The sudden charm, which
accidents of light and shade, which moonlight or sunset diffused over a
known and familiar landscape, appeared to represent the practicability
of combining both. These are the poetry of nature. The thought
suggested itself--(to which of us I do not recollect)--that a series of
poems might be composed of two sorts. In the one, the agents and
incidents were to be, in part at least, supernatural; and the excellence
aimed at was to consist in the interesting of the affections by the
dramatic truth of such emotions, as would naturally accompany such
situations, supposing them real. And real in this sense they have been
to every human being who, from whatever source of delusion, has at any
time believed himself under supernatural agency. For the second class,
subjects were to be chosen from ordinary life; the characters and
incidents were to be such as will be found in every village and its
vicinity, where there is a meditative and feeling mind to seek after
them, or to notice them, when they present themselves.
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