I fell to sleep again, having in the previous doze meditated on the possibility of making dreams regular; and just as I had passed 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 illustrates the connection of dreams.
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 Illustrated London News, June 10, 1893.]
ANTICIPATIONS IN NATURE AND IN THOUGHT Saturday 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 Λογος 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.]
THE HOPE OF HUMANITY, Easter Sunday, 1805
That beautiful passage 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, anticipated 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.
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.
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." God is the essence as well as the object of religion.
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 passed along my sword and destroyed a man.
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!
ADHÆSIT 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?
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 entitled "The Honeymoon" was published in 1805.
Robert
