it impossible to live without some dealings
with the supernal. To him a man's imagination was of no higher
calling than to amuse him with its vagaries. He did not know,
apparently, that Imagination had been the guide to all the physical
discoveries which he worshipped, therefore could not reason that
perhaps she might be able to carry a glimmering light even into the
forest of the supersensible.
How far he was original in the views he propounded, will, to those
who understand the times of which I write, be plain enough. The
lively reception of another man's doctrine, especially if it comes
over water or across a few ages of semi-oblivion, and has to be
gathered with occasional help from a dictionary, raises many a man,
in his own esteem, to the same rank with its first propounder; after
which he will propound it so heartily himself as to forget the
difference, and love it as his own child.
It may seem strange that the son of a clergyman should take such a
part in the world's affairs, but one who observes will discover
that, at college at least, the behaviour of sons of clergymen
resembles in general as little as that of any, and less than that of
most, the behaviour enjoined by the doctrines their fathers have to
teach.
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