the thin, viewless space with shapes of unknown good, and tinge the hazy prospect with hopes and wishes and more charming fears.
What was thy delighted measure?
Still it whisper’d promised pleasure,
And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail!”
Whatever is placed beyond the reach of sense and knowledge, whatever is imperfectly discerned, the fancy pieces out at its leisure; and all but the present moment, but the present spot, passion claims for its own, and brooding over it with wings outspread, stamps it with an image of itself. Passion is lord of infinite space, and distant objects please because they border on its confines and are moulded by its touch. When I was a boy, I lived within sight of a range of lofty hills, whose blue tops blending with the setting sun had often tempted my longing eyes and wandering feet. At last I put my project in execution, and on a nearer approach, instead of glimmering air woven into fantastic shapes, found them huge lumpish heaps of discoloured earth. I learnt from this (in part) to leave “Yarrow unvisited,” and not idly to disturb a dream of good!
Distance of time has much the same effect
