influence is only salutary so long as she is herself, so to say, in
keeping with man; that when her operations reach that degree of
habitual energy and splendour at which our love for her passes into
fascination and our admiration into bewilderment, then the fierce
and irregular stimulus consorts no longer with the growth of a
temperate virtue.

The wind, the tempest roaring high,
The tumult of a tropic sky,
Might well be dangerous food
For him, a youth to whom was given
So much of earth, so much of heaven,
And such impetuous blood.

And a contrasting touch recalls the healing power of those gentle
and familiar presences which came to Ruth in her stormy madness with
visitations of momentary calm.

Yet sometimes milder hours she knew,
Nor wanted sun, nor rain, nor dew,
Nor pastimes of the May;
They all were with her in her cell;
And a wild brook with cheerful knell
Did o'er the pebbles play.

I will give one other instance of this subtle method of dealing with
the contrasts in Nature. It is from the poem entitled "_Lines left
upon a Seat in a Yew-Tree which stands near the Lake of Esthwaite,
on a desolate part of the Shore, commanding a beautiful Prospect_."
This seat was once the haunt of a lonely, a disappointed, an