And here I have nothing but surmises, from an uncertainty whether Milton's apparently less anxiety for Humanity proceeds from his seeing further or not than Wordsworth: And whether Wordsworth has in truth epic passion, and martyrs himself to the human heart, the main region of his song. In regard to his genius alone--we find what he says true as far as we have experienced and we can judge no further but by larger experience--for axioms in philosophy are not axioms until they are proved upon our pulses. We read fine things, but never feel them to the full until we have gone the same steps as the author.--I know this is not plain; you will know exactly my meaning when I say that now I shall relish _Hamlet_ more than I have ever done--Or, better--you are sensible no man can set down Venery as a bestial or joyless thing until he is sick of it, and therefore all philosophising on it would be mere wording. Until we are sick, we understand not; in fine, as Byron says, 'Knowledge is sorrow'; and I go on to say that 'Sorrow is wisdom'--and further for aught we can know for certainty 'Wisdom is folly.' [Illustration: PL. VII THE ENCHANTED CASTLE FROM AN ENGRAVING BY VIVARES AND WOOLLETT AFTER CLAUDE] Presently follows the famous chain of images by which Keats, searching and probing for himself along pathways of the spirit parallel to those followed by Wordsworth in the _Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey_, renders account to himself of the stage of development to which his mind has now reached:--