So I apprehend many of the Psalms to be
Davidical
only, not
David's own compositions.
David's own compositions.
Coleridge - Table Talk
, "that is enough.
I shall get angry.
Away!
" Still the ghost
moved not. "By ----," ejaculated A. , "if you do not in three minutes go
away, I'll shoot you. " He waited the time, deliberately levelled the
pistol, fired, and, with a scream at the immobility of the figure, became
convulsed, and afterwards died. The very instant he believed it _to be_ a
ghost, his human nature fell before it.
[Footnote 1:
See this point suggested and reasoned with extraordinary subtlety in the
third essay (marked C), in the Appendix to the Statesman's Manual, Or first
Lay Sermon, p. 19, &c. One beautiful paragraph I will venture to quote:--
"Not only may we expect that men of strong religious feelings, but little
religious knowledge, will occasionally be tempted to regard such
occurrences as supernatural visitations; but it ought not to surprise us if
such dreams should sometimes be confirmed by the event, as though they had
actually possessed a character of divination. For who shall decide how far
a perfect reminiscence of past experiences (of many, perhaps, that had
escaped our reflex consciousness at the time)--who shall determine to what
extent this reproductive imagination, unsophisticated by the will, and
undistracted by intrusions from the senses, may or may not be concentred
and sublimed into foresight and presentiment? There would be nothing herein
either to foster superstition on the one hand, or to justify contemptuous
disbelief on the other. Incredulity is but Credulity seen from behind,
bowing and nodding assent to the Habitual and the Fashionable"-ED. ]
[Footnote 2: 2 Kings, iii. 15. , and see 1 Sam. x. 5. --ED. ]
* * * * *
[What follows in the text within commas was written about this time, and
communicated to me by Mr. Justice Coleridge. --ED. ]
"Last Thursday my uncle, S. T. C. , dined with us, and several men came to
meet him. I have heard him more brilliant, but he was very fine, and
delighted every one very much. It is impossible to carry off, or commit to
paper, his long trains of argument; indeed, it is not always possible to
understand them, he lays the foundation so deep, and views every question
in so original a manner. Nothing can be finer than the principles which he
lays down in morals and religion. His deep study of Scripture is very
astonishing; the rest of the party were but as children in his hands, not
merely in general views of theology, but in nice verbal criticism. He
thinks it clear that St. Paul did not write the Epistle to the Hebrews, but
that it must have been the work of some Alexandrian Greek, and he thinks
Apollos. It seemed to him a desirable thing for Christianity that it should
have been written by some other person than St. Paul; because, its
inspiration being unquestioned, it added another independent teacher and
expounder of the faith.
"We fell upon ghosts, and he exposed many of the stories physically and
metaphysically. He seemed to think it impossible that you should really see
with the bodily eye what was impalpable, unless it were a shadow; and if
what you fancied you saw with the bodily eye was in fact only an impression
on the imagination, then you were seeing something _out of your senses_,
and your testimony was full of uncertainty. He observed how uniformly, in
all the best-attested stories of spectres, the appearance might be
accounted for from the disturbed state of the mind or body of the seer, as
in the instances of Dion and Brutus. Upon some one's saying that he
_wished_ to believe these stories true, thinking that they constituted a
useful subsidiary testimony of another state of existence, Mr. C. differed,
and said, he thought it a dangerous testimony, and one not wanted: it was
Saul, with the Scriptures and the Prophet before him, calling upon the
witch of Endor to certify him of the truth! He explained very ingeniously,
yet very naturally, what has often startled people in ghost stories--such
as Lord Lyttelton's--namely, that when a real person has appeared, habited
like the phantom, the ghost-seer has immediately seen two, the real man and
the phantom. He said that such must be the case. The man under the morbid
delusion sees with the eye of the imagination, and sees with the bodily eye
too; if no one were really present, he would see the spectre with one, and
the bed-curtains with the other. When, therefore, a real person comes, he
sees the real man as he would have seen any one else in the same place, and
he sees the spectre not a whit the less: being perceptible by different
powers of vision, so to say, the appearances do not interfere with each
other.
"He told us the following story of the Phantom Portrait [1]:--
"A stranger came recommended to a merchant's house at Lubeck. He was
hospitably received; but, the house being full, he was lodged at night in
an apartment handsomely furnished, but not often used. There was nothing
that struck him particularly in the room when left alone, till he happened
to cast his eyes on a picture, which immediately arrested his attention. It
was a single head; but there was something so uncommon, so frightful and
unearthly, in its expression, though by no means ugly, that he found
himself irresistibly attracted to look at it. In fact, he could not tear
himself from the fascination of this portrait, till his imagination was
filled by it, and his rest broken. He retired to bed, dreamed, and awoke
from time to time with the head glaring on him. In the morning, his host
saw by his looks that he had slept ill, and inquired the cause, which was
told. The master of the house was much vexed, and said that the picture
ought to have been removed, that it was an oversight, and that it always
was removed when the chamber was used. The picture, he said, was, indeed,
terrible to every one; but it was so fine, and had come into the family in
so curious a way, that he could not make up his mind to part with it, or to
destroy it. The story of it was this:--'My father,' said he, 'was at
Hamburgh on business, and, whilst dining at a coffee-house, he observed a
young man of a remarkable appearance enter, seat himself alone in a corner,
and commence a solitary meal. His countenance bespoke the extreme of mental
distress, and every now and then he turned his head quickly round, as if he
heard something, then shudder, grow pale, and go on with his meal after an
effort as before. My father saw this same man at the same place for two or
three successive days; and at length became so much interested about him,
that he spoke to him. The address was not repulsed, and the stranger seemed
to find some comfort in the tone of sympathy and kindness which my father
used. He was an Italian, well informed, poor but not destitute, and living
economically upon the profits of his art as a painter. Their intimacy
increased; and at length the Italian, seeing my father's involuntary
emotion at his convulsive turnings and shuddering, which continued as
formerly, interrupting their conversation from time to time, told him his
story. He was a native of Rome, and had lived in some familiarity with, and
been much patronized by, a young nobleman; but upon some slight occasion
they had fallen out, and his patron, besides using many reproachful
expressions, had struck him. The painter brooded over the disgrace of the
blow. He could not challenge the nobleman, on account of his rank; he
therefore watched for an opportunity, and assassinated him. Of course he
fled from his country, and finally had reached Hamburgh. He had not,
however, passed many weeks from the night of the murder, before, one day,
in the crowded street, he heard his name called by a voice familiar to him:
he turned short round, and saw the face of his victim looking at him with a
fixed eye. From that moment he had no peace: at all hours, in all places,
and amidst all companies, however engaged he might be, he heard the voice,
and could never help looking round; and, whenever he so looked round, he
always encountered the same face staring close upon him. At last, in a mood
of desperation, he had fixed himself face to face, and eye to eye, and
deliberately drawn the phantom visage as it glared upon him; and _this_ was
the picture so drawn. The Italian said he had struggled long, but life was
a burden which he could now no longer bear; and he was resolved, when he
had made money enough to return to Rome, to surrender himself to justice,
and expiate his crime on the scaffold. He gave the finished picture to my
father, in return for the kindness which he had shown to him. '"
[Footnote 1:
This is the story which Mr. Washington Irving has dressed up very prettily
in the first volume of his "Tales of a Traveller," pp. 84-119. ; professing
in his preface that he could not remember whence he had derived the
anecdote. --ED. ]
* * * * *
I have no doubt that the Jews believed generally in a future state,
independently of the Mosaic law. The story of the witch of Endor is a proof
of it. What we translate "_witch_," or "familiar spirit," is, in the
Hebrew, Ob, that is, a bottle or bladder, and means a person whose belly is
swelled like a leathern bottle by divine inflation. In the Greek it is
[Greek: engastrimuthos], a ventriloquist. The text (1 Sam. ch. xxviii. ) is
a simple record of the facts, the solution of which the sacred historian
leaves to the reader. I take it to have been a trick of ventriloquism, got
up by the courtiers and friends of Saul, to prevent him, if possible, from
hazarding an engagement with an army despondent and oppressed with bodings
of defeat. Saul is not said to have seen Samuel; the woman only pretends to
see him. And then what does this Samuel do? He merely repeats the prophecy
known to all Israel, which the true Samuel had uttered some years before.
Read Captain Lyon's account of the scene in the cabin with the Esquimaux
bladder, or conjurer; it is impossible not to be reminded of the witch of
Endor. I recommend you also to look at Webster's admirable treatise on
Witchcraft.
* * * * *
The pet texts of a Socinian are quite enough for his confutation with acute
thinkers. If Christ had been a mere man, it would have been ridiculous in
_him_ to call himself "the Son of man;" but being God and man, it then
became, in his own assumption of it, a peculiar and mysterious title. So,
if Christ had been a mere man, his saying, "My Father is greater than I,"
(John, xv. 28. ) would have been as unmeaning. It would be laughable enough,
for example, to hear me say, "My 'Remorse' succeeded, indeed, but
Shakspeare is a greater dramatist than I. " But how immeasurably more
foolish, more monstrous, would it not be for a _man_, however honest, good,
or wise, to say, "But Jehovah is greater than I! "
_May_ 8. 1824.
PLATO AND XENOPHON. --RELIGIONS OF THE GREEKS. --EGYPTIAN ANTIQUITIES. --
MILTON. --VIRGIL.
Plato's works are logical exercises for the mind. Little that is positive
is advanced in them. Socrates may be fairly represented by Plato in the
more moral parts; but in all the metaphysical disquisitions it is
Pythagoras. Xenophon's representation of his master is quite different. [1]
[Footnote 1: See p. 9. n. --ED. ]
* * * * *
Observe the remarkable contrast between the religion of the tragic and
other poets of Greece. The former are always opposed in heart to the
popular divinities. In fact, there are the popular, the sacerdotal, and the
mysterious religions of Greece, represented roughly by Homer, Pindar, and
AEschylus. The ancients had no notion of a _fall_ of man, though they had of
his gradual degeneracy. Prometheus, in the old mythus, and for the most
part in AEschylus, is the Redeemer and the Devil jumbled together.
* * * * *
I cannot say I expect much from mere Egyptian antiquities. Almost every
thing really, that is, intellectually, great in that country seems to me of
Grecian origin.
* * * * *
I think nothing can be added to Milton's definition or rule of poetry,--
that it ought to be simple, sensuous, and impassioned; that is to say,
single in conception, abounding in sensible images, and informing them all
with the spirit of the mind.
Milton's Latin style is, I think, better and easier than his English. His
style, in prose, is quite as characteristic of him as a philosophic
republican, as Cowley's is of _him_ as a first-rate gentleman.
If you take from Virgil his diction and metre, what do you leave him?
* * * * *
_June_ 2. 1824.
CRANVILLE PENN AND THE DELUGE. --RAINBOW.
I confess I have small patience with Mr. Granville Penn's book against
Professor Buckland. Science will be superseded, if every phenomenon is to
be referred in this manner to an actual miracle. I think it absurd to
attribute so much to the Deluge. An inundation, which left an olive-tree
standing, and bore up the ark peacefully on its bosom, could scarcely have
been the sole cause of the rents and dislocations observable on the face of
the earth. How could the tropical animals, which have been discovered in
England and in Russia in a perfectly natural state, have been transported
thither by such a flood? Those animals must evidently have been natives of
the countries in which they have been found. The climates must have been
altered. Assume a sudden evaporation upon the retiring of the Deluge to
have caused an intense cold, the solar heat might not be sufficient
afterwards to overcome it. I do not think that the polar cold is adequately
explained by mere comparative distance from the sun.
* * * * *
You will observe, that there is no mention of rain previously to the
Deluge. Hence it may be inferred, that the rainbow was exhibited for the
first time after God's covenant with Noah. However, I only suggest this.
* * * * *
The Earth with its scarred face is the symbol of the Past; the Air and
Heaven, of Futurity.
_June_ 5. 1824.
ENGLISH AND GREEK DANCING. --GREEK ACOUSTICS.
The fondness for dancing in English women is the reaction of their reserved
manners. It is the only way in which they can throw themselves forth in
natural liberty. We have no adequate conception of the perfection of the
ancient tragic dance. The pleasure which the Greeks received from it had
for its basis Difference and the more unfit the vehicle, the more lively
was the curiosity and intense the delight at seeing the difficulty
overcome.
* * * * *
The ancients certainly seem to have understood some principles in acoustics
which we have lost, or, at least, they applied them better. They contrived
to convey the voice distinctly in their huge theatres by means of pipes,
which created no echo or confusion. Our theatres--Drury Lane and Covent
Garden--are fit for nothing: they are too large for acting, and too small
for a bull-fight.
* * * * *
_June_ 7. 1824.
LORD BYRON'S VERSIFICATION, AND DON JUAN.
How lamentably the _art_ of versification is neglected by most of the
poets of the present day! --by Lord Byron, as it strikes me, in particular,
among those of eminence for other qualities. Upon the whole, I think the
part of Don Juan in which Lambro's return to his home, and Lambro himself,
are described, is the best, that is, the most individual, thing in all I
know of Lord B. 's works. The festal abandonment puts one in mind of
Nicholas Poussin's pictures. [1]
[Footnote 1:
Mr. Coleridge particularly noticed, for its classical air, the 32d stanza
of this Canto (the third):--
"A band of children, round a snow-white ram,
There wreathe his venerable horns with flowers,
While, peaceful as if still an unwean'd lamb,
The patriarch of the flock all gently cowers
His sober head, majestically tame,
Or eats from out the palm, or playful lowers
His brow, as if in act to butt, and then
Yielding to their small hands, draws back again. "
But Mr. C. said that _then_, and _again_, made no rhyme to his ear. Why
should not the old form _agen_ be lawful in verse? We wilfully abridge
ourselves of the liberty which our great poets achieved and sanctioned for
us in innumerable instances. --ED. ]
_June_ 10. 1824.
PARENTAL CONTROL IN MARRIAGE. --MARRIAGE OF
COUSINS. --DIFFERENCE OF CHARACTER.
Up to twenty-one, I hold a father to have power over his children as to
marriage; after that age, authority and influence only. Show me one couple
unhappy merely on account of their limited circumstances, and I will show
you ten that are wretched from other causes.
* * * * *
If the matter were quite open, I should incline to disapprove the
intermarriage of first cousins; but the church has decided otherwise on the
authority of Augustine, and that seems enough upon such a point.
* * * * *
You may depend upon it, that a slight contrast of character is very
material to happiness in marriage.
_February_ 24. 1827.
BLUMENBACH AND KANT'S RACES. --IAPETIC AND SEMITIC. --HEBREW. --SOLOMON.
Blumenbach makes five races; Kant, three. Blumenbach's scale of dignity may
be thus figured:--
1. Caucasian or European.
2. Malay ================= 2. American
3. Negro ========================== 3. Mongolian, Asiatic
There was, I conceive, one great Iapetic original of language, under which
Greek, Latin, and other European dialects, and, perhaps, Sanscrit, range as
species. The Iapetic race, [Greek: Iaones]; separated into two branches;
one, with a tendency to migrate south-west,--Greeks, Italians, &c. ; and the
other north-west,--Goths, Germans, Swedes, &c. The Hebrew is Semitic.
* * * * *
Hebrew, in point of force and purity, seems at its height in Isaiah. It is
most corrupt in Daniel, and not much less so in Ecclesiastes; which I
cannot believe to have been actually composed by Solomon, but rather
suppose to have been so attributed by the Jews, in their passion for
ascribing all works of that sort to their _grand monurque_.
_March_ 10. 1827.
JEWISH HISTORY. --SPINOZISTIC AND HEBREW SCHEMES.
The people of all other nations, but the Jewish, seem to look backwards and
also to exist for the present; but in the Jewish scheme every thing is
prospective and preparatory; nothing, however trifling, is done for itself
alone, but all is typical of something yet to come.
* * * * *
I would rather call the book of Proverbs Solomonian than as actually a work
of Solomon's.
So I apprehend many of the Psalms to be Davidical only, not
David's own compositions.
* * * * *
You may state the Pantheism of Spinosa, in contrast with the Hebrew or
Christian scheme, shortly, as thus:--
Spinosism.
W-G = 0; _i. e. _ the World without God is an impossible idea.
G-W = 0; _i. e. _ God without the World is so likewise.
Hebrew or Christian scheme.
W-G = 0; _i. e. _ The same as Spinosa's premiss.
But G-W = G; _i. e. _ God without the World is God the self-subsistent.
* * * * *
_March_ 12. 1827.
ROMAN CATHOLICS. --ENERGY OF MAN AND OTHER ANIMALS. --SHAKSPEARE _IN
MINIMIS_. --PAUL SARPI. --BARTRAM'S TRAVELS.
I have no doubt that the real object closest to the hearts of the leading
Irish Romanists is the destruction of the Irish Protestant church, and the
re-establishment of their own. I think more is involved in the manner than
the matter of legislating upon the civil disabilities of the members of the
church of Rome; and, for one, I should he willing to vote for a removal of
those disabilities, with two or three exceptions, upon a solemn declaration
being made legislatively in parliament, that at no time, nor under any
circumstances, could or should a branch of the Romish hierarchy, as at
present constituted, become an estate of this realm. [1]
[Footnote 1: See Church and State, second part, p. 189. ]
* * * * *
Internal or mental energy and external or corporeal modificability are in
inverse proportions. In man, internal energy is greater than in any other
animal; and you will see that he is less changed by climate than any
animal. For the highest and lowest specimens of man are not one half as
much apart from each other as the different kinds even of dogs, animals of
great internal energy themselves.
* * * * *
For an instance of Shakspeare's power _in minimis_, I generally quote James
Gurney's character in King John. How individual and comical he is with the
four words allowed to his dramatic life! [1] And pray look at Skelton's
Richard Sparrow also!
Paul Sarpi's History of the Council of Trent deserves your study. It is
very interesting.
[Footnote 1:
"_Enter Lady FALCONBRIDGE and JAMES GURNEY. _
BAST. O me! it is my mother:--How now, good lady?
What brings you here to court so hastily?
LADY F. Where is that slave, thy brother? where is he?
That holds in chase mine honour up and down?
BAST. My brother Robert? Old Sir Robert's son?
Colbrand the giant, that same mighty man?
Is it Sir Robert's son that you seek so?
LADY F. Sir Robert's son! Ay, thou unreverend boy,
Sir Robert's son: why scorn'st thou at Sir Robert?
He is Sir Robert's son; and so art thou.
BAST. James Gurney, wilt thou give us leave a while?
GUR. _Good leave, good Philip. _
BAST. Philip? --Sparrow! James,
There's toys abroad; anon I'll tell thee more.
[_Exit_ GURNEY. "
The very _exit Gurney_ is a stroke of James's character. --ED. ]]
* * * * *
The latest book of travels I know, written in the spirit of the old
travellers, is Bartram's account of his tour in the Floridas. It is a work
of high merit every way. [1]
[Footnote 1:
"Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida,
the Cherokee Country, the extensive territories of the Muscogulges, or
Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws, &c. By William
Bartram. " Philadelphia, 1791. London, 1792. 8vo. The expedition was made at
the request of Dr. Fothergill, the Quaker physician, in 1773, and was
particularly directed to botanical discoveries. --ED. ]
* * * * *
_March_ 13. 1827.
THE UNDERSTANDING.
A pun will sometimes facilitate explanation, as thus;--the Understanding is
that which _stands under_ the phenomenon, and gives it objectivity. You
know _what_ a thing is by it. It is also worthy of remark, that the Hebrew
word for the understanding, _Bineh_, comes from a root meaning _between_ or
_distinguishing_.
* * * * *
_March_ 18. 1827.
PARTS OF SPEECH. --GRAMMAR.
There are seven parts of speech, and they agree with the five grand and
universal divisions into which all things finite, by which I mean to
exclude the idea of God, will be found to fall; that is, as you will often
see it stated in my writings, especially in the Aids to Reflection[1]:--
Prothesis.
1.
Thesis. Mesothesis. Antithesis.
2. 4. 3.
Synthesis.
5.
Conceive it thus:--
1. Prothesis, the noun-verb, or verb-substantive, _I am_, which is the
previous form, and implies identity of being and act.
2. Thesis, the noun.
3. Antithesis, the verb.
Note, each of these may be converted; that is, they are only opposed to
each other.
4. Mesothesis, the infinitive mood, or the indifference of the verb and
noun, it being either the one or the other, or both at the same time, in
different relations.
5. Synthesis, the participle, or the community of verb and noun; being and
acting at once.
Now, modify the noun by the verb, that is, by an act, and you have--
6. The adnoun, or adjective.
Modify the verb by the noun, that is, by being, and you have--
7. The adverb.
Interjections are parts of sound, not of speech. Conjunctions are the same
as prepositions; but they are prefixed to a sentence, or to a member of a
sentence, instead of to a single word.
The inflections of nouns are modifications as to place; the inflections of
verbs, as to time.
The genitive case denotes dependence; the dative, transmission. It is
absurd to talk of verbs governing. In Thucydides, I believe, every case has
been found absolute. [2]
Dative:--[Greek: ----]
Thuc. VIII. 24. This is the Latin usage.
Accusative. --I do not remember an instance of the proper accusative
absolute in Thucydides; but it seems not uncommon in other authors:
[Greek: ----]
Yet all such instances may be nominatives; for I cannot find an example of
the accusative absolute in the masculine or feminine gender, where the
difference of inflexion would show the case. --ED. ]
The inflections of the tenses of a verb are formed by adjuncts of the verb
substantive. In Greek it is obvious. The E is the prefix significative of a
past time.
[Footnote 1: P. 170. 2d edition. ]
[Footnote 2:
Nominative absolute:--[Greek: theon de phozos ae anthropon nomos, oudeis
apeirge, to men krinontes en homoio kai sezein kai mae--ton de
hamartaematon. ]--Thuc. II. 53. ]
_June 15. 1827.
MAGNETISM. --ELECTRICITY. --GALVANISM.
Perhaps the attribution or analogy may seem fanciful at first sight, but I
am in the habit of realizing to myself Magnetism as length; Electricity as
breadth or surface; and Galvanism as depth.
_June 24. 1827. _
SPENSER. --CHARACTER Of OTHELLO. --HAMLET. --POLONIUS. --PRINCIPLES AND
MAXIMS. --LOVE. --MEASURE FOR MEASURE. --BEN JONSON. --BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. --
VERSION OF THE BIBLE. --SPURZHEIM. --CRANIOLOGY.
Spenser's Epithalamion is truly sublime; and pray mark the swan-like
movement of his exquisite Prothalamion. [1] His attention to metre and
rhythm is sometimes so extremely minute as to be painful even to my ear,
and you know how highly I prize good versification.
[Footnote 1:
How well I remember this Midsummer-day! I shall never pass such another.
The sun was setting behind Caen Wood, and the calm of the evening was so
exceedingly deep that it arrested Mr. Coleridge's attention. We were alone
together in Mr. Gillman's drawing-room, and Mr. C. left off talking, and
fell into an almost trance-like state for ten minutes whilst contemplating
the beautiful prospect before us. His eyes swam in tears, his head inclined
a little forward, and there was a slight uplifting of the fingers, which
seemed to tell me that he was in prayer. I was awestricken, and remained
absorbed in looking at the man, in forgetfulness of external nature, when
he recovered himself, and after a word or two fell by some secret link of
association upon Spenser's poetry. Upon my telling him that I did not very
well recollect the Prothalamion: "Then I must read you a bit of it," said
he; and, fetching the book from the next room, he recited the whole of it
in his finest and most musical manner. I particularly bear in mind the
sensible diversity of tone and rhythm with which he gave:--
"Sweet Thames! run softly till I end my song,"
the concluding line of each of the ten strophes of the poem.
When I look upon the scanty memorial, which I have alone preserved of this
afternoon's converse, I am tempted to burn these pages in despair. Mr.
Coleridge talked a volume of criticism that day, which, printed verbatim as
he spoke it, would have made the reputation of any other person but
himself. He was, indeed, particularly brilliant and enchanting; and I left
him at night so thoroughly _magnetized_, that I could not for two or three
days afterwards reflect enough to put any thing on paper,--ED. ]
* * * * *
I have often told you that I do not think there is any jealousy, properly
so called, in the character of Othello. There is no predisposition to
suspicion, which I take to be an essential term in the definition of the
word. Desdemona very truly told Emilia that he was not jealous, that is, of
a jealous habit, and he says so as truly of himself. Iago's suggestions,
you see, are quite new to him; they do not correspond with any thing of a
like nature previously in his mind. If Desdemona had, in fact, been guilty,
no one would have thought of calling Othello's conduct that of a jealous
man. He could not act otherwise than he did with the lights he had; whereas
jealousy can never be strictly right. See how utterly unlike Othello is to
Leontes, in the Winter's Tale, or even to Leonatus, in Cymbeline! The
jealousy of the first proceeds from an evident trifle, and something like
hatred is mingled with it; and the conduct of Leonatus in accepting the
wager, and exposing his wife to the trial, denotes a jealous temper already
formed.
* * * * *
Hamlet's character is the prevalence of the abstracting and generalizing
habit over the practical. He does not want courage, skill, will, or
opportunity; but every incident sets him thinking; and it is curious, and
at the same time strictly natural, that Hamlet, who all the play seems
reason itself, should he impelled, at last, by mere accident to effect his
object. I have a smack of Hamlet myself, if I may say so.
* * * * *
A Maxim is a conclusion upon observation of matters of fact, and is merely
retrospective: an Idea, or, if you like, a Principle, carries knowledge
within itself, and is prospective. Polonius is a man of maxims. Whilst he
is descanting on matters of past experience, as in that excellent speech to
Laertes before he sets out on his travels, he is admirable; but when he
comes to advise or project, he is a mere dotard. [1] You see Hamlet, as the
man of ideas, despises him.
[Footnote 1: Act i. sc. 3]
* * * * *
A man of maxims only is like a Cyclops with one eye, and that eye placed in
the back of his head.
* * * * *
In the scene with Ophelia, in the third act,[1] Hamlet is beginning with
great and unfeigned tenderness; but, perceiving her reserve and coyness,
fancies there are some listeners, and then, to sustain his part, breaks out
into all that coarseness.
Love is the admiration and cherishing of the amiable qualities of the
beloved person, upon the condition of yourself being the object of their
action. The qualities of the sexes correspond. The man's courage is loved
by the woman, whose fortitude again is coveted by the man. His vigorous
intellect is answered by her infallible tact. Can it be true, what is so
constantly affirmed, that there is no sex in souls? --I doubt it, I doubt it
exceedingly. [2]
[Footnote 1: Sc. 1. ]
[Footnote 2: Mr. Coleridge was a great master in the art of love, but he
had not studied in Ovid's school. Hear his account of the matter:--
"Love, truly such, is itself not the most common thing in the world, and
mutual love still less so. But that enduring personal attachment, so
beautifully delineated by Erin's sweet melodist, and still more touchingly,
perhaps, in the well-known ballad, 'John Anderson, my Jo, John,' in
addition to a depth and constancy of character of no every-day occurrence,
supposes a peculiar sensibility and tenderness of nature; a constitutional
communicativeness and utterancy of heart and soul; a delight in the detail
of sympathy, in the outward and visible signs of the sacrament within,--to
count, as it were, the pulses of the life of love.
moved not. "By ----," ejaculated A. , "if you do not in three minutes go
away, I'll shoot you. " He waited the time, deliberately levelled the
pistol, fired, and, with a scream at the immobility of the figure, became
convulsed, and afterwards died. The very instant he believed it _to be_ a
ghost, his human nature fell before it.
[Footnote 1:
See this point suggested and reasoned with extraordinary subtlety in the
third essay (marked C), in the Appendix to the Statesman's Manual, Or first
Lay Sermon, p. 19, &c. One beautiful paragraph I will venture to quote:--
"Not only may we expect that men of strong religious feelings, but little
religious knowledge, will occasionally be tempted to regard such
occurrences as supernatural visitations; but it ought not to surprise us if
such dreams should sometimes be confirmed by the event, as though they had
actually possessed a character of divination. For who shall decide how far
a perfect reminiscence of past experiences (of many, perhaps, that had
escaped our reflex consciousness at the time)--who shall determine to what
extent this reproductive imagination, unsophisticated by the will, and
undistracted by intrusions from the senses, may or may not be concentred
and sublimed into foresight and presentiment? There would be nothing herein
either to foster superstition on the one hand, or to justify contemptuous
disbelief on the other. Incredulity is but Credulity seen from behind,
bowing and nodding assent to the Habitual and the Fashionable"-ED. ]
[Footnote 2: 2 Kings, iii. 15. , and see 1 Sam. x. 5. --ED. ]
* * * * *
[What follows in the text within commas was written about this time, and
communicated to me by Mr. Justice Coleridge. --ED. ]
"Last Thursday my uncle, S. T. C. , dined with us, and several men came to
meet him. I have heard him more brilliant, but he was very fine, and
delighted every one very much. It is impossible to carry off, or commit to
paper, his long trains of argument; indeed, it is not always possible to
understand them, he lays the foundation so deep, and views every question
in so original a manner. Nothing can be finer than the principles which he
lays down in morals and religion. His deep study of Scripture is very
astonishing; the rest of the party were but as children in his hands, not
merely in general views of theology, but in nice verbal criticism. He
thinks it clear that St. Paul did not write the Epistle to the Hebrews, but
that it must have been the work of some Alexandrian Greek, and he thinks
Apollos. It seemed to him a desirable thing for Christianity that it should
have been written by some other person than St. Paul; because, its
inspiration being unquestioned, it added another independent teacher and
expounder of the faith.
"We fell upon ghosts, and he exposed many of the stories physically and
metaphysically. He seemed to think it impossible that you should really see
with the bodily eye what was impalpable, unless it were a shadow; and if
what you fancied you saw with the bodily eye was in fact only an impression
on the imagination, then you were seeing something _out of your senses_,
and your testimony was full of uncertainty. He observed how uniformly, in
all the best-attested stories of spectres, the appearance might be
accounted for from the disturbed state of the mind or body of the seer, as
in the instances of Dion and Brutus. Upon some one's saying that he
_wished_ to believe these stories true, thinking that they constituted a
useful subsidiary testimony of another state of existence, Mr. C. differed,
and said, he thought it a dangerous testimony, and one not wanted: it was
Saul, with the Scriptures and the Prophet before him, calling upon the
witch of Endor to certify him of the truth! He explained very ingeniously,
yet very naturally, what has often startled people in ghost stories--such
as Lord Lyttelton's--namely, that when a real person has appeared, habited
like the phantom, the ghost-seer has immediately seen two, the real man and
the phantom. He said that such must be the case. The man under the morbid
delusion sees with the eye of the imagination, and sees with the bodily eye
too; if no one were really present, he would see the spectre with one, and
the bed-curtains with the other. When, therefore, a real person comes, he
sees the real man as he would have seen any one else in the same place, and
he sees the spectre not a whit the less: being perceptible by different
powers of vision, so to say, the appearances do not interfere with each
other.
"He told us the following story of the Phantom Portrait [1]:--
"A stranger came recommended to a merchant's house at Lubeck. He was
hospitably received; but, the house being full, he was lodged at night in
an apartment handsomely furnished, but not often used. There was nothing
that struck him particularly in the room when left alone, till he happened
to cast his eyes on a picture, which immediately arrested his attention. It
was a single head; but there was something so uncommon, so frightful and
unearthly, in its expression, though by no means ugly, that he found
himself irresistibly attracted to look at it. In fact, he could not tear
himself from the fascination of this portrait, till his imagination was
filled by it, and his rest broken. He retired to bed, dreamed, and awoke
from time to time with the head glaring on him. In the morning, his host
saw by his looks that he had slept ill, and inquired the cause, which was
told. The master of the house was much vexed, and said that the picture
ought to have been removed, that it was an oversight, and that it always
was removed when the chamber was used. The picture, he said, was, indeed,
terrible to every one; but it was so fine, and had come into the family in
so curious a way, that he could not make up his mind to part with it, or to
destroy it. The story of it was this:--'My father,' said he, 'was at
Hamburgh on business, and, whilst dining at a coffee-house, he observed a
young man of a remarkable appearance enter, seat himself alone in a corner,
and commence a solitary meal. His countenance bespoke the extreme of mental
distress, and every now and then he turned his head quickly round, as if he
heard something, then shudder, grow pale, and go on with his meal after an
effort as before. My father saw this same man at the same place for two or
three successive days; and at length became so much interested about him,
that he spoke to him. The address was not repulsed, and the stranger seemed
to find some comfort in the tone of sympathy and kindness which my father
used. He was an Italian, well informed, poor but not destitute, and living
economically upon the profits of his art as a painter. Their intimacy
increased; and at length the Italian, seeing my father's involuntary
emotion at his convulsive turnings and shuddering, which continued as
formerly, interrupting their conversation from time to time, told him his
story. He was a native of Rome, and had lived in some familiarity with, and
been much patronized by, a young nobleman; but upon some slight occasion
they had fallen out, and his patron, besides using many reproachful
expressions, had struck him. The painter brooded over the disgrace of the
blow. He could not challenge the nobleman, on account of his rank; he
therefore watched for an opportunity, and assassinated him. Of course he
fled from his country, and finally had reached Hamburgh. He had not,
however, passed many weeks from the night of the murder, before, one day,
in the crowded street, he heard his name called by a voice familiar to him:
he turned short round, and saw the face of his victim looking at him with a
fixed eye. From that moment he had no peace: at all hours, in all places,
and amidst all companies, however engaged he might be, he heard the voice,
and could never help looking round; and, whenever he so looked round, he
always encountered the same face staring close upon him. At last, in a mood
of desperation, he had fixed himself face to face, and eye to eye, and
deliberately drawn the phantom visage as it glared upon him; and _this_ was
the picture so drawn. The Italian said he had struggled long, but life was
a burden which he could now no longer bear; and he was resolved, when he
had made money enough to return to Rome, to surrender himself to justice,
and expiate his crime on the scaffold. He gave the finished picture to my
father, in return for the kindness which he had shown to him. '"
[Footnote 1:
This is the story which Mr. Washington Irving has dressed up very prettily
in the first volume of his "Tales of a Traveller," pp. 84-119. ; professing
in his preface that he could not remember whence he had derived the
anecdote. --ED. ]
* * * * *
I have no doubt that the Jews believed generally in a future state,
independently of the Mosaic law. The story of the witch of Endor is a proof
of it. What we translate "_witch_," or "familiar spirit," is, in the
Hebrew, Ob, that is, a bottle or bladder, and means a person whose belly is
swelled like a leathern bottle by divine inflation. In the Greek it is
[Greek: engastrimuthos], a ventriloquist. The text (1 Sam. ch. xxviii. ) is
a simple record of the facts, the solution of which the sacred historian
leaves to the reader. I take it to have been a trick of ventriloquism, got
up by the courtiers and friends of Saul, to prevent him, if possible, from
hazarding an engagement with an army despondent and oppressed with bodings
of defeat. Saul is not said to have seen Samuel; the woman only pretends to
see him. And then what does this Samuel do? He merely repeats the prophecy
known to all Israel, which the true Samuel had uttered some years before.
Read Captain Lyon's account of the scene in the cabin with the Esquimaux
bladder, or conjurer; it is impossible not to be reminded of the witch of
Endor. I recommend you also to look at Webster's admirable treatise on
Witchcraft.
* * * * *
The pet texts of a Socinian are quite enough for his confutation with acute
thinkers. If Christ had been a mere man, it would have been ridiculous in
_him_ to call himself "the Son of man;" but being God and man, it then
became, in his own assumption of it, a peculiar and mysterious title. So,
if Christ had been a mere man, his saying, "My Father is greater than I,"
(John, xv. 28. ) would have been as unmeaning. It would be laughable enough,
for example, to hear me say, "My 'Remorse' succeeded, indeed, but
Shakspeare is a greater dramatist than I. " But how immeasurably more
foolish, more monstrous, would it not be for a _man_, however honest, good,
or wise, to say, "But Jehovah is greater than I! "
_May_ 8. 1824.
PLATO AND XENOPHON. --RELIGIONS OF THE GREEKS. --EGYPTIAN ANTIQUITIES. --
MILTON. --VIRGIL.
Plato's works are logical exercises for the mind. Little that is positive
is advanced in them. Socrates may be fairly represented by Plato in the
more moral parts; but in all the metaphysical disquisitions it is
Pythagoras. Xenophon's representation of his master is quite different. [1]
[Footnote 1: See p. 9. n. --ED. ]
* * * * *
Observe the remarkable contrast between the religion of the tragic and
other poets of Greece. The former are always opposed in heart to the
popular divinities. In fact, there are the popular, the sacerdotal, and the
mysterious religions of Greece, represented roughly by Homer, Pindar, and
AEschylus. The ancients had no notion of a _fall_ of man, though they had of
his gradual degeneracy. Prometheus, in the old mythus, and for the most
part in AEschylus, is the Redeemer and the Devil jumbled together.
* * * * *
I cannot say I expect much from mere Egyptian antiquities. Almost every
thing really, that is, intellectually, great in that country seems to me of
Grecian origin.
* * * * *
I think nothing can be added to Milton's definition or rule of poetry,--
that it ought to be simple, sensuous, and impassioned; that is to say,
single in conception, abounding in sensible images, and informing them all
with the spirit of the mind.
Milton's Latin style is, I think, better and easier than his English. His
style, in prose, is quite as characteristic of him as a philosophic
republican, as Cowley's is of _him_ as a first-rate gentleman.
If you take from Virgil his diction and metre, what do you leave him?
* * * * *
_June_ 2. 1824.
CRANVILLE PENN AND THE DELUGE. --RAINBOW.
I confess I have small patience with Mr. Granville Penn's book against
Professor Buckland. Science will be superseded, if every phenomenon is to
be referred in this manner to an actual miracle. I think it absurd to
attribute so much to the Deluge. An inundation, which left an olive-tree
standing, and bore up the ark peacefully on its bosom, could scarcely have
been the sole cause of the rents and dislocations observable on the face of
the earth. How could the tropical animals, which have been discovered in
England and in Russia in a perfectly natural state, have been transported
thither by such a flood? Those animals must evidently have been natives of
the countries in which they have been found. The climates must have been
altered. Assume a sudden evaporation upon the retiring of the Deluge to
have caused an intense cold, the solar heat might not be sufficient
afterwards to overcome it. I do not think that the polar cold is adequately
explained by mere comparative distance from the sun.
* * * * *
You will observe, that there is no mention of rain previously to the
Deluge. Hence it may be inferred, that the rainbow was exhibited for the
first time after God's covenant with Noah. However, I only suggest this.
* * * * *
The Earth with its scarred face is the symbol of the Past; the Air and
Heaven, of Futurity.
_June_ 5. 1824.
ENGLISH AND GREEK DANCING. --GREEK ACOUSTICS.
The fondness for dancing in English women is the reaction of their reserved
manners. It is the only way in which they can throw themselves forth in
natural liberty. We have no adequate conception of the perfection of the
ancient tragic dance. The pleasure which the Greeks received from it had
for its basis Difference and the more unfit the vehicle, the more lively
was the curiosity and intense the delight at seeing the difficulty
overcome.
* * * * *
The ancients certainly seem to have understood some principles in acoustics
which we have lost, or, at least, they applied them better. They contrived
to convey the voice distinctly in their huge theatres by means of pipes,
which created no echo or confusion. Our theatres--Drury Lane and Covent
Garden--are fit for nothing: they are too large for acting, and too small
for a bull-fight.
* * * * *
_June_ 7. 1824.
LORD BYRON'S VERSIFICATION, AND DON JUAN.
How lamentably the _art_ of versification is neglected by most of the
poets of the present day! --by Lord Byron, as it strikes me, in particular,
among those of eminence for other qualities. Upon the whole, I think the
part of Don Juan in which Lambro's return to his home, and Lambro himself,
are described, is the best, that is, the most individual, thing in all I
know of Lord B. 's works. The festal abandonment puts one in mind of
Nicholas Poussin's pictures. [1]
[Footnote 1:
Mr. Coleridge particularly noticed, for its classical air, the 32d stanza
of this Canto (the third):--
"A band of children, round a snow-white ram,
There wreathe his venerable horns with flowers,
While, peaceful as if still an unwean'd lamb,
The patriarch of the flock all gently cowers
His sober head, majestically tame,
Or eats from out the palm, or playful lowers
His brow, as if in act to butt, and then
Yielding to their small hands, draws back again. "
But Mr. C. said that _then_, and _again_, made no rhyme to his ear. Why
should not the old form _agen_ be lawful in verse? We wilfully abridge
ourselves of the liberty which our great poets achieved and sanctioned for
us in innumerable instances. --ED. ]
_June_ 10. 1824.
PARENTAL CONTROL IN MARRIAGE. --MARRIAGE OF
COUSINS. --DIFFERENCE OF CHARACTER.
Up to twenty-one, I hold a father to have power over his children as to
marriage; after that age, authority and influence only. Show me one couple
unhappy merely on account of their limited circumstances, and I will show
you ten that are wretched from other causes.
* * * * *
If the matter were quite open, I should incline to disapprove the
intermarriage of first cousins; but the church has decided otherwise on the
authority of Augustine, and that seems enough upon such a point.
* * * * *
You may depend upon it, that a slight contrast of character is very
material to happiness in marriage.
_February_ 24. 1827.
BLUMENBACH AND KANT'S RACES. --IAPETIC AND SEMITIC. --HEBREW. --SOLOMON.
Blumenbach makes five races; Kant, three. Blumenbach's scale of dignity may
be thus figured:--
1. Caucasian or European.
2. Malay ================= 2. American
3. Negro ========================== 3. Mongolian, Asiatic
There was, I conceive, one great Iapetic original of language, under which
Greek, Latin, and other European dialects, and, perhaps, Sanscrit, range as
species. The Iapetic race, [Greek: Iaones]; separated into two branches;
one, with a tendency to migrate south-west,--Greeks, Italians, &c. ; and the
other north-west,--Goths, Germans, Swedes, &c. The Hebrew is Semitic.
* * * * *
Hebrew, in point of force and purity, seems at its height in Isaiah. It is
most corrupt in Daniel, and not much less so in Ecclesiastes; which I
cannot believe to have been actually composed by Solomon, but rather
suppose to have been so attributed by the Jews, in their passion for
ascribing all works of that sort to their _grand monurque_.
_March_ 10. 1827.
JEWISH HISTORY. --SPINOZISTIC AND HEBREW SCHEMES.
The people of all other nations, but the Jewish, seem to look backwards and
also to exist for the present; but in the Jewish scheme every thing is
prospective and preparatory; nothing, however trifling, is done for itself
alone, but all is typical of something yet to come.
* * * * *
I would rather call the book of Proverbs Solomonian than as actually a work
of Solomon's.
So I apprehend many of the Psalms to be Davidical only, not
David's own compositions.
* * * * *
You may state the Pantheism of Spinosa, in contrast with the Hebrew or
Christian scheme, shortly, as thus:--
Spinosism.
W-G = 0; _i. e. _ the World without God is an impossible idea.
G-W = 0; _i. e. _ God without the World is so likewise.
Hebrew or Christian scheme.
W-G = 0; _i. e. _ The same as Spinosa's premiss.
But G-W = G; _i. e. _ God without the World is God the self-subsistent.
* * * * *
_March_ 12. 1827.
ROMAN CATHOLICS. --ENERGY OF MAN AND OTHER ANIMALS. --SHAKSPEARE _IN
MINIMIS_. --PAUL SARPI. --BARTRAM'S TRAVELS.
I have no doubt that the real object closest to the hearts of the leading
Irish Romanists is the destruction of the Irish Protestant church, and the
re-establishment of their own. I think more is involved in the manner than
the matter of legislating upon the civil disabilities of the members of the
church of Rome; and, for one, I should he willing to vote for a removal of
those disabilities, with two or three exceptions, upon a solemn declaration
being made legislatively in parliament, that at no time, nor under any
circumstances, could or should a branch of the Romish hierarchy, as at
present constituted, become an estate of this realm. [1]
[Footnote 1: See Church and State, second part, p. 189. ]
* * * * *
Internal or mental energy and external or corporeal modificability are in
inverse proportions. In man, internal energy is greater than in any other
animal; and you will see that he is less changed by climate than any
animal. For the highest and lowest specimens of man are not one half as
much apart from each other as the different kinds even of dogs, animals of
great internal energy themselves.
* * * * *
For an instance of Shakspeare's power _in minimis_, I generally quote James
Gurney's character in King John. How individual and comical he is with the
four words allowed to his dramatic life! [1] And pray look at Skelton's
Richard Sparrow also!
Paul Sarpi's History of the Council of Trent deserves your study. It is
very interesting.
[Footnote 1:
"_Enter Lady FALCONBRIDGE and JAMES GURNEY. _
BAST. O me! it is my mother:--How now, good lady?
What brings you here to court so hastily?
LADY F. Where is that slave, thy brother? where is he?
That holds in chase mine honour up and down?
BAST. My brother Robert? Old Sir Robert's son?
Colbrand the giant, that same mighty man?
Is it Sir Robert's son that you seek so?
LADY F. Sir Robert's son! Ay, thou unreverend boy,
Sir Robert's son: why scorn'st thou at Sir Robert?
He is Sir Robert's son; and so art thou.
BAST. James Gurney, wilt thou give us leave a while?
GUR. _Good leave, good Philip. _
BAST. Philip? --Sparrow! James,
There's toys abroad; anon I'll tell thee more.
[_Exit_ GURNEY. "
The very _exit Gurney_ is a stroke of James's character. --ED. ]]
* * * * *
The latest book of travels I know, written in the spirit of the old
travellers, is Bartram's account of his tour in the Floridas. It is a work
of high merit every way. [1]
[Footnote 1:
"Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida,
the Cherokee Country, the extensive territories of the Muscogulges, or
Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws, &c. By William
Bartram. " Philadelphia, 1791. London, 1792. 8vo. The expedition was made at
the request of Dr. Fothergill, the Quaker physician, in 1773, and was
particularly directed to botanical discoveries. --ED. ]
* * * * *
_March_ 13. 1827.
THE UNDERSTANDING.
A pun will sometimes facilitate explanation, as thus;--the Understanding is
that which _stands under_ the phenomenon, and gives it objectivity. You
know _what_ a thing is by it. It is also worthy of remark, that the Hebrew
word for the understanding, _Bineh_, comes from a root meaning _between_ or
_distinguishing_.
* * * * *
_March_ 18. 1827.
PARTS OF SPEECH. --GRAMMAR.
There are seven parts of speech, and they agree with the five grand and
universal divisions into which all things finite, by which I mean to
exclude the idea of God, will be found to fall; that is, as you will often
see it stated in my writings, especially in the Aids to Reflection[1]:--
Prothesis.
1.
Thesis. Mesothesis. Antithesis.
2. 4. 3.
Synthesis.
5.
Conceive it thus:--
1. Prothesis, the noun-verb, or verb-substantive, _I am_, which is the
previous form, and implies identity of being and act.
2. Thesis, the noun.
3. Antithesis, the verb.
Note, each of these may be converted; that is, they are only opposed to
each other.
4. Mesothesis, the infinitive mood, or the indifference of the verb and
noun, it being either the one or the other, or both at the same time, in
different relations.
5. Synthesis, the participle, or the community of verb and noun; being and
acting at once.
Now, modify the noun by the verb, that is, by an act, and you have--
6. The adnoun, or adjective.
Modify the verb by the noun, that is, by being, and you have--
7. The adverb.
Interjections are parts of sound, not of speech. Conjunctions are the same
as prepositions; but they are prefixed to a sentence, or to a member of a
sentence, instead of to a single word.
The inflections of nouns are modifications as to place; the inflections of
verbs, as to time.
The genitive case denotes dependence; the dative, transmission. It is
absurd to talk of verbs governing. In Thucydides, I believe, every case has
been found absolute. [2]
Dative:--[Greek: ----]
Thuc. VIII. 24. This is the Latin usage.
Accusative. --I do not remember an instance of the proper accusative
absolute in Thucydides; but it seems not uncommon in other authors:
[Greek: ----]
Yet all such instances may be nominatives; for I cannot find an example of
the accusative absolute in the masculine or feminine gender, where the
difference of inflexion would show the case. --ED. ]
The inflections of the tenses of a verb are formed by adjuncts of the verb
substantive. In Greek it is obvious. The E is the prefix significative of a
past time.
[Footnote 1: P. 170. 2d edition. ]
[Footnote 2:
Nominative absolute:--[Greek: theon de phozos ae anthropon nomos, oudeis
apeirge, to men krinontes en homoio kai sezein kai mae--ton de
hamartaematon. ]--Thuc. II. 53. ]
_June 15. 1827.
MAGNETISM. --ELECTRICITY. --GALVANISM.
Perhaps the attribution or analogy may seem fanciful at first sight, but I
am in the habit of realizing to myself Magnetism as length; Electricity as
breadth or surface; and Galvanism as depth.
_June 24. 1827. _
SPENSER. --CHARACTER Of OTHELLO. --HAMLET. --POLONIUS. --PRINCIPLES AND
MAXIMS. --LOVE. --MEASURE FOR MEASURE. --BEN JONSON. --BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. --
VERSION OF THE BIBLE. --SPURZHEIM. --CRANIOLOGY.
Spenser's Epithalamion is truly sublime; and pray mark the swan-like
movement of his exquisite Prothalamion. [1] His attention to metre and
rhythm is sometimes so extremely minute as to be painful even to my ear,
and you know how highly I prize good versification.
[Footnote 1:
How well I remember this Midsummer-day! I shall never pass such another.
The sun was setting behind Caen Wood, and the calm of the evening was so
exceedingly deep that it arrested Mr. Coleridge's attention. We were alone
together in Mr. Gillman's drawing-room, and Mr. C. left off talking, and
fell into an almost trance-like state for ten minutes whilst contemplating
the beautiful prospect before us. His eyes swam in tears, his head inclined
a little forward, and there was a slight uplifting of the fingers, which
seemed to tell me that he was in prayer. I was awestricken, and remained
absorbed in looking at the man, in forgetfulness of external nature, when
he recovered himself, and after a word or two fell by some secret link of
association upon Spenser's poetry. Upon my telling him that I did not very
well recollect the Prothalamion: "Then I must read you a bit of it," said
he; and, fetching the book from the next room, he recited the whole of it
in his finest and most musical manner. I particularly bear in mind the
sensible diversity of tone and rhythm with which he gave:--
"Sweet Thames! run softly till I end my song,"
the concluding line of each of the ten strophes of the poem.
When I look upon the scanty memorial, which I have alone preserved of this
afternoon's converse, I am tempted to burn these pages in despair. Mr.
Coleridge talked a volume of criticism that day, which, printed verbatim as
he spoke it, would have made the reputation of any other person but
himself. He was, indeed, particularly brilliant and enchanting; and I left
him at night so thoroughly _magnetized_, that I could not for two or three
days afterwards reflect enough to put any thing on paper,--ED. ]
* * * * *
I have often told you that I do not think there is any jealousy, properly
so called, in the character of Othello. There is no predisposition to
suspicion, which I take to be an essential term in the definition of the
word. Desdemona very truly told Emilia that he was not jealous, that is, of
a jealous habit, and he says so as truly of himself. Iago's suggestions,
you see, are quite new to him; they do not correspond with any thing of a
like nature previously in his mind. If Desdemona had, in fact, been guilty,
no one would have thought of calling Othello's conduct that of a jealous
man. He could not act otherwise than he did with the lights he had; whereas
jealousy can never be strictly right. See how utterly unlike Othello is to
Leontes, in the Winter's Tale, or even to Leonatus, in Cymbeline! The
jealousy of the first proceeds from an evident trifle, and something like
hatred is mingled with it; and the conduct of Leonatus in accepting the
wager, and exposing his wife to the trial, denotes a jealous temper already
formed.
* * * * *
Hamlet's character is the prevalence of the abstracting and generalizing
habit over the practical. He does not want courage, skill, will, or
opportunity; but every incident sets him thinking; and it is curious, and
at the same time strictly natural, that Hamlet, who all the play seems
reason itself, should he impelled, at last, by mere accident to effect his
object. I have a smack of Hamlet myself, if I may say so.
* * * * *
A Maxim is a conclusion upon observation of matters of fact, and is merely
retrospective: an Idea, or, if you like, a Principle, carries knowledge
within itself, and is prospective. Polonius is a man of maxims. Whilst he
is descanting on matters of past experience, as in that excellent speech to
Laertes before he sets out on his travels, he is admirable; but when he
comes to advise or project, he is a mere dotard. [1] You see Hamlet, as the
man of ideas, despises him.
[Footnote 1: Act i. sc. 3]
* * * * *
A man of maxims only is like a Cyclops with one eye, and that eye placed in
the back of his head.
* * * * *
In the scene with Ophelia, in the third act,[1] Hamlet is beginning with
great and unfeigned tenderness; but, perceiving her reserve and coyness,
fancies there are some listeners, and then, to sustain his part, breaks out
into all that coarseness.
Love is the admiration and cherishing of the amiable qualities of the
beloved person, upon the condition of yourself being the object of their
action. The qualities of the sexes correspond. The man's courage is loved
by the woman, whose fortitude again is coveted by the man. His vigorous
intellect is answered by her infallible tact. Can it be true, what is so
constantly affirmed, that there is no sex in souls? --I doubt it, I doubt it
exceedingly. [2]
[Footnote 1: Sc. 1. ]
[Footnote 2: Mr. Coleridge was a great master in the art of love, but he
had not studied in Ovid's school. Hear his account of the matter:--
"Love, truly such, is itself not the most common thing in the world, and
mutual love still less so. But that enduring personal attachment, so
beautifully delineated by Erin's sweet melodist, and still more touchingly,
perhaps, in the well-known ballad, 'John Anderson, my Jo, John,' in
addition to a depth and constancy of character of no every-day occurrence,
supposes a peculiar sensibility and tenderness of nature; a constitutional
communicativeness and utterancy of heart and soul; a delight in the detail
of sympathy, in the outward and visible signs of the sacrament within,--to
count, as it were, the pulses of the life of love.
