...Excursion" William Wordsworth has written a passage which suggests the magnitude of our listening power : I have seen A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract...ground, applying to his ear The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell; To which, in silence hushed, his very soul Listened intensely; and his countenance...

..."authentic tidings of invisible things" as the child, committing an empirical "error" listens to a shell: I have seen A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract...ground, applying to his ear The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell; To which, in silence hushed, his very soul Listened intensely; and his countenance...

...your own homecoming. May each breath be like a footstep bringing you back to the home of yourself. I have seen A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract...ground, applying to his ear the convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell To which, in silence hushed, his very soul Listened intensely; and his countenance...

...through the temporality of writing) to mediate between self and other, as in this example from book 4: I have seen A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract...ground, applying to his ear The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell; To which, in silence hushed, his very soul Listened intensely; and his countenance...

...To which, in silence hushed, his very soul Listened intensely, and his countenance soon Brightened with joy; for murmurings from within Were heard, —...sonorous cadences! whereby, To his belief, the Monitor expressed Mysterious union with its native Sea. — Even such a Shell the Universe itself Is to the...

...birth-place moan, as moans the ocean-shell. [1.36] Such a shell as Wordsworth has beautifully described. "I have seen A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract...To which, in silence hush'd, his very soul Listen'd intently, and his countenance soon Brightened with joy; for murmurings from within Were heard — sonorous...