Fear and hope are alike
beneath it. It asks nothing. There is somewhat low even in hope. We are
then in vision. There is nothing that can be called gratitude, nor
properly joy. The soul is raised over passion. It seeth identity and
eternal causation. It is a perceiving that Truth and Right are. Hence it
becomes a Tranquillity out of the knowing that all things go well. Vast
spaces of nature; the Atlantic Ocean, the South Sea; vast intervals of
time, years, centuries, are of no account. This which I think and feel
underlay that former state of life and circumstances, as it does
underlie my present and will always all circumstances, and what is
called life and what is called death.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: From Essays, First Series, 1841; the second half of the
essay has here been omitted.]
EARLY EDUCATION AT HERNE HILL[2]
JOHN RUSKIN
When I was about four years old my father found himself able to buy the
lease of a house on Herne Hill, a rustic eminence four miles south of
the "Standard in Cornhill"; of which the leafy seclusion remains, in all
essential points of character, unchanged to this day: certain Gothic
splendours, lately indulged in by our wealthier neighbours, being the
only serious innovations; and these are so graciously concealed by the
fine trees of their grounds, that the passing viator remains unappalled
by them; and I can still walk up and down the piece of road between the
Fox tavern and the Herne Hill station, imagining myself four years old.
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