sweet art. A leaf, a flower, the star far off in the serene midnight, a look, a word, are enough for a poem. Gradually this profusion exhausts itself, the mind grows less fanciful, and poetry is rather a power than a passion. Feelings have hardened into thoughts, and the sensations of others are no longer almost as if they had been matter of experience. The world has become real, and we have become real along with it. Our own knowledge is now the material where with we work; and we have gathered a stock of recollections, bitter and pleasant, which now furnish the subjects that we once created: but these do not come at the moment's notice, like our former fantasies: we must be in the mood; and such mood comes but seldom to our worn and saddened spirits. Still, the "vision and the faculty divine" are never quite extinguished; the spiritual fire rises when all around is night, and the sad and tender emotion finds its old accustomed resource in music.
Such was now the case with Walter. The softening influence of the quiet garden, and the dreamy evening, had gradually subdued him.
