He now saw what had hitherto seemed incredible, that the habit of analysis tends to wear away the feelings. He felt "stranded at the commencement of my voyage, with a well-equipped ship and a rudder, but no sail; without any real desire for the ends which I had been so carefully fitted out to work for: no delight in virtue, or the general good, but also just as little in anything else. The fountains of vanity and ambition seemed to have dried up within me as completely as those of benevolence." His vanity had been gratified at too early an age, and, like all premature pleasures, they had caused indifference, until he despaired of creating any fresh association of pleasure with any objects of human dire. Meanwhile, dejected and melancholy as he was through the winter, he went on mechanically with his tasks; thought he found in Coleridge the first description of what he was feeling; feared the idiosyncrasies of his education had made him a being unique and apart. "I asked myself if I could or if I was bound to go on living, when life must be passed in this manner. I generally answered to myself that I did not think I could possibly bear it beyond a year." But within about half that time, in reading a pathetic page of how a mere boy felt that he could save his family and take the place of all they had lost, a vivid conception of the scene came over him and he was moved to tears. From that moment, his burden grew lighter. He saw that his heart was not dead and that he still had some stuff left of which character and happiness are made; and although there were several later lapses, some of which lasted many months, he was never again as miserable as he had been. These experience left him changed in two respects. He had a new theory of life, having much in common with the anti-consciousness theory of Carlyle. He still held happiness the end of life, but thought it must be aimed at indirectly and taken incidentally. The other change was that for the first time he gave its proper place to internal culture of the individual, especially the training of the feelings which became now cardinal. He relished and felt the power of poetry and art; was profoundly moved by music; fell in love with Wordsworth and with nature, and his later depressions were best relieved by the power of rural beauty, which wrought its charm not because of itself but by the states and feelings it aroused. His ode on the intimations of immortality showed that he also had felt that the first freshness of youthful joy was not lasting, and had sought and found compensation. He had thus come to a very different standpoint from that of his father, who had up to this time formed his mind and life, and developed on this basis his unique individuality.