"We are the twin stars, and cannot shine in one sphere. When he rises I
must set."--Congreve, _Love for Love_, Act III. Sc. 4.
3. "Et ce n'est pas toujours par valeur et par chastete que les hommes
sont vaillants et que les femmes sont chastes."--De La Rochefoucauld,
_Max._ I.
"Yes, faith! I believe some women are virtuous, too; but 'tis as I
believe some men are valiant, through fear."--Congreve, _Love for
Love_, Act III. Sc. 14.
4. "Mais si les vaisseaux sillonnent un moment les ondes, la vague
vient effacer aussitot cette legere marque de servitude, et la mer
reparait telle qu'elle fut au premier jour de la Creation."--_Corinne_,
b. I. ch. 4.
"Such as Creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now!"--Byron, _Childe
Harold_.
5. "Il est plus honteux de se mefier de ses amis que d'en etre
trompe."--De La Rochefoucauld, _Max._ LXXXIV.
"Better trust all, and be deceived,
And weep that trust, and that deceiving,
Than doubt one heart that, if believed,
Had blessed thy life with true believing!
"Oh! in this mocking world, too fast
The doubting fiend o'ertakes our youth:
Better be cheated to the last,
Than lose the blessed hope of truth!"--Mrs. Butler (Fanny Kemble).
6. In "N. & Q.," Vol. iv., p. 435., I cited, as a parallel to Shelley, the
following from Southey's _Doctor_, vol. vi. p. 158.:
"The sense of flying in our sleep might, he thought, probably be the
anticipation or forefeeling of an unevolved power, like an Aurelia's
dream of butterfly motion."
In Spicer's _Sights and Sounds_ (1853), p. 140., is to be found a poem
professing to have been "dictated by the spirit of Robert Southey," on
March 25, 1851, the fourth stanza of which runs as follows:
"The soul, like some sweet flower-bud yet unblown,
Lay tranced in beauty in its silent cell:
The spirit slept, but dreamed of worlds unknown,
_As dreams the chrysalis within its shell_,
Ere summer breathes its spell."
What inference should be drawn from this coincidence for or against the
reality of the "spiritual dictation?"