Quote #164

From my early reading of Faery Tales, & Genii &c &c - my mind had been habituated to the Vast - & I never regarded my senses in any way as the criteria of my belief. I regulated all my creeds by my conceptions not by my sight - even at that age. Should children be permitted to read Romances, & Relations of Giants & Magicians, & Genii? - I know all that has been said against it; but I have formed my faith in the affirmative. - I know no other way of giving the mind a love of 'the Great,' & 'the Whole.' - Those who have been led by the same truths step by step thro' the constant testimony of their senses, seem to me to want a sense which I possess - They contemplate nothing but parts - and are parts are necessarily little - and the Universe to them is but a mass of little things.

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