he is born to that divine union to which he is destined. The evolution
of this one moment of passion is lyric form, whose unity lies in
personality exclusively, however it may seem to involve the external
world which is its imagery,--its body lifted from the dust, woven of
light and air, but alive only while the spirit abides there. And here,
too, as elsewhere, to whatever height the poet may rise, it must be one
to which man can follow, to which, indeed, the poet lifts men. Nor is it
only nature which thus suffers spiritualization through the stress of
imagination interpreting life in definite and sensible forms of beauty,
but the imagery of action also may be similarly taken possession of,
though this is rare in merely lyrical expression.

The ideal world, then, to present in full summary these views, is thus
built up, through personality in all its richness, by a perfected
imitation of life itself, and is set forth in universal unities of
relation, causal or formal, to the intellect in its inward, to the sense
of beauty in its outward, aspects; and thereby delighting the desire of
the mind for lucid and lovely order, it generates joy, and thence is
born the will to conform one's self to this order. If, then, this order
be conceived as known in its principles and in operation in living
souls, as existing in its completeness on the simplest scale in an
entire series of illustrative instances but without multiplicity,--if it
be conceived, that is, as the model of a world,--that would be to know
it as it exists to the mind of God; that would be to contemplate the
world of ideas as Plato conceived it seen by the soul before birth. That
is the beatific vision. If it be conceived in its mortal movement as a
developing world on earth, that would be to know "the plot of God," as
Poe called the universe. Art endeavours to bring that vision, that plot,
however fragmentary, upon earth. It is a world of order clothing itself
in beauty, with a charm to the soul, such is our nature,--operative upon