All these transformations, it will be observed, came in the order of mental development, each timely and beneficent in its place. The crowning and the dis-crowning were alike inevitable and good. The glorification and the disappearance were both justified. The final change comes neither too late nor too soon; _not too late_, for still the immense majority of mankind live in sentiment and imagination, worship ideal shapes, being quite incapable of appreciating knowledge, loving truth, or obeying principles. It will be generations yet, before any save the comparatively few think they can live without this great friend at their side. Sentiment is conservative. The poetic feeling detains in picturesque form the ideas which if exposed to the action of clear intelligence would be rejected as unsubstantial. The imagination like the ivy loves to beautify ruins, making even robber castles and deserted palaces attractive to tourists. Wordsworth, the poet of Nature expresses the feeling that will at times come over powerful and cultivated minds, in moods of sentiment-- The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending we lay waste our powers. Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the Moon, The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers, For this, for everything, we are out of tune, It moves us not;--Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn, Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.