Richard Green Moulton

“ Curiosity plays around even the topic of man's fall and redemption—suppose: beings near enough for sympathy yet never fallen and never redeemed; no struggle, but no future—observe they are usually presented as superior in faculties yet lower in fate and moral dignity. ”

“ As a principle of criticism: imagination is an end in itself, and the intrinsic interest of the White Lady as apiece of art-creation must come before all others—at the same time it is a part of the functions of criticism to analyse the ideas and interests that underlie and are embodied in such a portraiture. [For the whole subject, compare the Introduction to the Edition of 1830, especially paragraphs 15-20.]
Ideas and Interests crystallised into the conception
The central interest is creative curiosity: imagination as a mode of speculation, abstract fancies conveyed in plastic form. ”

“ Yet with all his limitations man becomes lord over the brute creation—suggests: so man may by courage mysteriously tame the supernatural spirits, and make them do his will.
(c) This conquest of the lower creation is achieved by man's power to find out the laws of each order—suggests: these spiritual beings have their secret laws, through the knowledge of which they can be ruled: the whole Rosicrucian philosophy was an attempt to discover such secrets—with this connect the idea of a spell: an utterance mystically connected with the (unknown) laws of some order of spirits. ”