The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume I Part 39

FORCE OF HABIT.

An Emir had bought a left eye of a gla.s.s eye-maker, supposing that he would be able to see with it. The man begged him to give it a little time: he could not expect that it would see all at once as well as the right eye, which had been for so many years in the habit of it.

PHOENIX.

The Phoenix lives a thousand years, a secular bird of ages; and there is never more than one at a time in the world. Yet Plutarch very gravely informs us, that the brain of the Phoenix is a pleasant bit, but apt to occasion the head ache. By the by, there are few styles that are not fit for something. I have often wished to see Claudian's splendid poem on the Phoenix translated into English verse in the elaborate rhyme and gorgeous diction of Darwin. Indeed Claudian throughout would bear translation better than any of the ancients.

MEMORY AND RECOLLECTION.

Beasts and babies remember, that is, recognize: man alone recollects.

This distinction was made by Aristotle.

'Aliquid ex Nihilo.'

In answer to the 'nihil e nihilo' of the atheists, and their near relations, the 'anima-mundi' men, a humourist pointed to a white blank in a rude wood-cut, which very ingeniously served for the head of hair in one of the figures.

BREVITY OF THE GREEK AND ENGLISH COMPARED.

As an instance of compression and brevity in narration, unattainable in any language but the Greek, the following distich was quoted:

[Greek (transliterated): Chruson anaer euron, helipe brochon autar o chruson, hon lipen, ouk ehuron, haephen, hon ehure, brochon.]

This was denied by one of the company, who instantly rendered the lines in English, contending with reason that the indefinite article in English, together with the p.r.o.noun "his," &c. should be considered as one word with the noun following, and more than counterbalanced by the greater number of syllables in the Greek words, the terminations of which are in truth only little words glued on to them. The English distich follows, and the reader will recollect that it is a mere trial of comparative brevity, wit and poetry quite out of the question:

Jack finding gold left a rope on the ground; Bill missing his gold used the rope, which he found.

1809--1816.

THE WILL AND THE DEED.

The will to the deed,--the inward principle to the outward act,--is as the kernel to the sh.e.l.l; but yet, in the first place, the sh.e.l.l is necessary for the kernel, and that by which it is commonly known;--and, in the next place, as the sh.e.l.l comes first, and the kernel grows gradually and hardens within it, so is it with the moral principle in man. Legality precedes morality in every individual, even as the Jewish dispensation preceded the Christian in the education of the world at large.

THE WILL FOR THE DEED.

When may the will be taken for the deed?--Then when the will is the obedience of the whole man;--when the will is in fact the deed, that is, all the deed in our power. In every other case, it is bending the bow without shooting the arrow. The bird of Paradise gleams on the lofty branch, and the man takes aim, and draws the tough yew into a crescent with might and main,--and lo! there is never an arrow on the string.

SINCERITY.

The first great requisite is absolute sincerity. Falsehood and disguise are miseries and misery-makers, under whatever strength of sympathy, or desire to prolong happy thoughts in others for their sake or your own only as sympathizing with theirs, it may originate. All sympathy, not consistent with acknowledged virtue, is but disguised selfishness.

TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD.

The pre-eminence of truth over falsehood, even when occasioned by that truth, is as a gentle fountain breathing from forth its air-let into the snow piled over and around it, which it turns into its own substance, and flows with greater murmur; and though it be again arrested, still it is but for a time,--it awaits only the change of the wind to awake and roll onwards its ever increasing stream:--

I semplici pastori Sul Vesolo nevoso, Fatti curvi e canuti, D'alto stupor son muti, Mirando al fonte ombroso Il Po con pochi umori; Poscia udendo gl' onori Dell'urna angusta e stretta, Che'l Adda, che'l Tesino Soverchia il suo cammino, Che ampio al mar s'affretta, Che si spuma, e si suona, Che gli si da corona!

(Chiabrera, Rime, xxviii.)

But falsehood is fire in stubble;--it likewise turns all the light stuff around it into its own substance for a moment, one crackling blazing moment,--and then dies; and all its converts are scattered in the wind, without place or evidence of their existence, as viewless as the wind which scatters them.

RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES.

A man may look at gla.s.s, or through it, or both. Let all earthly things be unto thee as gla.s.s to see heaven through! Religious ceremonies should be pure gla.s.s, not dyed in the gorgeous crimsons and purple blues and greens of the drapery of saints and saintesses.

a.s.sOCIATION.

Many a star, which we behold as single, the astronomer resolves into two, each, perhaps, the centre of a separate system. Oft are the flowers of the bind-weed mistaken for the growth of the plant, which it chokes with its intertwine. And many are the unsuspected double stars, and frequent are the parasite weeds, which the philosopher detects in the received opinions of men:--so strong is the tendency of the imagination to identify what it has long consociated. Things that have habitually, though, perhaps, accidentally and arbitrarily, been thought of in connection with each other, we are p.r.o.ne to regard as inseparable. The fatal brand is cast into the fire, and therefore Meleager must consume in the flames. To these conjunctions of custom and a.s.sociation--(the a.s.sociative power of the mind which holds the mid place between memory and sense,)--we may best apply Sir Thomas Brown's remark, that many things coagulate on commixture, the separate natures of which promise no concretion.

CURIOSITY.

The curiosity of an honourable mind willingly rests there, where the love of truth does not urge it farther onward, and the love of its neighbour bids it stop;--in other words, it willingly stops at the point, where the interests of truth do not beckon it onward, and charity cries, Halt!

NEW TRUTHS.

To all new truths, or renovation of old truths, it must be as in the ark between the destroyed and the about-to-be renovated world. The raven must be sent out before the dove, and ominous controversy must precede peace and the olive-wreath.

VICIOUS PLEASURES.