d Churches and practical Symbols of the Noble: nay
quit not the burnt ruins of them while you find there is still gold
to be dug there. But, on the whole, do not think you can, by logical
alchemy, distil astral spirits from them; or if you could, that said
astral spirits, or defunct logical phantasms, could serve you in
anything. What the light of your mind, which is the direct inspiration
of the Almighty, pronounces incredible,--that, in God's name, leave
uncredited; at your peril do not try believing that. No subtlest
hocus-pocus of "reason" versus "understanding" will avail for that
feat;--and it is terribly perilous to try it in these provinces!

The truth is, I now see, Coleridge's talk and speculation was the emblem
of himself: in it as in him, a ray of heavenly inspiration struggled, in
a tragically ineffectual degree, with the weakness of flesh and blood.
He says once, he "had skirted the howling deserts of Infidelity;" this
was evident enough: but he had not had the courage, in defiance of pain
and terror, to press resolutely across said deserts to the new firm
lands of Faith beyond; he preferred to create logical fata-morganas for
himself on this hither side, and laboriously solace himself with these.

To the man himself Nature had given, in high measure, the seeds of
a noble endowment; and to unfold it had been forbidden him. A subtle
lynx-eyed intellect, tremulous pious sensibility to all good and all
beautiful; truly a ray of empyrean light;--but embedded in such weak
laxity of character, in such indolences and esuriences as had made
strange work with it. Once more, the tragic story of a high endowment
with an insufficient will. An eye to discern the divineness of the
Heaven's spendors and lightnings, the insatiable wish to revel in their
godlike radiances and brilliances; but no heart to front the scathing
terrors of them, which is the first condition of your conquering an
abiding place there. The courage necessary for him, above all things,
had been denied this man. His life, with such ray of the empyrean in it,
was great and terrible to him; and he had not valiantly grappled with
it, he had fled from it; sought refuge in vague daydreams, hollow
compromises, in opium, in theosophic metaphysics. Harsh pain, danger,
necessity, slavish harnessed toil, were of all things abhorrent to him.
And so the empyrean element, lying smothered under the terrene, and
yet inextinguishable there, made sad writhings. For pa