sense that the evils of the world are such only to
the evil eye. In the old mythology, mythologists
observe, defects are ascribed to divine natures, as
lameness to Vulcan, blindness to Cupid, and the like,
--to signify exuberances.

For as it is dislocation and detachment from the
life of God that makes things ugly, the poet, who
re-attaches things to nature and the Whole,--
re-attaching even artificial things and violations
of nature, to nature, by a deeper insight,--disposes
very easily of the most disagreeable facts. Readers
of poetry see the factory-village and the railway,
and fancy that the poetry of the landscape is broken
up by these; for these works of art are not yet
consecrated in their reading; but the poet sees them
fall within the great Order not less than the beehive
or the spider's geometrical web. Nature adopts them
very fast into her vital circles, and the gliding
train of cars she loves like her own. Besides, in a
centred mind, it signifies nothing how many mechanical
inventions you exhibit. Though you add millions, and
never so surprising, the fact of mechanics has not
gained a grain's weight. The spiritual fact remains
unalterable, by many or by few particulars; as no
mountain is of any appreciable height to break the
curve of the sphere. A shrewd country-boy goes to the
city for the first time, and the complacent citizen
is not satisfied with his little wonder. It is not
that he does not see all the fine houses and know that