JUNE 133 



room and was there alone " to see the gold and state and 

 carved imagery," but wearied of it because it was dead, 

 and had no motion. A little afterwards he saw it " full 

 of lords and ladies and music and dancing," and now 

 pleasure took the place of tediousness, and he perceived, 

 long after, that " men and women are, when well under- 

 stood, a principal part of our true felicity." Once again, 

 " in a lowering and sad evening, being alone in the field, 

 when all things were dead quiet," he had the same weari- 

 ness, nay, even horror. " I was a weak and little child, 

 and had forgotten there was a man alive in the earth." 

 Nevertheless, hope and expectation came to him and com- 

 forted him, and taught him " that he was concerned in all 

 the world." That he was " concerned in all the world " 

 was the great source of comfort and joy which he found 

 in life, and of that joy which his book pours out for us. 

 Not only did he see that he was concerned in all the 

 world, but that river and corn and herb and sand were so 

 concerned. God, he says, " knoweth infinite excellen- 

 cies " in each of these things; "He seeth how it relateth 

 to angels and men." In this he anticipated Blake's 

 Auguries of Innocence. He seems to see the patterns 

 which all living things are for ever weaving. He would 

 have men strive after this divine knowledge of things and 

 of their place in the universe. 



He came to believe that " all other creatures were such 

 that God was Himself in their creation, that is, Almighty 

 Power wholly exerted; and that every creature is indeed 

 as it seemed in my infancy, not as it is commonly 

 apprehended." 



Yet he feels the superiority of man's soul to the things 

 which it apprehends : " One soul in the immensity of its 



