course they are right in denouncing the inference so often
drawn--and here lay Shelley's fundamental fallacy--that the
required tiny change depends on an effort of the will, and that
the will only does not make the effort because feeling is
perverted and intelligence dimmed by convention traditions,
prejudices, and superstitions. It is certain, for one thing,
that will only plays a small part in our nature, and that by
themselves acts of will cannot make the world perfect. Most
men are helped to this lesson by observation of themselves;
they see that their high resolves are ineffective because their
characters are mixed. Shelley never learnt this. He saw,
indeed, that his efforts were futile even mischievous; but,
being certain, and rightly, of the nobility of his aims, he
could never see that he had acted wrongly, that he ought to
have calculated the results of his actions more reasonably.
Ever thwarted, and never nearer the happiness he desired for
himself and others, he did not, like ordinary men attain a
juster notion of the relation between good and ill in himself
and in the world; he lapsed into a plaintive bewildered
melancholy, translating the inexplicable conflict of right and
wrong into the transcendental view that

"Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity."

But his failure is the world's gain, for all that is best in
his poetry is this expression of frustrated hope. He has
indeed, when he is moved simply by public passion, some
wonderful trumpet-notes; what hate and indignation can do, he
sometimes does. And his rapturous dreams of freedom can stir