"To love or not: in this we stand or fall"—
yet both lines are composed of five iambics? The third, of the strength and position, the concentration or diffusion of the emphasis. Fourth, the length and position of the pauses. Then compare his narrative with the harangues. I have not noticed the ellipses, because they either do not affect the rhythm, or are not ellipses, but are comprehended in the feet.
APHORISMS OR PITHY SENTENCES
Shall I compare man to a clockwork Catamaran, destined to float on in a meaner element for so many moments or hours, and then to explode, scattering its involucrum and itself to ascend into its proper element?
I am persuaded that we love what is above us more than what is under us.
Money—paper money—peace, war. How comes it that all men in all companies are talking of the depreciation, etc. etc.—and yet that a discourse on transubstantiation would not be a more withering sirocco than the attempt to explain philosophically the true cure and causes of that which interests all so vehemently?