The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume I Part 40

Centries, or wooden frames, are put under the arches of a bridge, to remain no longer than till the latter are consolidated. Even so pleasures are the devil's scaffolding to build a habit upon;--that formed and steady, the pleasures are sent for fire-wood, and the h.e.l.l begins in this life.

MERITING HEAVEN.

Virtue makes us not worthy, but only worthier, of happiness. Existence itself gives a claim to joy. Virtue and happiness are incommensurate quant.i.ties. How much virtue must I have, before I have paid off the old debt of my happiness in infancy and childhood! O! We all outrun the constable with heaven's justice! We have to earn the earth, before we can think of earning heaven.

DUST TO DUST.

We were indeed,--

[Greek (transliterated): panta konis, kai panta gel_os, kai panta to maeden]

if we did not feel that we were so.

HUMAN COUNTENANCE.

There is in every human countenance either a history or a prophecy, which must sadden, or at least soften, every reflecting observer.

LIE USEFUL TO TRUTH.

A lie accidentally useful to the cause of an oppressed truth: Thus was the tongue of a dog made medicinal to a feeble and sickly Lazarus.

SCIENCE IN ROMAN CATHOLIC STATES.

In Roman Catholic states, where science has forced its way, and some light must follow, the devil himself cunningly sets up a shop for common sense at the sign of the Infidel.

VOLUNTARY BELIEF.

"It is possible," says Jeremy Taylor, "for a man to bring himself to believe any thing he hath a mind to." But what is this belief?--a.n.a.lyse it into its const.i.tuents;--is it more than certain pa.s.sions or feelings converging into the sensation of positiveness as their focus, and then a.s.sociated with certain sounds or images?--'Nemo enim', says Augustin, 'huic evidentiae contradicet, nisi quem plus defensare delectat, quod sent.i.t, quam, quid sentiendum sit, invenire.'

AMANDA.

Lovely and pure--no bird of Paradise, to feed on dew and flower-fragrance, and never to alight on earth, till shot by death with pointless shaft; but a rose, to fix its roots in the genial earth, thence to suck up nutriment and bloom strong and healthy,--not to droop and fade amid sunshine and zephyrs on a soilless rock! Her marriage was no meagre prose comment on the glowing and gorgeous poetry of her wooing;--nor did the surly over-browing rock of reality ever cast the dusky shadow of this earth on the soft moonlight of her love's first phantasies.

HYMEN'S TORCH.

The torch of love may be blown out wholly, but not that of Hymen. Whom the flame and its cheering light and genial warmth no longer bless, him the smoke stifles; for the spark is inextinguishable, save by death:--

'nigro circ.u.mvelatus amictu Maeret Hymen, fumantque atrae sine lumine taedae'.

YOUTH AND AGE.

Youth beholds happiness gleaming in the prospect. Age looks back on the happiness of youth; and instead of hopes, seeks its enjoyment in the recollections of hope.

DECEMBER MORNING.

The giant shadows sleeping amid the wan yellow light of the December morning, looked like wrecks and scattered ruins of the long, long night.

ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON.

Next to the inspired Scriptures,--yea, and as the vibration of that once struck hour remaining on the air, stands Leighton's Commentary on the first Epistle of Peter.

CHRISTIAN HONESTY.

"O! that G.o.d," says Carey in his Journal in Hindostan, "would make the Gospel successful among them! That would undoubtedly make them honest men, and I fear nothing else ever will." Now this is a fact,--spite of infidels and psilosophizing Christians, a fact. A perfect explanation of it would require and would show the psychology of faith,--the difference between the whole soul's modifying an action, and an action enforced by modifications of the soul amid prudential motives or favouring impulses.

Let me here remind myself of the absolute necessity of having my whole faculties awake and imaginative, in order to ill.u.s.trate this and similar truths;--otherwise my writings will be no other than pages of algebra.

INSCRIPTION ON A CLOCK IN CHEAPSIDE.

What now thou do'st, or art about to do, Will help to give thee peace, or make thee rue; When hov'ring o'er the line this hand will tell The last dread moment--'twill be heaven or h.e.l.l.

Read for the last two lines--

When wav'ring o'er the dot, this hand shall tell The moment that secures thee heaven or h.e.l.l!

RATIONALISM IS NOT REASON.