--AUTUMN DAY.
I am never very forward in offering spiritual consolation to any one in
distress or disease. I believe that such resources, to be of any service,
must be self-evolved in the first instance. I am something of the Quaker's
mind in this, and am inclined to _wait_ for the spirit.
* * * * *
The most common effect of this mock evangelical spirit, especially with
young women, is self-inflation and busy-bodyism.
* * * * *
How strange and awful is the synthesis of life and death in the gusty winds
and falling leaves of an autumnal day!
August 25. 1833.
ROSETTI ON DANTE.--LAUGHTER: FARCE AND TRAGEDY.
Rosetti's view of Dante's meaning is in great part just, but he has pushed
it beyond all bounds of common sense. How could a poet--and such a poet as
Dante--have written the details of the allegory as conjectured by Rosetti?
The boundaries between his allegory and his pure picturesque are plain
enough, I think, at first reading.
* * * * *
To resolve laughter into an expression of contempt is contrary to fact, and
laughable enough. Laughter is a convulsion of the nerves; and it seems as
if nature cut short the rapid thrill of pleasure on the nerves by a sudden
convulsion of them, to prevent the sensation becoming painful.
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