'THE STORY QF MY HEART' 189 



the verge of powers which would give ' an immense 

 breadth of existence, an abihty to execute what I now only 

 conceive.' But in the past only three discoveries seem 

 to him to be important : the existence of the soul, im- 

 mortality, the Deity. He is impatient of this poverty, 

 and would erase the superstition, ritual and ceremony, 

 built upon those ideas. He beheves in something beyond. 

 If death be extinction — he is willing to admit it possible 

 — it is nothing : ' I think immortality. I lift my mind 

 to a fourth idea.' 



Up to this point the book is the ' unflinchingly true ' 

 revelation of a human spirit which he called it, the writing 

 so simple and yet so pointed and tempered with passion 

 that there is no part which does not deeply pierce a human 

 mind. Even the fancy that he would like to have his 

 body burned on a hill-top after death acquires a sublimity 

 from the lofty melodies in which it is curiously lapped. 

 The rapture of the aspiration, had he never got beyond, 

 has wings as of eagles to bear up the heart towards noble 

 things. An unquenchable lust of the whole nature forced 

 him to question heaven and earth about hfe, and to under- 

 take a voyage bolder than Madoc's ; it has placed him 

 with several honourable men whom such a lust has brought 

 to at least as high an honour as the learning and tradition 

 which they lacked have gained for many a theologian and 

 philosopher. Sometimes, in the phrasing and cadence, 

 as in ' For the flesh, this arm of mine, the limbs of others 

 gracefully moving,' and in the idea — ' I believe in the 

 human form ' — he seems to be recalling Whitman, whose 

 ' Leaves of Grass ' delighted him. He sent a copy to his 

 father, that silent thinker. 



There follows a passage in which he finds ' nothing 

 human in nature.' The creative forces in this world of 

 men and b(\'ists and trees and stars might seem to be 

 sportive godlets. Such a view may be monstrous ; but 

 let us not forget that, like other monsters, it was earth- 

 born, and born in the open air. The sea, the earth, the 

 sun, the trees, the hills, care nothing for human life. A 



