NPPF Commentary Line 230, P. 164

[Terrance]

"Vincent A. Maeder" wrote:
> 
> Line 230: a domestic ghost
> 
> Line 230 is the last line of the 8th stanza of canto two.  Mr. Shade has
> just completed an argument in the seventh stanza that if, before we came
> to life, we tried to imagine life we would have dismissed such musings
> as mere nonsense. 

Is that right? I don't think that is it at all. That is not what he
says, at all. 

he says that 

IF prior to life we had been able to imagine life, 
what mad, impossible, unutterably weird, 
wonderful nonsense it Might have appeared!

He doesn't say we would have dismissed it at mere nonsense. And I don't
think that he implies that we Would have. 

The stanza that  begins 

so why join in the vulgar laughter? 

doesn't make make that argument either.