I can make out no other affinity [in the pyramid] to the circle but by taking its evanescence as the central point, and so, having thus gained a melting of the radii in the circumference [by proceeding to] look it into the object. Extravagance! Why? Does not everyone do this in looking at any conspicuous three stars together? does not every one see by the inner vision, a triangle? However, this is in art; but the prototype in nature is, indeed, loveliness. In Nature there are no straight lines, or [such straight lines as there are] have the soul of curves, from activity and positive rapid energy. Or, whether the line seem curve or straight, yet here, in nature, is motion—motion in its most significant form. It is motion in that form which has been chosen to express motion in general, hieroglyphical from pre-eminence, [and by this very pre-eminence, in the particular instance, made significant of motion in its totality]. Hence, though it chance that a line in nature should be perfectly straight, there is no need here of any curve whose effect is that of embleming motion and counteracting actual solidity by that emblem. For here the line [in contra-distinction to the line in art] is actual motion, and therefore a balancing Figurite of rest and solidity. But I will study the wood-fire this evening in the Palace.
Wednesday Night, 11 o'clock, December 19
I see now that the eye refuses to decide whether it be surface or convexity, for the exquisite oneness of the flame makes even its angles so different from the angles of tangible substances. Its exceeding oneness added to its very subsistence in motion is the very soul of the loveliest curve—it does not need its body as it were. Its sharpest point is, however, rounded, and besides it is cased within its own penumbra.
FOR THE "SOOTHER IN ABSENCE" Friday Morning, Dec. 21, 8 o'clock
How beautiful a circumstance, the improvement of the flower, from the root up to that crown of its life and labours, that bridal-chamber of its beauty and its two-fold love, the nuptial and the parental—the womb, the cradle, and the nursery of the garden!
Quisque sui faber—a pretty simile this would make to a young lady producing beauty by moral feeling.