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their infancy. That they had been at once celestially and ludicrously minded was more than they could be expected to allow. Nor, in truth, was Wordsworth the man to compel them, for here his vision extended no farther than theirs. He had scarcely any sense of the ludicrous, and certainly no happy familiar understanding of it: while in philosophy (if the truth must be told) he was something of an amateur and very much of the maiden aunt. Now in dealing with childish things, as in dealing with love or things divine, there are two stages of initiation; of which the first, which is all awe and seriousness, has a knack of being taken for the higher; whereas it is in truth rawer and more elementary than the insight which, having taught you to adore, permits you also to smile; as a good husband may (because the under-
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