[Footnote 3: We separate the sublime and the mystical--for, despite of high authorities, we are firmly convinced that the latter _may_ exist, in the most vivid degree, without giving rise to the sense of the former.] [Footnote 4: The consciousness of this truth was possessed by no mortal more fully than by Shelley, although he has only once especially alluded to it. In his _Hymn to Intellectual Beauty_ we find these lines. While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin, And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing Hopes of high talk with the departed dead: I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed: I was not heard: I saw them not. When musing deeply on the lot Of life at that sweet time when birds are wooing All vital things that wake to bring News of buds and blossoming Sudden thy shadow fell on me-- I shrieked and clasp'd my hands in ecstacy! I vow'd that I would dedicate my powers To thee and thine: have I not kept the vow? With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now I call the phantoms of a thousand hours Each from his voiceless grave: they have in vision'd bowers Of studious zeal or love's delight Outwatch'd with me the envious night: They know that never joy illum'd my brow, Unlink'd with hope that thou wouldst free, This world from its dark slavery, That thou, O awful _Loveliness_, Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express.] [Footnote 5: Imagination is, possibly, in man, a lesser degree of the creative power in God. What the Deity imagines, _is_, but _was not_ before. What man imagines, _is_, but _was_ also. The mind of man cannot imagine what _is not_. This latter point may be demonstrated.--_See Les Premiers Traits de L'Erudition Universelle, par M. Le Baron de Bielfield, 1767_.]