Or, again, it was a solemn day for me to pass from the humble
tenement where Coleridge lived, at Nether Stowey, before the cloud
of sad habit had darkened his horizon, and turned him away from the
wells of poetry into the deserts of metaphysical speculation, to
find, if he could, some medicine for his tortured spirit. I walked
with a holy awe along the leafy lanes to Alfoxden, where the
beautiful house nestles in the green combe among its oaks, thinking
how here, and here, Wordsworth and Coleridge had walked together in
the glad days of youth, and planned, in obscurity and secluded joy,
the fresh and lovely lyrics of their matin-prime.
I turn, I confess, more eagerly to scenes like these than to scenes
of historical and political tradition, because there hangs for me a
glory about the scene of the conception and genesis of beautiful
imaginative work that is unlike any glory that the earth holds. The
natural joy of the youthful spirit receiving the impact of mighty
thoughts, of poignant impressions, has for me a liberty and a grace
which no historical or political associations could ever possess.
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