Ossian Collection > Aspects of poetry

464 PROSE POETS. [XV.
increase of their experience, they are often tempted to
despair. One thing only can save them from this tempt-
ation — the entrance into their hearts of the consoling
light that comes from above. In Carlyle this tendency
to despair of the world was strongly present from the
first, and being in his case unrelieved by the light of
Christianity, his view of life darkened more and more
as years went on. The view which Dr. Newman takes
of the natural condition and destiny of man, though
modified by his gentler disposition, is hardly at all more
hopeful. Those who remember the words in which he
gives his impression of this world and the children of
it, towards the close of his Apologia, will acknowledge
this. Nothing can exceed the hopelessness of the
picture he there draws. One cannot but hope that it
is too dark and desponding a picture. But between
the two men there is this great difference : — however
dark and despondent may be Dr. Newman's view of
man when left to himself, he is supported and cheered
by the faith that he has not been left to himself, that
there has entered into human nature a new and divine
power, to counterwork its downward tendency, and
reinvigorate its decayed energies. Amid the deepest de-
spair of nature, he is still animated by this heavenward
hope. Beneath all the discords and distractions of this
perplexing world, he overhears a divine undertone, and,
hearing it^ he can wait and be at peace.
THE END.