The relief, however, is but partial, and may be
but temporary; for what if this mingling of man and Nature in the mind
of man be but the casting of a coloured shadow over her cold
indifference? What if she means nothing--never was meant to mean
anything! What if in truth "we receive but what we give, and in our life
alone doth Nature live!" What if the language of metaphysics as well as
of poetry be drawn, not from Nature at all, but from human fancy
concerning her!
At length, from the unknown, whence himself he came, appears an angel to
deliver him from this horror--this stony look--ah, God! of soulless law.
The woman is on her way whose part it is to meet him with a life other
than his own, at once the complement of his, and the visible presentment
of that in it which is beyond his own understanding. The enchantment of
what we specially call _love_ is upon him--a deceiving glamour, say
some, showing what is not, an opening of the eyes, say others, revealing
that of which a man had not been aware: men will still be divided into
those who believe that the horses of fire and the chariots of fire are
ever present at their need of them, and those who class the prophet and
the drunkard in the same category as the fools of their own fancies.
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