III. SWEDENBORG; OR, THE MYSTIC.
Among eminent persons, those who are most dear to men are not the class
which the economists call producers; they have nothing in their hands;
they have not cultivated corn, nor made bread; they have not led out
a colony, nor invented a loom. A higher class, in the estimation and
love of this city-building, market-going race of mankind, are the
poets, who, from the intellectual kingdom, feed the thought and
imagination with ideas and pictures which raise men out of the world
of corn and money, and console them for the shortcomings of the day,
and the meannesses of labor and traffic. Then, also, the philosopher
has his value, who flatters the intellect of this laborer, by engaging
him with subtleties which instruct him in new faculties. Others may
build cities; he is to understand them, and keep them in awe. But there
is a class who lead us into another region,--the world of morals, or
of will. What is singular about this region of thought, is, its claim.
Wherever the sentiment of right comes in, it takes precedence of
everything else. For other things, I make poetry of them; but the moral
sentiment makes poetry of me.
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