Page:Shelley, a poem, with other writings (Thomson, Debell).djvu/49

Rh So much for formulas: but, of course, we are agreed that Shelley's real religious character consisted in his unquenchable love and reverence for all holiness, truth, and beauty. He believed so much more than the generality of us, he strove with so unusual an ardour to realise his belief in his life, that he is necessarily accounted an infidel and semi-maniac by the great majority.

"I never knew that time in England, when men of truest religion were not counted sectaries. . . . Certainly if ignorance and perverseness will needs be national and universal, then they who adhere to wisdom and to truth are not therefore to be blamed for being so few as to seem a sect or faction." Which are two sentences of (John Milton's) "Eikonoklastes."

Your sincere Friend, B. V.