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"'Trifles, like straws, upon the surface flow;
He who would search for pearls must dive below,'
are lines which have done much mischief. As regards the greater truths,
men oftener err by seeking them at the bottom than at the top; Truth
lies in the huge abysses where wisdom is sought-not in the palpable
palaces where she is found. The ancients were not always right in
hiding--the goddess in a well; witness the light which Bacon has thrown
upon philosophy; witness the principles of our divine faith--that moral
mechanism by which the simplicity of a child may overbalance the wisdom
of a man.
"We see an instance of Coleridge's liability to err, in his 'Biographia
Literaria'--professedly his literary life and opinions, but, in fact, a
treatise de omni scibili et quibusdam aliis. He goes wrong by reason
of his very profundity, and of his error we have a natural type in the
contemplation of a star. He who regards it directly and intensely sees,
it is true, the star, but it is the star without a ray-while he who
surveys it less inquisitively is conscious of all for which the star is
useful to us below-its brilliancy and its beauty.
"As to Wordsworth, I have no faith in him. That he had in youth the
feelings of a poet I believe-for there are glimpses of extreme delicacy
in his writings-(and delicacy is the poet's own kingdom-his El
Dorado)-but they have the appearance of a better day recollected; and
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