16 Mr. Francis Galton [Jan. 27, 



of the alcohol, and, weighing it awhile between his finger and thumb, 

 said seriously, as in further confirmation, " How heavy it is ! " 



In childhood the imagination is peculiarly vivid, and notoriously 

 leads to mistakes, but the discipline of after life is steadily directed 

 to checking its vagaries and to establishing a clear distinction 

 between fancy and fact. Nevertheless, the force of the imagination 

 may endure with extraordinary power and even be cherished by 

 persons of poetic temperament, on which point the experiences of our 

 two latest Poets-Laureate, Wordsworth and Tennyson, are extremely 

 instructive. Wordsworth's famous " Ode to Immortality " contains 

 three lines which long puzzled his readers. They occur after his 

 grand description of the glorious imagery of childhood, and the 

 " perpetual benediction " of its memories, when he suddenly breaks 

 off into — 



" Not for these I raise 



The song of thanks and praise, 



But for those obstinate questionings 



Of sense and outward things, 



Fallings from us, vanishings," &c. 



Why, it was asked, should any sane person be " obstinately " 

 disposed to question the testimony of his senses, and be peculiarly 

 thankful that he had the power to do so ? What was meant by the 

 " fallings off and vanishings," for which he raises his " song of thanks 

 and praise " ? The explanation is now to be found in a note by 

 Wordsworth himself, prefixed to the ode in Knight's edition. Words- 

 worth there writes, " I was often unable to think of external things 

 as having external existence, and I communed with all I saw as 

 something not apart from, but inherent in, my own immaterial nature. 

 Many times while going to school have I grasped at a wall or tree to 

 recall myself from this abyss of idealism to the reality. At that time 

 I was afraid of such processes. In later times I have deplored, as 

 we all have reason to do, a subjugation of an opposite character, and 

 have rejoiced over the remembrances, as is expressed in the lines 

 1 Obstinate questionings,' &c." * He then gives those I have just 

 quoted. 



It is a remarkable coincidence that a closely similar idea is found 

 in the verses of the successor of Wordsworth, namely, the great poet 

 whose recent loss is mourned by all English-speaking nations, and 

 that a closely similar explanation exists with respect to them. For 

 in Lord Tennyson's " Holy Grail " the aged Sir Percivale, then a 

 monk, recounts to a brother monk the following w r ords of King 

 Arthur : — 



" Let visions of the night or of the day 

 Come, as they will; and many a time they come 

 Until this earth he walks on seems not earth, 

 This light that strikes his eyeball is not light, 

 The ah- that smites his forehead is not air, 

 But vision," &c. 



* Knight's edition of Wordsworth, vol. iv. p. 47. 



