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JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
loved. This is the lesson of Tennyson's Palace of Art, where the 
soul sits in "God-like isolation/' 
" Holding no form of creed, 
But contemplating all," 
until it falls inevitably and deeply from its "lordly pleasure-house." 
This renunciation of what is agreeable and attractive — the choice 
of a good loftier though more remote, in preference to one nearer 
at hand, but lower in kind or in degree — implies no sourness nor 
moroseness of temper, nor does it involve the loss of any real 
happiness ; for our real happiness consists, not in what we have, 
but in what we are. This is the truth which "our sage and serious 
poet" Wordsworth tried to teach three-quarters of a century ago, 
which in his writings he teaches still — vainly then, and vainly, it 
seems, now ; for after more than seventy years of what is called 
progress, these verses remain as true as when they were first 
written — 
" 0 friend ! I know not which way I must look 
For comfort, being, as I am, opprest, 
To think that now our life is only drest 
For show ; mean handy work of craftsman, cook, 
Or groom ! We must run glittering like a brook 
In the open sunshine, or we are unblest ; 
The wealthiest man among us is the best : 
No grandeur now in Nature or in book 
Delights us. Rapine, avarice, expense, 
This is idolatry ; and these we adore ; 
Plain living and high thinking are no more : 
The homely beauty of the good old cause 
Is gone ; our peace, our fearful innocence, 
And pure religion, breathing household laws." 
