To some reader, perhaps, an essay without end may appear odd, and opposed to the regular order of things; but if he will kindly imagine the line written on his gravestone—and it is an epitaph which my own ghost would regard with particular satisfaction—he will at once see that it is by no means singular. And whatever propriety there may be in its application to human life, extends to any process of thought; for thought, like life, is essential, without beginning and without end.
It is this which makes abstract reflection so unsatisfying. An abstract thought is a sort of disembodied spirit; and when matched with its kind, the result is generally a progeny of ghosts and chimeras—numerous, but incapable. In fact, we do not often get so much as that out of it. Abstract thought generally travels backward. Childless itself, it goes upon its own pedigree; and as that becomes mysterious in proportion as it is remote, we soon find ourselves in a company of shadows, too vast to contemplate and too subtle for apprehension.
Again it is with thought as it is with life (I should say "soul," if the word had not been hackneyed out of all endurance—but then the poets have exhausted nature)—it must be married to something material before you can hope to get good fruit from it—capable of continuing the species. Luckily, anything will do. It seems to have been foreseen from the creation that thought would scarcely prove prolific, unless it might be kindled at every sense and by every object in the world. Experience more than proves the justness of that foresight, and thus we have sermons in stones. By a bountiful provision, the human mind is capable of immediate and fruitful alliance with a bough, a brook, a cloud—all that the eye may see or the ear echo. It may be observed, too, that just as Sir Cassian Creme strengthens the blood of his ancient and delicate house by an alliance with his dairy-woman, so a cultivated mind may produce more vigorous progeny by intimacy with an atom than with any long-descended speculation on the Soul, say. Coleridge's method of thinking is much to the purpose, and what came of it as a whole?
For amusement's sake, let us carry theory into practice. Let us try what course of reflection we may get by contemplating the first natural object that comes to hand. The field is wide enough: there is Parnassus, and there is Holborn Hill. But there are too many squatters on the former eminence already, perhaps; and besides, a kind of Bedlam is said to have arisen about the base of it lately, beyond which few adventurers are known to proceed. Our aspirations are humble—we may choose the lesser hill.
"Alas, then!" says the dear reader, "we are to have some antiquarian reflections. Better Parnassus and Bedlam!"—Fear not. Providence, which
