Anima Poetæ

"Anima poetae" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a collection of hitherto unpublished aphorisms, reflections, confessions, and soliloquies. The aim of the present work, however imperfectly accomplished, has been to present in a compendious shape a collection of unpublished aphorisms and sentences, and at the same time to enable the reader to form some estimate of those strange self-communings to which Coleridge devoted so much of his intellectual energies, and by means of which he hoped to pass through the mists and shadows of words and thoughts to a steadier contemplation, to the apprehension if not the comprehension of the mysteries of Truth and Being. Excerpt: «Love that soothes misfortune and buoys up to virtue—the pillow of sorrows, the wings of virtue. Disappointed love not uncommonly causes misogyny, even as extreme thirst is supposed to be the cause of hydrophobia. Love transforms the soul into a conformity»