verses as a striving of mind and struggles after the intense and
vivid, are a fair promise of better things."

The same observation might be made in the intense application of his
intellectual powers in search of truth, at the time he called himself an
infidel; in this struggle of mind was the "fair promise of better
things." It was the preparation necessary for such a mind; the breaking
up and tilling of the soil for the successful germination of the seeds
of truth.

The sleeping powers of thought were roused and excited into action.

Perhaps this may be considered, as entering too early into the history
of his mind in boyhood: to this I reply, that the entire man so to
speak, is to be seen even in the cradle of the child. [10]

The serious may be startled at the thought of a young man passing
through such an ordeal; but with him it was the exercise of his
strength, in order that he might "fight the good fight," and conquer for
that truth which is permanent, and is the light and the life of every
one who comes into the world, and who is in earnest search of it.

In his sixteenth year he composed the allegory of "Real and Imaginary
Time," first published in the Sibylline Leaves, having been accidentally
omitted in the Juvenile Poems,--

"On the wide level of a mountain's head,
(I knew not where, but 'twas some fairy place)
Their pinions, ostrich-like, for sails outspread,
Two lovely children run an endless race,