No More Learning

If man were a creature devoid of passion, he might have said and done
all this with quietness. But he was too enthusiastic, and too full of
hatred of all the ills he witnessed, not to scorn danger. Various
disappointments tortured, but could not tame, his soul. The more enmity
he met, the more earnestly he became attached to his peculiar views, and
hostile to those of the men who persecuted him.

He was animated to greater zeal by compassion for his fellow-creatures.
His sympathy was excited by the misery with which the world is burning.
He witnessed the sufferings of the poor, and was aware of the evils of
ignorance. He desired to induce every rich man to despoil himself of
superfluity, and to create a brotherhood of property and service, and
was ready to be the first to lay down the advantages of his birth. He
was of too uncompromising a disposition to join any party. He did not in
his youth look forward to gradual improvement: nay, in those days of
intolerance, now almost forgotten, it seemed as easy to look forward to
the sort of millennium of freedom and brotherhood which he thought the
proper state of mankind as to the present reign of moderation and
improvement. Ill-health made him believe that his race would soon be
run; that a year or two was all he had of life. He desired that these
years should be useful and illustrious. He saw, in a fervent call on his
fellow-creatures to share alike the blessings of the creation, to love
and serve each other, the noblest work that life and time permitted him.
In this spirit he composed "Queen Mab".

He was a lover of the wonderful and wild in literature, but had not
fostered these tastes at their genuine sources--the romances and
chivalry of the middle ages--but in the perusal of such German works as
were current in those days.
Under the influence of these he, at the age
of fifteen, wrote two short prose romances of slender merit. The
sentiments and language were exaggerated, the composition imitative and
poor. He wrote also a poem on the subject of Ahasuerus--being led to it
by a German fragment he picked up, dirty and torn, in Lincoln's Inn
Fields. This fell afterwards into other hands, and was considerably
altered before it was printed. Our earlier English poetry was almost
unknown to him. The love and knowledge of Nature developed by
Wordsworth--the lofty melody and mysterious beauty of Coleridge's
poetry--and the wild fantastic machinery and gorgeous scenery adopted by
Southey--composed his favourite reading; the rhythm of "Queen Mab" was
founded on that of "Thalaba", and the first few lines bear a striking
resemblance in spirit, though not in idea, to the opening of that poem.
His fertile imagination, and ear tuned to the finest sense of harmony,
preserved him from imitation. Another of his favourite books was the
poem of "Gebir" by Walter Savage Landor. From his boyhood he had a
wonderful facility of versification, which he carried into another
language; and his Latin school-verses were composed with an ease and
correctness that procured for him prizes, and caused him to be resorted
to by all his friends for help. He was, at the period of writing "Queen
Mab", a great traveller within the limits of England, Scotland, and
Ireland. His time was spent among the loveliest scenes of these
countries. Mountain and lake and forest were his home; the phenomena of
Nature were his favourite study. He loved to inquire into their causes,
and was addicted to pursuits of natural philosophy and chemistry, as far
as they could be carried on as an amusement. These tastes gave truth and
vivacity to his descriptions, and warmed his soul with that deep
admiration for the wonders of Nature which constant association with her
inspired.

He never intended to publish "Queen Mab" as it stands; but a few years
after, when printing "Alastor", he extracted a small portion which he
entitled "The Daemon of the World". In this he changed somewhat the
versification, and made other alterations scarcely to be called
improvements.