October 1824

" By books," says the gentle Shepherd, " I crack with kings." 'Tis a godlike invention which thus annihilates to all purposes of mental improvement both space and time, and suffers the solitary scholar by these silent interpreters to converse with minds who illuminated the be- ginnings of the world. My memory goes back to a past immortality, and I almost realize the perfection of a spiritual intercourse which gains all the good, and lacks all the inconvenience and disgust of close society of imperfect beings. We are then likest to the image of God, for in this grateful rapidity of thought a thousand years become one day. Providence has equi- tably distributed the highest order of minds along successive periods of time, and not clus- tered them all into one fortunate age. Hereby their potent influence enlightens the dark and cheers the gloom of barbarism. But an evil con- sequence ensues, that they are deprived of that splendid enjoyment which their equal society would afford them. But, as they everywhere rise above the sinking mass in which they stand, the eye of the distant historian associates them together, as in a distant prospect the vast in- tervening lowlands vanish and the mountains tower above them, seeming to come together in solemn and sublime society.