And in the history of the world, the
imagination has, I fancy, been quite as often right as the
intellect, and the things in which it has been right, have been of
much the greater importance. Only, unhappily, wherever Pegasus has
shown the way through a bog the pack-horse which follows gets the
praise of crossing it; while the blunders with which the pack-horse
is burdened, are, the moment each is discovered, by the plodding
leaders of the pair transferred to the space betwixt the wings of
Pegasus, without regard to the beauty of his feathers. The laird
was therefore unable to speak with authority respecting such
things, and was not particularly anxious to influence the mind of
his son concerning them. Happily, in those days the platitudes and
weary vulgarities of what they call SPIRITUALISM, had not been
heard of in those quarters, and the soft light of imagination yet
lingered about the borders of that wide region of mingled false and
true, commonly called Superstition. It seems to me the most killing
poison to the imagination must be a strong course of "spiritualism."
For myself, I am not so set upon entering the unknown, as,
instead of encouraging what holy visitations faith, not in the
spiritual or the immortal, but in the living God, may bring, to
creep through the sewers of it to get in. I care not to encounter
its mud-larkes, and lovers of garbage, its thieves, impostors,
liars, and canaille, in general.
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