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Untitled Article
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
actually did stoop to touch it . But the tiers of seats , which once gave accommodation to twenty thousand spectators , can only be guessed at in some fragments which are strewn about the area . After a little struggling , and a trifle of shin scraping , as I groped my way through what seemed to be a line of vaults broken and obstructed by dilapidations , ( it was the bridge on which the seats had been erected , and at one time extended around and in gradated heights up the walls , ) I
found means to exalt myself to the second range of arches , openings , windows I suppose they may be called , and there stood on a shelf or ledge that abutted inwards from the wall , and leaning on what , in my ignorance of architectural technology , I must designate the sill of the window , gazed on the bay of Pola , down to the left on the flat roofs and ribbed tilings of the city—and on the vessels , some standing out in the light , and others obscured in the darkness—then outwards far ,
far upon the face of the Adriatic , where I distinctly saw , blackening up from the waters , my roving dwelling-place , my wandering habitation , my beloved and beautiful home , the A— , the happiest home I ever knew ! I thought then , and I yet think , language could not impress paper , nor voice give to the ear the enchanting beauty of that view , neither is the world ' s heart nor its wisdom plastic and capacious enough to receive it . It is from repeated instances of this
powerlessness of the thoughts that I have been led to question the writer ' s truth who has written poems on the spot' descriptive of the scene and his impressions , when surveying an extraordinary splendour or magnificence of nature or of art , unless it has been on a second , third , fourth , fifth , or twentieth visit ; so that he might then subdue the uproar in his thoughts , and assume a steadiness to his purpose ; for that same mental and constitutional conformation which enables him
to take impressions so deeply and so vividly , will effectually bar the concentration of thought which is necessary in writing the impressions down . I grant ye , if his mind be of foot-rule and fathom-line quality , his aim will be attained ; but it is not of such I speak . I
admit that striking points may be arranged and fastened on the mind of my proper man ; but I believe it is only on a recreation of , and after reflection on , the past , that these have been combined and given to the world , in a spirited , energetic , and correct picture of words . This , I am sure , is the case with myself at least ; rapturous confusion , intoxicated bewilderment , have ever been my sensations while the objects were under my physical gaze ; therefore I ever look on 4 written on the spot' with suspicion , if the writing be true , bold , and
sharp and deeply cut . When it is tame and duck-pondish , it passes for * written on the spot' with me . You may take notes if you please , but do not call that 4 written on the spot . ' Perhaps , however , I am in error , and appear bigoted in thus 4 measuring other people ' s corn by my bushel . ' Possibly there are some spirits who can take a soaring , and yet collected flight , where I , in the overwhelmingness of impressions , in which nothing is defined , and a hundred streams rush at once with a crushing and devouring influence into my thoughts , attempt to fly , but my wings collapse after a few dull , unmeaning flappings . The moon ' s fair and bright face was fast dimming in the approach of day , a fiercer luminary was threatening to stare her into pale bash-
Untitled Article
626 A utobiography of Pel . Verjuice .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1833, page 628, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2622/page/44/
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