I am not much
surprised to find Charles Kingsley's novels among them.
In the case of Dr. Holmes's books, I am very sensible of this
disenchanting effect of time and experience. "The Professor at the
Breakfast Table" and the novels came into my hands when I was very young,
in "green, unknowing youth." They seemed extraordinary, new, fantasies
of wisdom and wit; the reflections were such as surprised me by their
depth, the illustrations dazzled by their novelty and brilliance.
Probably they will still be as fortunate with young readers, and I am to
be pitied, I hope, rather than blamed, if I cannot, like the wise thrush--
"Recapture
The first fine careless rapture."
By this time, of course, one understands many of the constituents of Dr.
Holmes's genius, the social, historical, ancestral, and professional
elements thereof. Now, it is the business of criticism to search out and
illustrate these antecedents, and it seems a very odd and unlucky thing,
that the results of this knowledge when acquired, should sometimes be a
partial disenchantment. But we are not disenchanted at all by this kind
of science, when the author whom we are examining is a great natural
genius, like Shakespeare or Shelley, Keats or Scott. Such natures bring
to the world far more than they receive, as far as our means of knowing
what they receive are concerned. The wind of the spirit that is not of
this earth, nor limited by time and space, breathes through their words,
and thoughts, and deeds.
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