"Not at all. No doubt there is something in the recollection of the associations of childhood to strengthen the power of nature upon us; but the power is in nature herself, else it would be but a poor weak thing to what it is. There _is_ purity and state in that sky. There _is_ a peace now in this wide still earth--not so very beautiful, you own--and in that overhanging blue, which my heart cries out that it needs and cannot be well till it gains--gains in the truth, gains in God, who is the power of truth, the living and causing truth. There is indeed a rest that remaineth, a rest pictured out even here this night, to rouse my dull heart to desire it and follow after it, a rest that consists in thinking the thoughts of Him who is the Peace because the Unity, in being filled with that spirit which now pictures itself forth in this repose of the heavens and the earth." "True," said Turner, after a pause. "I must think more about such things. The science the present day is going wild about will not give us that rest." "No; but that rest will do much to give you that science. A man with this repose in his heart will do more by far, other capabilities being equal, to find out the laws that govern things. For all law is living rest." "What you have been saying," resumed Turner, after another pause, "reminds me much of one of Wordsworth's poems. I do not mean the famous ode." "You mean the 'Ninth Evening Voluntary,' I know--one of his finest and truest and deepest poems. It begins, 'Had this effulgence disappeared.'" "Yes, that is the one I mean. I shall read it again when I go home. But you don't agree with Wordsworth, do you, about our having had an existence previous to this?" He gave a little laugh as he asked the question. "Not in the least. But an opinion held by such men as Plato, Origen, and Wordsworth, is not to be laughed at, Mr. Turner. It cannot be in its nature absurd. I might have mentioned Shelley as holding it, too, had his opinion been worth anything." "Then you don't think much of Shelley?" "I think his _feeling_ most valuable; his _opinion_ nearly worthless." "Well, perhaps I had no business to laugh, at it; but--" "Do not suppose for a moment that I even lean to it. I dislike it. It would make me unhappy to think there was the least of sound argument for it. But I respect the men who have held it, and know there must be _something_ good in it, else they could not have held it." "Are you able then to sympathise with that ode of Wordsworth's? Does it not depend for all its worth on the admission of this theory?" "Not in the least. Is it necessary to admit that we must have had a conscious life before this life to find meaning in the words,-- 'But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God who is our home'?