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Untitled Article
and I take upon me to affirm that the one proves as much as the other . Of course I mean to the right subjects . A horse cannot draw an inference ; there are thousands to whom Euclid proves nothing—to whom he never will prove anything , save and except this single proposition , that to their minds he cannot prove any
thing . Their minds either stand stock still , or move with a hop , step , and jump . Now to travel with Euclid one must walk , step by step , all the steps well measured and rightly counted . In not proving something to every body , poetry is therefore only in the same category with geometry . Each requires what Jeremy Bentham used to call the appropriate intellectual aptitude ; and each
proves most where that is maximized , and least where that is minimized . Geometry demonstrates to the inductive intellect , and poetry demonstrates to the reflective and introspective soul . And the percipient of poetical demonstration imbibes also the demonstrations of all things , in nature and in art , which are poetical . He will take the mathematician in the fulness of his heart ,
remembering his own enjoyment , and forgetting his friend ' s onesidedness , to look at some beautiful painting or statue , and not laugh at him when he asks the question , what does that prove ? Why should he , for he himself knows what it proves . And so it is with scenery , as I was well assured by getting into the country one day last month , when I found every object from morning till
night as full of wisdom and demonstration as one of Harriet Martineau ' s illustrations of political economy ; indeed , I might say two at least , for it was both Life in the Wilds' and the Hill and the Valley ; ' and so I shall tell the whole story of the day , or rather try to paint the scenes which in succession it presented , and conclude with something of a proof that those scenes of themselves prove something .
Don ' t be inquisitive about the locality , reader . It is true , that very Venetian , Grecian , French , Canadian , Saxon , Kent and Surreyish nondescript and omne-descript house on the hill top , beyond the common , above the wood , which I slept in on the ¦ ultimo , may sometimes be hired for a summer , and perhaps occasionally even for a winter , by any respectable tenant who is qualified to summer and winter there ; but I have no relish for
the profession of a gratuitous house-agent . So , no letters of inquiry to * the able author , &c . care of the editor / * private / on the right-hand corner at the top , and to be forwarded—immediate , ' on the left-hand corner at the bottom ; no , not even though they come with the signatures of Inquirer , Admirer , and , better than
both , Constant Reader ; no petitions for an answer in the Notices to Correspondents ; I will be party to no frauds upon the stampoffice , or on the editor or publisher , whom the Whigs are likely enough to tax , and surcharge , and exchequer , and all that , for any such accommodations . Let it all be done fair and above board . Advertise like a man . The landlord will be sure to see
Untitled Article
414 Local Logic .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1833, page 414, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2616/page/54/
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