Great genial Agent in all finite souls; And by that action puts on finiteness, Absolute Infinite, whose dazzling robe Flows in rich folds, and plays in shooting hues Of infinite finiteness.
[Sidenote: FOR THE "SOOTHER IN ABSENCE." Syracuse, September 26, 1805]
I was standing gazing at the starry heaven, and said, "I will go to bed, the next star that shoots." Observe this, in counting fixed numbers previous to doing anything, and deduce from man's own unconscious acknowledgment man's _dependence_ on something more apparently and believedly subject to regular and certain laws than his own will and reason.
To Wordsworth in the progression of spirit, once Simonides, or Empedocles, or both in one--
"Oh! that my spirit, purged by death of its weaknesses, which are, alas! my identity, might flow into thine, and live and act in thee and be thine!"
Death, first of all, eats of the Tree of Life and becomes immortal. Describe the frightful metamorphosis. He weds the Hamadryad of the Tree [and begets a twy-form] progeny. This in the manner of Dante.
Sad drooping children of a wretched parent are those yellowing leaflets of a broken twig, broke ere its June.
We are not inert in the grave. St. Paul's corn in the ground proves this scripturally, and the growth of infants in their sleep by natural analogy. What, then, if our spiritual growth be in proportion to the length and depth of the sleep! With what mysterious grandeur does not this thought invest the grave, and how poor compared with this an immediate Paradise!
I awake and find my beloved asleep, gaze upon her by the taper that feebly illumines the darkness, then fall asleep by her side; and we both awake together for _good_ and _all_ in the broad daylight of heaven.
Forget not to impress as often and as manifoldly as possible the _totus in omni parte_ of Truth, and its consequent interdependence on co-operation and, _vice versâ_, the fragmentary character of action, and its absolute dependence on society, a majority, etc. The blindness to this distinction creates fanaticism on one side, alarm and prosecution on the other. Jacobins or soul-gougers. It is an interesting fact or fable that the stork (the emblem of filial or conjugal piety) never abides in a monarchy.