And cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home!_"

To write, the soul chooses, and God stands ever by to help. That is why
great work always impresses us as inspired. God did it. It is God who
whispers the deathless thought and phrase: the subtler collocations
are divine.

Take the word _star_. To the child it means a bright point that glitters
and twinkles in the sky, and sets him saying an old nursery rhyme. To
the youth or maiden it suggests love, romance, a summer eve, or a frosty
walk under the friendly winter sky. To the rhetorician it suggests a
figure of speech--the star of hope. To the mariner it suggests guidance
and the homeward port. To the astronomer it means the world in which he
lives. His life is centred in that star. To the poet it means all these
things and many more. For the poet is the one who, in his own heart,
holds all the meanings that words hold for the race. Read again the
lines just quoted, and think of Wordsworth's outlook on the star!

The dictionary definition of a word can seldom be the real one, nor does
it reveal the deeper sense it has. It blazes a path for the
understanding, but individual thought must follow. Take the words _time,
friendship, work, play, heroism_. It took Carlyle to define Time for us.
Emerson has defined Friendship. Let the lights and shadows of the
thought of Carlyle and Emerson play upon these words, they are at once
removed from mechanical definition, and we dimly perceive that each word
is larger than the outreach of the thought of man. Another generation