

first the spirit of our own race was revealed 

 to us in Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton ; 

 then first we thrilled to that music which 

 has never faltered since Caedmon found his 

 voice in answer to the heavenly vision. 

 There are days which will always have a 

 place by themselves in our memory, nights 

 whose stars have never set, because they 

 brought us face to face with some great 

 soul, and struck into life in an instant some 

 new and mighty meaning. The ferment of 

 soul which Hazlitt describes on the night 

 when he walked home from his first talk 

 with Coleridge is no exceptional experience ; 

 it comes to most young men who are sus- 

 ceptible to the influence of great thoughts 

 coming for the first time into consciousness. 

 A lonely country road comes into view as 

 I write these words, and over it the heavens 

 bend with a new and marvellous splendour, 

 because the boy who walked along its wind- 

 ing course had just finished for the first 

 time, and in a perfect tumult of soul, 

 Schiller's " Robbers ; " it was the power of 

 great master, felt through his crudest 

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