hings 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 of 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 gulph 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 W--m and
Shrewsbury_, and immortalise 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 fa