Anima Poetae Part 16

[Sidenote: EVIL PRODUCES EVIL]

It is as trite as it is mournful (but yet most instructive), and by the genius that can produce the strongest impressions of novelty by rescuing the stalest and most admitted truths from the impotence caused by the very circ.u.mstance of their universal admission--admitted so instantly as never to be _reflected_ on, never by that sole key of reflection admitted into the effective, legislative chamber of the heart--so true that they lose all the privileges of Truth, and, as extremes meet by being _truisms_, correspond in utter inefficiency with universally acknowledged errors (in Algebraic symbols Truisms = Falsehoodisms = [scir][scir])--by that genius, I say, might good be worked in considering the old, old Methusalem saw that "evil produces evil." One error almost compels another. Tell one lie, tell a hundred. Oh, to show this, _a priori_, by bottoming it in all our faculties and by experience of touching examples!

[Sidenote: JOHN WORDSWORTH Monday, April 8, 1805]

The favourite object of all Oriental tales, and that which, whist it inspired their authors in the East, still inspires their readers everywhere, is the impossibility of baffling Destiny--the perception that what we considered as the means of one thing becomes, in a strange manner, the direct means of the reverse. O dear John Wordsworth! what joy at Grasmere that you were made Captain of the Abergavenny, and so young too! Now it was next to certain that you would in a few years settle in your native hills and be verily one of the _Concern_! Then came your share in the brilliant action with Linois. (I was at Grasmere in spirit only, but in spirit I was one of the rejoicers--as joyful as any, and, perhaps, more joyous!) This, doubtless, not only enabled you to lay in a larger and more advantageous cargo, but procured you a voyage to India instead of China, and in this circ.u.mstance a next to certainty of independence--and all these were decoys of Death! Well, but a n.o.bler feeling than these vain regrets would become the friend of the man whose last words were: "I have done my duty! let her go!" Let us do our _duty_! all else is a dream, life and death alike a dream. This short sentence would comprise, I believe, the sum of all profound philosophy, of ethics and metaphysics conjointly, from Plato to Fichte!

[_Vide Letters of S. T. C._, 1895, ii. 495, _note_.]

[Sidenote: LOVE THE DIVINE ESSENCE]

The best, the truly lovely in each and all, is G.o.d. Therefore the truly beloved is _the symbol of G.o.d_ to whomever it is truly beloved by, but it may become perfect and maintained love by the function of the two.

The lover wors.h.i.+ps in his beloved that final consummation of itself which is produced in his own soul by the action of the soul of the beloved upon it, and that final perception of the soul of the beloved which is in part the consequence of the reaction of his (so ameliorated and regenerated) soul upon the soul of his beloved, till each contemplates the soul of the other as involving his own, both in its givings and its receivings, and thus, still keeping alive its _outness_, its _self-oblivion_ united with self-warmth, still approximates to G.o.d!

Where shall I find an image for this sublime symbol which, ever involving the presence of Deity, yet tends towards it ever? Shall it be in the attractive powers of the different surfaces of the earth? each attraction the vicegerent and representative of the central attraction, and yet being no other than that attraction itself? By some such feeling as this I can easily believe the mind of Fenelon and Madame Guyon to have coloured its faith in the wors.h.i.+p of saints, but that was most dangerous. It was not idolatry in _them_, but it encouraged idolatry in others. Now, the pure love of a good man for a good woman does not involve this evil, but it multiplies, intensifies the good.

[Sidenote: ORDER IN DREAMS]

Dreamt that I was saying or reading, or that it was read to me, "Varrius thus prophesied vinegar at his door by d.a.m.ned frigid tremblings." Just after, I woke. I fell to sleep again, having in the previous doze meditated on the possibility of making dreams regular; and just as I had pa.s.sed on the other side of the confine of dozing, I afforded this specimen: "I should have thought it Vossius rather than Varrius, though, Varrius being a great poet, the idea would have been more suitable to him, only that all his writings were unfortunately lost in the _Arrow_."

Again I awoke. _N.B._--The _Arrow_, Captain Vincent's frigate, from which our Malta letters and dispatches had been previously thrown overboard, was taken by the French, in February 1805. This _ill.u.s.trates the connection of dreams_.

[Sidenote: ORANGE BLOSSOM April 8, 1805]

I never had a more lovely twig of orange-blossoms, with four old last year's leaves with their steady green well-placed among them, than to-day, and with a rose-twig of three roses [it] made a very striking nosegay to an Englishman, The Orange Twig was so very full of blossoms that one-fourth of the number becoming fruit of the natural size would have broken the twig off. Is there, then, disproportion here? or waste?

O no! no! In the first place, here is a prodigality of beauty; and what harm do they do by existing? And is not man a being capable of Beauty even as of Hunger and Thirst? And if the latter be fit objects of a final cause, why not the former? But secondly [Nature] hereby multiplies manifold the chances of a proper number becoming fruit--in this twig, for instance, for one set of accidents that would have been fatal to the year's growth if only as many blossoms had been on it as it was designed to bear fruit, there may now be three sets of accidents--and no harm done. And, thirdly and lastly, for _me_ at _least_--or, at least, at present, for in nature doubtless there are many additional reasons, and possibly for _me_ at some future hour of reflection, after some new influx of information from books or observance-and, thirdly, these blossoms are Fruit, fruit to the winged insect, fruit to man--yea! and of more solid value, perhaps, than the orange itself! O how the Bees be-throng and be-murmur it! O how the honey tells the tale of its birthplace to the sense of sight and odour! and to how many minute and uneyeable insects beside! So, I cannot but think, ought I to be talking to Hartley, and sometimes to detail all the insects that have arts or implements resembling human--the sea-snails, with the nautilus at their head; the wheel-insect, the galvanic eel, etc.

[This note was printed in the _Ill.u.s.trated London News_, June 10, 1893.]

[Sidenote: ANTIc.i.p.aTIONS IN NATURE AND IN THOUGHT Sat.u.r.day night, April 14, 1805]

In looking at objects of Nature while I am thinking, as at yonder moon dim-glimmering through the dewy window-pane, I seem rather to be seeking, as it were _asking_ for, a symbolical language for something within me that already and for ever exists, than observing anything new.

Even when that latter is the case, yet still I have always an obscure feeling as if that new phenomena were the dim awaking of a forgotten or hidden truth of my inner nature. It is still interesting as a word--a symbol. It is [Greek: Logos] the Creator, and the Evolver! [Now] what is the right, the virtuous feeling, and consequent action when a man having long meditated on and perceived a certain truth, finds another, a foreign writer, who has handled the same with an approximation to the truth as he had previously conceived it? Joy! Let Truth make her voice audible! While I was preparing the pen to write this remark, I lost the train of thought which had led me to it. I meant to have asked something else now forgotten. For the above answers itself. It needed no answer, I trust, in my heart.

[Printed in _Life of S. T. C._, by James Gillman, 1838, p. 311.]

[Sidenote: THE HOPE OF HUMANITY, Easter Sunday, 1805]

That beautiful pa.s.sage in dear and honoured W. Wordsworth's "Michael,"

respecting the forward-looking Hope inspired pre-eminently by the birth of a child, was brought to my mind most forcibly by my own independent though, in part, antic.i.p.ated reflections on the importance of young children to the keeping up the stock of Hope in the human species. They seem to be the immediate and secreting organ of Hope in the great organised body of the whole human race, in _all men_ considered as the component atoms of _Man_--as young leaves are the organs of supplying vital air to the atmosphere.

Thus living on through such a length of years, The Shepherd, if he loved himself, must needs Have loved his Helpmate; but to Michael's heart This son of his old age was yet more dear-- Less from instinctive tenderness, the same Fond spirit that blindly works in the blood of all-- Than that a child, more than all other gifts That earth can offer to declining man, Brings hope with it, and forward-looking thoughts, And stirrings of inquietude, when they By tendency of nature needs must fail.

--_Poetical Works of_ W. WORDSWORTH, p. 133.

[Sidenote: THE NORTHERN EASTER Easter Sunday, 1805]

The English and German climates and that of northern France possess, among many others, this one little beauty of uniting the mysteries of positive with those of natural religion--in celebrating the symbolical resurrection of the human soul in that of the Crucified, at the time of the actual resurrection of the "living life" of nature.

[Sidenote: SPIRITUAL RELIGION]

Religion consists in truth and virtue, that is, the permanent, the _forma efformans_, in the flux of things without, of feelings and images within. Well, therefore, does the Scripture speak of the Spirit as praying to the Spirit, "The Lord said to my Lord." G.o.d is the essence as well as the object of religion.

[Sidenote: A SUPPOSITION Wednesday, April 17, 1805]

I would not willingly kill even a flower, but were I at the head of an army, or a revolutionary kingdom, I would do my duty; and though it should be the ordering of the military execution of a city, yet, supposing it to be my duty, I would give the order--and then, in awe, listen to the uproar, even as to a thunderstorm--the awe as tranquil, the submission to the inevitable, to the unconnected with myself, as profound. It should be as if the lightning of heaven pa.s.sed along my sword and destroyed a man.

[Sidenote: ENTHUSIASM]

Does the sober judgement previously measure out the banks between which the stream of enthusiasm shall rush with its torrent-sound? Far rather does the stream itself plough up its own channel and find its banks in the adamant rocks of nature!

[Sidenote: ADHaeSIT PAVIMENTO COR]

There are times when my thoughts--how like music! O that these times were more frequent! But how can they be, I being so hopeless, and for months past so incessantly employed in official tasks, subscribing, examining, administering oaths, auditing, and so forth?

[Sidenote: THE REALISATION OF DEATH]

John Tobin dead, and just after the success of his play! and Robert Allen dead suddenly!

O when we are young we lament for death only by sympathy, or with the general feeling with which we grieve for misfortunes in general, but there comes a time (and this year is the time that has come to me) when we lament for death as death, when it is felt for itself, and as itself, aloof from all its consequences. Then comes the grave-stone into the heart with all its mournful names, then the bell-man's or clerk's verses subjoined to the bills of mortality are no longer common-place.

[John Tobin the dramatist died December 7, 1804. His play ent.i.tled "The Honeymoon" was published in 1805.

Robert Allen, Coleridge's contemporary and school-friend, held the post of deputy-surgeon to the 2nd Royals, then on service in Portugal. He was a friend of Dr. (afterwards Sir J.) Stoddart, with whom Coleridge stayed on his first arrival at Malta. See _Letters of Charles Lamb_, Macmillan, 1888, i. 188.]

[Sidenote: LOVE AND DUTY]

Wurde, worthiness, VIRTUE, consist in the mastery over the sensuous and sensual impulses; but love requires INNOCENCE. Let the lover ask his heart whether he can endure that his mistress should have _struggled_ with a sensual impulse for another man, though she overcame it from a sense of duty to him. Women are LESS offended with men, in part, from the vicious habits of men, and, in part, from the difference of bodily const.i.tution. Yet, still, to a pure and truly loving woman this must be a painful thought. That he should struggle with and overcome ambition, desire of fortune, superior beauty, &c., or with objectless desire of any kind, is pleasing, but _not_ that he has struggled with positive, appropriated desire, that is, desire _with_ an object. Love, in short, requires an absolute peace and harmony between all parts of human nature, such as it is; and it is offended by any _war_, though the battle should be decided in favour of the worthier. This is, perhaps, the final cause of the _rarity_ of true love, and the efficient and immediate cause of its difficulty. Ours is a life of probation. We are to contemplate and obey _duty_ for its own sake, and in order to do this, we, in our present imperfect state of being, must see it not merely abstracted from but in direct opposition to the _wish_, the _inclination_. Having perfected this, the highest possibility of human nature, man may then with safety harmonise _all_ his being with this--he may _love_. To perform duties absolutely from the sense of duty is the _ideal_, which, perhaps, no human being ever can arrive at, but which every human being ought to try to draw near unto. This is, in the only wise, and, verily, in a most sublime sense, to see G.o.d face to face, which, alas! it seems too true that no man can do and _live_, that is, a _human_ life. It would become incompatible with his organization, or rather, it would _trans.m.u.te_ it, and the process of that trans.m.u.tation, to the senses of other men, would be called death. Even as to the caterpillar, in all probability, the caterpillar dies, and he either, which is most probable, does not see (or, at all events, does not see the connection between the caterpillar and) the b.u.t.terfly, the beautiful Psyche of the Greeks.

[Sidenote: HAPPINESS MADE PERFECT]

Those who in this life love in perfection, if such there be, in proportion as their love has no struggles, see G.o.d darkly and through a veil. For when duty and pleasure are absolutely co-incident, the very nature of our organisation necessitates that duty will be contemplated as the symbol of pleasure, instead of pleasure being (as in a future life we have faith it will be) the symbol of duty. For herein lies the distinction between human and angelic happiness. Humanly happy I call him who in enjoyment _finds_ his duty; angelically happy he, who seeks and finds his duty in enjoyment.

Happiness in general may be defined, not the aggregate of pleasurable sensations--for this is either a dangerous error and the creed of sensualists, or else a mere translation or wordy paraphrase--but the state of that person who, in order to enjoy his nature in the highest manifestation of conscious _feeling_, has no need of doing wrong, and who, in order to do right, is under no necessity of abstaining from enjoyment.

[_Vide Life of S. T. C._, by James Gillman, 1838, pp. 176-78.]