"Nature is the
mistress of the higher intelligencies," and though the individual
imagination is at liberty to treat Nature with a certain creative
contempt, it cannot afford to depart altogether from her, lest by
relinquishing the common language between men and men, it should
simply flap its wings in an enchanted circle, and utter sounds that
are not so much different from other sounds, as outside the region
where any sound carries an intelligible meaning.
The absurd idea that one gets wise by reading books is probably at the
bottom of the abominable pedantry that thrusts so many tiresome pieces
of antiquity down the throats of youth. There is no talisman for
getting wise--some of the wisest in the world never open a book, and
yet their native wit, so heavenly-free from "culture," would serve to
challenge Voltaire. Lovers of books, like other infatuated lovers,
best know the account they find in their exquisite obsessions. None of
the explanations they give seem to cover the field of their enjoyment.
The thing is a passion; a sort of delicate madness, and like other
passions, quite unintelligible to those who are outside.
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