Ossian Collection > Aspects of poetry

XV.] CARDINAL NEWMAN. 455
as quickly closed it. But the glance you have had, the
words you have caught, haunt you ever after with an
interest in him who uttered them, which is indescrib-
able. The words, though in prose, become, what all high
poetry is said to be, at once a revelation and a veil.
Such a glimpse into hidden things seems given in
a passage in the sermon on ' a Particular Providence.'
* How gracious is the revelation of God's particular providence
.... to those who have discovered that this world is but vanity,
and who are solitary and isolated in themselves, whatever shadows
of power and happiness surround them. The multitude, indeed,
go on without these thoughts, either from insensibility, as not
understanding their own wants, or changing from one idol to
another, as each successively fails. But men of keener hearts
would be overpowered by despondency, and would even loathe
existence, did they suppose themselves under the mere operation
of fixed laws, powerless to excite the pity or the attention of Him
who has appointed them. What should they do especially, who
are cast among persons unable to enter into their feelings, and
thus strangers to them, though by long custom ever so much
friends ! or have perplexities of mind they cannot explain to them-
selves, much less remove them, and no one to help them, — or
have affections and aspirations pent up within them, because they
have not met with objects to which to devote them, — or are
misunderstood by those around them, and find they have no
words to set themselves right with them, or no principles in
common by way of appeal, — or seem to themselves to be without
place or purpose in the world, or to be in the way of others, — or
have to follow their own sense of duty without advisers or sup-
porters, nay, to resist the wishes and solicitations of superiors
or relatives, — or have the burden of some painful secret, or of
some incommunicable solitary grief ! '
And then follows a passage showing with wonderful