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Untitled Article
In early life I drank deep of the happiness of imaginative youth—was free , and full of peaceful glory . I wandered forth into the green fields , and looking upward at the clear expanse of the eternal heavens , that shone as fresh as though they had been but an hour old—the elements of creative hope witnin me , were stroncr
as the dawning of many suns . God of those luminous worlds of power !—God of this green and lovely earth , and of its continuous stream of sentient beings , thou knowest what were then my aspirations ! I dreamed of becoming the lofty advocate of humane truth through the wide world ; and , in my moments of exaltation , when , full of the spirit of coming life and all its high obligations ,
Jhad even fancied the time at hand when man might recover his fall , and again become on earth as when iirst made , only a little below the angels !* I thought of the primitive elements of physical nature , and in imagination saw them at work—scintillating with the intense rapidity of their secret and subtle combinations : but the inward movements of the human heart—first
fountain and home of all our feelings and thoughts—this was the real goal of all my efforts , my constant study and contemplation . In it were centered the objects of my widest sympathies , and most creative powers . I thought of the passions and affections , and depicted them to myself in many a vast panorama of the
mind . I saw Ambition seated restless upon his solar throne , gazing with yearning eyes at the infinite orbs above . Beneath his starry footstool rolled unnumbered orbs , unheeded . Behind him were his giant sons , Glory and Fame , after whom thronged an armed array , horsemen and footmen , trampling dead nations under their ardent heels , so that what seemed the common soil of earth ,
was confounded with the wrecks of humanity . Near them , though towering and apart , stood a stately figure with a scarred but solemnly benign countenance , arrayed in dingy weeds , through whose open rents the winds pierced in an icy stream , and howled around the large region of his heart . This was Genius—or the passion of intellectual power—an outcast , and called the pretender to Ambition ' s legitimate throne . Then , in pursuance of
these pictorial thoughts , I saw Love , an angel with eyes of penetrating sweetness ; winged like the swan , with wreaths of lilies hanging down from his adorned locks , over the creamy-coloured arches of his pinions . He stood rapt and alone , absorbed in contemplation , with a gaze rivetted on the cerulean space , as though fixed on some one invisible object ; and large tears often flowed adown his pallid cheeks . In one hand he bore a
necromantic sceptre , before which all who beheld fell down adoring ; in the other , a pure mirror bordered with a prism , which being turned in various positions towards the sun , blinded or seduced all eyes . On his head was a crown of various glowing flowers , dropping ambrosial dews that fell lustrous over his naked limbs : but j did not then observe that the constant shadow of this crown of
Untitled Article
463 Lttttr from a Country Curate
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1834, page 466, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2635/page/6/
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