Superstition and Revelation/History
[In the spring of 1820, Mrs Hemans first made the acquaintance of one who became afterwards a zealous and valuable friend, revered in life, and sincerely mourned in death—Bishop Heber, then Rector of Hodnet, and a frequent visitor at Bodryddan, the residence of his father-in-law, the late Dean of St Asaph, from whom also, during an intercourse of many years, Mrs Hemans at all times received much kindness and courtesy. Mr Reginald Heber was the first eminent literary character with whom she had ever familiarly associated; and she therefore entered with a peculiar freshness of feeling in to the delight inspired by his conversational powers, enhanced as they were by that gentle benignity of manner, so often the characteristic of minds of the very highest order. In a letter to a friend on this occasion, she thus describes her enjoyment:—"I am more delighted with Mr Heber than I can possibly tell you; his conversation is quite rich with anecdote, and every subject on which he speaks had been, you would imagine, the whole study of his life. In short, his society has made much the same sort of impression on my mind that the first perusal of Ivanhoe did; and was something so perfectly new to me, that I can hardly talk of any thing else. I had a very long conversation with him on the subject of the poem, which he read aloud, and commented upon as he proceeded. His manner was so entirely that of a friend, that I felt perfectly at ease, and did not hesitate to express all my own ideas and opinions on the subject, even where they did not exactly coincide with his own."
The poem here alluded to was the one entitled Superstition and Revelation, which Mrs Hemans had commenced some time before, and which was intended to embrace a very extensive range of subject. Her original design will be best given In her own words, from a letter to her friend Miss Park:—"I have been thinking a good deal of the plan we discussed together, of a poem on national superstitions. 'Our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain,' and in the course of my lucubrations on this subject, an idea occurred to me, which I hope you will not think me too presumptuous in wishing to realise. Might not a poem of some extent and importance, if the execution were at all equal to the design, be produced, from contrasting the spirit and tenets of Paganism with those of Christianity? It would contain, of course, much classical allusion; and all the graceful and sportive fictions of ancient Greece and Italy, as well as the superstitions of more barbarous climes, might be introduced to prove how little consolation they could convey in the hour of affliction—or hope, in that of death. Many scenes from history might be portrayed in illustration of this idea; and the certainty of a future state, and of the immortality of the soul, which we derive from revelation, are surely subjects for poetry of the highest class. Descriptions of those regions which are still strangers to the blessings of our religion, such as the greatest part of Africa, India, &c., might contain much that is poetical; but the subject is almost boundless, and I think of it till I am startled by its magnitude,"
Mr Heber approved highly of the plan of the work, and gave her every encouragement to proceed in it; supplying her with many admirable suggestions, both as to the illustrations which might be introduced with the happiest effect, and the sources from whence the requisite information would best be derived. But the great labour and research necessary to the development of a plan which included the superstitions of every age and country, from the earliest of all idolatries—the adoration of the sun, moon, and host of heaven, alluded to in the book of Job—to the still existing rites of the Hindoos—would have demanded a course of study too engrossing to be compatible with the many other claims, both domestic and literary, which daily pressed more and more upon the author’s time. The work was, therefore, laid aside; and the fragment now first published is all that remains of it, though the project was never distinctly abandoned.]