Anima Poetae Part 2

[Sidenote: OF THINGS VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE]

[A Proof of] the severity of the winter--the kingfisher [by] its slow, short flight permitting you to observe all its colours, almost as if it had been a flower.

Little daisy--very late Spring, March. Quid si vivat? Do all things in faith. _Never pluck a flower again!_ Mem.

[Sidenote: May 20, 1799]

The nightingales in a cl.u.s.ter or little wood of blossomed trees, and a bat wheeling incessantly round and round! The noise of the frogs was not unpleasant, like the humming of spinning wheels in a large manufactory--now and then a distinct sound, sometimes like a duck, and, sometimes, like the shrill notes of sea-fowl.

[This note was written one day later than S. T. C.'s last letter from Germany, May 19, 1799.]

O Heavens! when I think how perishable things, how imperishable thoughts seem to be! For what is forgetfulness? Renew the state of affection or bodily feeling [so as to be the] same or similar, sometimes dimly similar, and, instantly, the trains of forgotten thoughts rise from their living catacombs!

[Sidenote:[Sockburn] October 1799]

Few moments in life are so interesting as those of our affectionate reception from a stranger who is the dear friend of your dear friend!

How often you have been the subject of conversation, and how affectionately!

[The note commemorates his first introduction to Mary and Sarah Hutchinson.]

[Sidenote: Friday evening, Nov, 27, 1799]

The immoveableness of all things through which so many men were moving--a harsh contrast compared with the universal motion, the harmonious system of motions in the country, and everywhere in Nature.

In the dim light London appeared to be a huge place of sepulchres through which hosts of spirits were gliding.

Ridicule the rage for quotations by quoting from "My Baby's Handkerchief." a.n.a.lyse the causes that the ludicrous weakens memory, and laughter, mechanically, makes it difficult to remember a good story.

Sara sent twice for the measure of George's[A] neck. He wondered that Sara should be such a fool, as she might have measured William's or Coleridge's--as "all poets' throttles were of one size."

Hazlitt, the painter, told me that a picture never looked so well as when the pallet was by the side of it. a.s.sociation, with the glow of production.

Mr. J. Cairns, in the _Gentleman's Diary_ for 1800, supposes that the Nazarites, who, under the law of Moses, had their heads [shaved] must have used some sort of wigs!

Slanting pillars of misty light moved along under the sun hid by clouds.

Leaves of trees upturned by the stirring wind in twilight--an image of paleness, wan affright.

A child scolding a flower in the words in which he had been himself scolded and whipped, is poetry--pa.s.sion past with pleasure.

[Sidenote: July 20, 1800]

Poor fellow at a distance--idle? in this hay-time when wages are so high? [We] come near [and] then [see that he is] pale, can scarce speak or throw out his fis.h.i.+ng rod.

[This incident is fully described by Wordsworth in the last of the four poems on "Naming of Places."

--_Poetical Works of W. Wordsworth_, 1889, p. 144.]

[Sidenote: September 1, [1800]]

The beards of thistle and dandelions flying about the lonely mountains like life--and I saw them through the trees skimming the lake like swallows.

["And, in our vacant mood, Not seldom did we stop to watch some tuft Of dandelion seed or thistle's beard, That skimmed the surface of the dead calm lake, Suddenly halting now--a lifeless stand!

And starting off again with freak as sudden; In all its sportive wanderings, all the while, Making report of an invisible breeze That was its wings, its chariot and its horse, Its playmate, rather say, its moving soul."

_Ibid._ p. 143.]

Luther--a hero, fettered, indeed, with prejudices--but with those very fetters he would knock out the brains of a modern _Fort Esprit_.

_Comment._ Frightening by his prejudices, as a spirit does by clanking his chains.

Not only words, as far as relates to speaking, but the knowledge of words as distinct component parts, which we learn by learning to read--what an immense effect it must have on our reasoning faculties!

Logical in opposition to real.

[Sidenote: 1797-1801]

Children, in making new words, always do it a.n.a.logously. Explain this.

Hot-headed men confuse, your cool-headed gentry jumble. The man of warm feelings only produces order and true connection. In what a jumble M.

and H. write, every third paragraph beginning with "Let us now return,"

or "We come now to the consideration of such a thing"--that is, what _I said_ I _would_ come to in the contents prefixed to the chapter.

[Sidenote: Dec. 19, 1800]

The thin scattered rain-clouds were scudding along the sky; above them, with a visible inters.p.a.ce, the crescent moon hung, and partook not of the motion; her own hazy light filled up the concave, as if it had been painted and the colours had run.

"He to whom all things are one, who draweth all things to one, and seeth all things in one, may enjoy true peace of mind and rest of spirit."--JEREMY TAYLOR'S _Via Pacis_.