. For such men there lie properly two courses open. The
lower, yet still an estimable class, take up with worn-out Symbols of
the Godlike; keep trimming and trucking between these and Hypocrisy,
purblindly enough, miserably enough. A numerous intermediate class end
in Denial; and form a theory that there is no theory; that nothing is
certain in the world, except this fact of Pleasure being pleasant; so
they try to realise what trifling modicum of Pleasure they can come
at, and to live contented therewith, winking hard. Of these we speak
not here; but only of the second nobler class, who also have dared to
say No, and cannot yet say Yea; but feel that in the No they dwell as
in a Golgotha, where life enters not, where peace is not appointed
them. Hard, for most part, is the fate of such men; the harder the
nobler they are. In dim forecastings, wrestles within them the "Divine
Idea of the World," yet will nowhere visibly reveal itself. They have
to realise a Worship for themselves, or live unworshipping. The
Godlike has vanished from the world; and they, by the strong cry of
their soul's agony, like true wonder-workers, must again evoke its
presence. This miracle is their appointed task; which they must
accomplish, or die wretchedly: this miracle has been accomplished by
such; but not in our land; our land yet knows not of it. Behold a
Byron, in melodious tones, "cursing his day:" he mistakes earthborn
passionate Desire for heaven-inspired Freewill; without heavenly
loadstar, rushes madly into the dance of meteoric lights that hover on
the mad Mahlstrom; and goes down among its eddies. Hear a Shelley
filling the earth with inarticulate wail; like the infinite,
inarticulate grief and weeping of forsaken infants. A noble Friedrich
Schlegel, stupefied in that fearful loneliness, as of a silenced
battle-field, flies back to Catholicism; as a child might to its slain
mother's bosom, and cling there. In lower regions, how many a poor
Hazlitt must wander on God's verdant earth, like the Unblest on
burning deserts; passionately dig wells, and draw up only the dry
quicksand; believe that he is seeking Truth, yet only wrestle among
endless Sophisms, doing desperate battle as with spectre-hosts; and
die and make no sign!

To the better order of such minds any mad joy of Denial has long since
ceased: the problem is not now to deny, but to ascertain and perform.
Once in destroying the False, there was a certain inspiration; but now
t