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Or rather of some gentle maid,

Whose brows, the day that she was styled

The Shepherd-queen, were thus arrayed?

Of man mature, or matron sage?

Or old man toying with his age?

I asked—’twas whispered, “The device

To each and all might well belong:

It is the Spirit of Paradise

That prompts such work, a Spirit strong

That gives to all the self-same bent

Where life is wise and innocent.”

Wordsworth.

They who believe in the influences of the stars over the fates of men are, in feeling at least, nearer the truth than they who regard the heavenly bodies as related to them merely by a common obedience to an external law. All that man sees has to do with man. Worlds cannot be without an intermundane relationship. The community of the centre of all creation suggests an inter-radiating connection and dependence of the parts. Else a grander idea is conceivable than that which is already embodied. The blank, which is only a forgotten life lying behind the consciousness, and the misty splendour, which is an undeveloped life lying before it, may be full of mysterious revelations of other connections with the worlds around us than those of science and poetry. No shining belt or gleaming moon, no red and green glory in a self-encircling twin-star, but has a relation with the hidden things of a man’s soul, and, it may be, with the secret history of his body as well. They are portions of the living house within which he abides.