So there are Charles V, and Luther; the expansion of trade
resulting from the Spanish and Portuguese discoveries, and the
Elizabethan literature; the Puritans seeking spiritual El Dorados while
so much valor and thought were spent in finding mineral ones. It seems
to be the purpose of God that a certain amount of genius shall go to
each generation, particular quantities being represented by individuals,
and while no _one_ is complete in himself, all collectively make up a
whole ideal figure of a man. Nature is not like certain varieties of the
apple that cannot bear two years in succession. It is only that her
expansions are uniform in all directions, that in every age she
completes her circle, and like a tree adds a ring to her growth be it
thinner or thicker.
Every man is conscious that he leads two lives, the one trivial and
ordinary, the other sacred and recluse; the one which he carries to the
dinner-table and to his daily work, which grows old with his body and
dies with it, the other that which is made up of the few inspiring
moments of his higher aspiration and attainment, and in which his youth
survives for him, his dreams, his unquenchable longings for something
nobler than success. It is this life which the poets nourish for him,
and sustain with their immortalizing nectar. Through them he feels once
more the white innocence of his youth.
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