'
* * * * *
'_Thursday Evening_.--Although I have been much engaged these
two days. I have read Spiridion twice. I could have wished
to go through it the second time more at leisure, but as I am
going away, I thought I would send it back, lest it should be
wanted before my return.
'The development of the religious sentiment being the same as
in Helene, I at first missed the lyric effusion of that work,
which seems to me more and more beautiful, as I think of it
more. This, however, was a mere prejudice, of course, as the
thought here is poured into a quite different mould, and I was
not troubled by it on a second reading.
'Again, when I came to look at the work by itself, I thought
the attempt too bold. A piece of character-painting does not
seem to be the place for a statement of these wide and high
subjects. For here the philosophy is not merely implied in the
poetry and religion, but assumes to show a face of its own.
And, as none should meddle with these matters who are not in
earnest, so, such will prefer to find the thought of a teacher
or fellow-disciple expressed as directly and as bare of
ornament as possible.
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