at the
omission of all reference to books which I know marked most striking
periods in Narcissus' spiritual life: _Sartor Resartus_, Thoreau's
_Walden_, for example, Mr. Pater's _Marius the Epicurean_, and
Browning's _Dramatis Personae_. As I reflected, however, I came to the
conclusion that such omission was but justice to his own individuality,
for none of these books had created an _initiative_ in Narcissus'
thought, but rather come, as, after all, I suppose they come to most of
us, as great confirming expressions of states of mind at which he had
already arrived, though, as it were, but by moonlight. In them was the
sunrise bringing all into clear sight and sure knowledge.

It would seem, indeed, that the growth of the soul in the higher spirits
of our race is analogous to the growth of a child in the womb, in this
respect: that in each case the whole gamut of earlier types is run
through, before the ultimate form is attained in which it is decreed
that the particular vital energy shall culminate. And, as in the
physical world the various 'halts,' so to say, of the progress are
illustrated by the co-existence and continual succession of those
earlier types; so in the world of mind, at every point of spiritual
evolution, a man may meet with an historical individuality who is a
concrete embodiment of the particular state to which he has just
attained. This, of course, was what Goethe meant when he referred to
mysticism as being a frame of mind which one could experience all round
and then leave behind. To quote Whitman, in another connection:--

'We but level that lift
To pass and continue beyond.'

But an individuality must 'crystallise out' somewhere, and its final
value will not so much depend on the number of states it has passed
through, as how it has lived each on the way, with what depth of
conviction and force of sincerity. For a modern young man to thus
experience all round, and pass, and continue beyond where such great
ones as St. Bernard, Pascal, and Swedenborg, have anchored their starry
souls to shine thence upon men for all time, is no uncommon thing. It is
more the rule than the exception: but one would hardly say that in going
further they have gone higher, or ended greater. The footpath of pioneer
individualism must inevitably become the highway of the race. Every
American is not a Columbus.

There are two ways in which we may live our spiritual progress: as
critics, or poets. Most men live