two things could be
more distinct. The one was a shop-boy's quality, the other the
characteristic of a philosopher. He considered Bishop Butler as a true
philosopher, a profound and conscientious thinker, a genuine reader of
nature and his own mind. He did not speak of his _Analogy_, but of his
_Sermons at the Rolls' Chapel_, of which I had never heard. Coleridge
somehow always contrived to prefer the _unknown_ to the _known_. In
this instance he was right. The _Analogy_ is a tissue of sophistry, of
wire-drawn, theological special-pleading; the _Sermons_ (with the
Preface to them) are in a fine vein of deep, matured reflection, a
candid appeal to our observation of human nature, without pedantry and
without bias. I told Coleridge I had written a few remarks, and was
sometimes foolish enough to believe that I had made a discovery on the
same subject (the _Natural Disinterestedness of the Human Mind_)--and
I tried to explain my view of it to Coleridge, who listened with great
willingness, but I did not succeed in making myself understood. I sat
down to the task shortly afterwards for the twentieth time, got new
pens and paper, determined to make clear work of it, wrote a few
meagre sentences in the skeleton style of a mathematical
demonstration, stopped half-way down the second page; and, after
trying in vain to pump up any words, images, notions, apprehensions,
facts, or observations, from that gulf of abstraction in which I had
plunged myself for four or five years preceding, gave up the attempt
as labour in vain, and shed tears of helpless despondency on the blank
unfinished paper. I can write fast enough now. Am I better than I was
then? Oh no! One truth discovered, one pang of regret at not being
able to express it, is better than all the fluency and flippancy in
the world. Would that I could go back to what I then was! Why can we
not revive past times as we can revisit old places? If I had the
quaint Muse of Sir Philip Sidney to assist me, I would write a _Sonnet
to the Road between Wem and Shrewsbury_, and immortalize every step
of it by some fond enigmatical conceit. I would swear that the very
milestones had ears, and that Harmer-hill stooped with all its pines,
to listen to a poet, as he passed! I remember but one other topic of
discourse in this walk. He mentioned Paley, praised the naturalness
and clearness of his style, but condemned his sentiments, thought him
a mere time-serving casuist, and said that 'the