chapter ix. (_Coleridge's Works_, iii. 249).

[Sidenote: OBSERVATIONS AND REFLECTIONS]

The spring with the little tiny cone of loose sand ever rising and sinking at the bottom, but its surface without a wrinkle.

[Sidenote: Monday, September 14, 1801]

Northern lights remarkably fine--chiefly a purple-blue--in shooting pyramids, moved from over Bassenthwaite behind Skiddaw. Derwent's birthday, one year old.

[Sidenote: September 15, 1801]

Observed the great half moon setting behind the mountain ridge, and watched the shapes its various segments presented as it slowly sunk--first the foot of a boot, all but the heel--then a little pyramid [py]--then a star of the first magnitude--indeed, it was not distinguishable from the evening star at its largest--then rapidly a smaller, a small, a very small star--and, as it diminished in size, so it grew paler in tint. And now where is it? Unseen--but a little fleecy cloud hangs above the mountain ridge, and is rich in amber light.

I do not wish you to act from those truths. No! still and always act from your feelings; but only meditate often on these truths, that sometime or other they may become your feelings.

The state should be to the religions under its protection as a well-drawn picture, equally eyeing all in the room.

Quære, whether or no too great definiteness of terms in any language may not consume too much of the vital and idea-creating force in distinct, clear, full-made images, and so prevent originality. For original might be distinguished from positive thought.

The thing that causes _in_stability in a particular state, of itself causes stability. For instance, wet soap slips off the ledge--detain it till it dries a little, and it _sticks_.

Is there anything in the idea that citizens are fonder of good eating and rustics of strong drink--the one from the rarity of all such things, the other from the uniformity of his life?

[Sidenote: October 19, 1801]

[Sidenote: 1797-1801]

On the Greta, over the bridge by Mr. Edmundson's father-in-law, the ashes--their leaves of that light yellow which autumn gives them, cast a reflection on the river like a painter's sunshine.

[Sidenote: October 20, 1801]

My birthday. The snow fell on Skiddaw and Grysdale Pike for the first time.

[A life-long mistake. He was born October 21, 1772.]

[Sidenote: Tuesday evening, 1/2 past 6, October 22, 1801]

All the mountains black and tremendously obscure, except Swinside. At this time I saw, one after the other, nearly in the same place, two perfect moon-rainbows, the one foot in the field below my garden, the other in the field nearest but two to the church. It was grey-moonlight-mist-colour. Friday morning, Mary Hutchinson arrives.

The art in a great man, and of evidently superior faculties, to be often _obliged_ to people, often his inferiors--in this way the enthusiasm of affection may be excited. Pity where we can help and our help is accepted with gratitude, conjoined with admiration, breeds an enthusiastic affection. The same pity conjoined with admiration, where neither our help is accepted nor efficient, breeds dyspathy and fear.

_Nota bene_ to make a detailed comparison, in the manner of Jeremy Taylor, between the searching for the first cause of a thing and the seeking the fountains of the Nile--so many streams, each with its particular fountain--and, at last, it all comes to a name!

The soul a mummy embalmed by Hope in the catacombs.

To write a _series_ of love poems truly Sapphic, save that they shall have a large interfusion of moral sentiment and calm imagery--love in all the moods of mind, philosophic, fantastic--in moods of high enthusiasm, of simple feeling, of mysticism, of religion--comprise in it all the practice and all the philosophy of love!

[Greek: Ho myrionous]--hyperbole from Naucratius' panegyric of Theodoras Chersites. Shakspere, _item_, [Greek: ho pollostos kai polyeidês tê poikilostrophô sophia. Ho megalophrônotatos tês alêtheias kêryx.]--LORD BACON.

[Compare _Biographia Literaria_, cap. xv., "our myriad-minded Shakspere" and _footnote_. [Greek: Anêr myrionous] a phrase which I have borrowed from a Greek monk, who applies it to a Patriarch of Constantinople. I might have said that I have reclaimed rather than borrowed it; for it seems to belong to Shakspere, _de jure singulari, et ex privilegio naturæ. Coleridge's Works_, iii. 375.]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote A: Presumably George Dyer.]