August 24. 1833.
CONSOLATION IN DISTRESS.—-MOCK EVANGELICALS.—AUTUMN DAY.
I am never very forward in offering spiritual consolation to any one in distress or disease. I believe that such resources, to be of any service, must be self-evolved in the first instance. I am something of the Quaker's mind in this, and am inclined to wait for the spirit.
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The most common effect of this mock evangelical spirit, especially with young women, is self-inflation and busy-bodyism.
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How strange and awful is the synthesis of life and death in the gusty winds and falling leaves of an autumnal day!
August 25. 1833.
ROSETTI ON DANTE.—LAUGHTER: FARCE AND TRAGEDY.
Rosetti's view of Dante's meaning is in great part just, but he has pushed it beyond all bounds of common sense. How could a poet—and such a poet as Dante—have written the details of the allegory as conjectured by Rosetti? The boundaries between his allegory and his pure picturesque are plain enough, I think, at first reading.