Ossian Collection > Aspects of poetry

448 PROSE POETS. [xv.
is the feeling of wonder with which he looks upon the
brute creation : —
' Can anything,' he asks, ' be more marvellous or startling, unless
we were used to it, than that we should have a race of beings
about us whom we do but see, and as little know their state, or
can describe their interests, or their destiny, as we can tell of the
inhabitants of the sun and moon. It is indeed a very overpower-
ing thought, when we get to fix our minds on it, that we familiarly
use, I may say hold intercourse with, creatures who are as much
strangers to us, as mysterious, as if they were fabulous, unearthly
beings, more powerful than man, and yet his slaves, which Eastern
superstitions have invented. They have apparently passions,
habits, and a certain accountableness, but all is mystery about
them. We do not know whether they can sin or not, whether
they are under punishment, whether they are to live after this
life Is it not plain to our senses that there is a world
inferior to us in the scale of beings, with which we are connected
without understanding what it is? and is it difficult to faith to
admit the word of Scripture concerning our connexion with a
world superior to nsV
And to thoughtful minds that world of brute animals
is as mysterious still, nor is the veil of mystery removed
by talk about evolution, and the impudent knowingness
it often engenders.
Again, Cardinal Newman's mind dwelt much in the
remote past; but the objects it there held converse
with were of a different order from those which attracted
the gaze of Carlyle. Not the rise and fall of mighty
kingdoms and dynasties ; not
'The giant forms of empires on their way
To ruin';