. .
. The poet who, surpassing the limit of all our conceptions, has
penetrated with burning spiritual vision the past and present, and
consequently the future, has now subdued new regions under his limitless
talent, but what he will accomplish therein can be predicted by no human
being. His procedure, however, we can nevertheless in a measure more
closely determine. He adheres to the letter of the Biblical tradition,
for he allows the first pair of human beings to exchange their original
purity and innocence for a guilt mysterious in its origin; the
punishment which is its consequence descending upon all posterity. The
monstrous burden of such an event he lays upon the shoulders of Cain as
the representative of a wretched humanity, plunged for no fault of its
own into the depths of misery.
"To this primitive son of man, bowed down and heavily burdened, death,
which as yet he has not seen, is an especial trouble; and although he
may desire the end of his present distress, it seems still more hateful
to exchange it for a condition altogether unknown.
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