Volume 1

Studies of a biographer / by Leslie Stephen.

  • Leslie Stephen
Date:
[1910]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Studies of a biographer / by Leslie Stephen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    was sound. I only say that this explains how he reached it naturally and consistently. It was, as 1 have said, anything but a purely logical process, though it may be said that it was guided by an implicit logic. It really meant that he became aware of the fact that his instincts had led him into the camp of his real enemies. When he realised the fact, he stuck to his instincts, and, indeed, re¬ garded them as due to divine inspiration. They were attacked by the revolutionary party. He would find in them not only the source of happi¬ ness, but the ultimate revelation of religion and morality : The primal duties shine aloft like stars; The charities that soothe and heal and bless Are scattered at the feet of men like flowers. Wordsworth’s ultimate doctrine, one may say, is the duty of cherishing the ‘ intimations of im¬ mortality ’ which visit our infancy, to transmute sorrow into purifying and strengthening influence: and so to ‘build up our moral being.’ In his particular case, this, no doubt, meant that the boy of Hawkshead was to be the father of the man who could not be permanently held by the logical toils of Godwin. It meant, too, a certain self-corn-
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