I
wished he might adore, not fever for, the bright phantoms
of his mind's creation, and believe them but the shadows of
external things to be met with hereafter. After this steady
intellectual growth had brought his powers to manhood, so far
as the ideal can do it, I wished this being might be launched
into the world of realities, his heart glowing with the
ardor of an immortal toward perfection, his eyes searching
everywhere to behold it; I wished he might collect into one
burning point those withering, palsying convictions, which, in
the ordinary routine of things, so gradually pervade the
soul; that he might suffer, in brief space, agonies of
disappointment commensurate with his unpreparedness
and confidence. And I thought, thus thrown back on the
representing pictorial resources I supposed him originally
to possess, with such material, and the need he must feel
of using it, such a man would suddenly dilate into a form
of Pride, Power, and Glory,--a centre, round which asking,
aimless hearts might rally,--a man fitted to act as
interpreter to the one tale of many-languaged eyes!
'What words are these! Perhaps you will feel as if I sought
but for the longest and strongest.
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