Nature may become a stimulus as inspiring as these; may enable us
"to see into the life of things"--as far, perhaps, as beatific
vision or prophetic rapture can attain. Assertions so impalpable as
these must justify themselves by subjective evidence. He who claims
to give a message must satisfy us that he has himself received it;
and, inasmuch as transcendent things are in themselves inexpressible,
he must convey to us in hints and figures the conviction which we
need. Prayer may bring the spiritual world near to us; but when the
eyes of the kneeling Dominic seem to say "To son venuto a questo,"
their look must persuade us that the life of worship has indeed
attained the reward of vision. Art, too, may be inspired; but the
artist, in whatever field he works, must have "such a mastery of his
mystery" that the fabric of his imagination stands visible in its
own light before our eyes,--

Seeing it is built
Of music; therefore never built at all,
And, therefore, built for ever.

Love may open heaven; but when the lover would invite us "thither,
where are the eyes of Beatrice," he must make us feel that his
individual passion is indeed part and parcel of that love "which
moves the sun and the other stars."

And so also with Wordsworth. Unless the words which describe the
intense and sympathetic gaze with which he contemplates Nature
convince us of the reality of "the light which never was on sea or
land,"--of the "Presence which disturbs him with the joy of elevated
thoughts,"--of the authentic vision of those hours