A
COMMONPLACE BOOK
OF
Thoughts, Memories, and Fancies.
A COMMONPLACE BOOK
OF
Thoughts, Memories, and Fancies.
ORIGINAL AND SELECTED.
PART I.—ETHICS AND CHARACTER.
PART II.—LITERATURE AND ART.
BY MRS. JAMESON.
“Un peu de chaque chose, et rien du tout,—à la française!”—Montaigne.
With Illustrations and Etchings.
SECOND EDITION, CORRECTED.
LONDON:
LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS.
1855.
PREFACE.
I must be allowed to say a few words in explanationof the contents of this little volume, which is trulywhat its name sets forth—a book of common-places, andnothing more. If I have never, in any work I haveventured to place before the public, aspired to teach,(being myself a learner in all things,) at least I havehitherto done my best to deserve the indulgence I havemet with; and it would pain me if it could be supposedthat such indulgence had rendered me presumptuous orcareless.
For many years I have been accustomed to make amemorandum of any thought which might come acrossme—(if pen and paper were at hand), and to mark (andremark) any passage in a book which excited either asympathetic or an antagonistic feeling. This collectionof notes accumulated insensibly from day to day. Thevolumes on Shakspeare’s Women, on Sacred and LegendaryArt, and various other productions, sprung from seed thuslightly and casually sown, which, I hardly know how,grew up and expanded into a regular, readable form, withvia beginning, a middle, and an end. But what was to bedone with the fragments which remained—without beginning,and without end—links of a hidden or a brokenchain? Whether to preserve them or destroy them becamea question, and one I could not answer for myself.In allowing a portion of them to go forth to the world intheir original form, as unconnected fragments, I havebeen guided by the wishes of others, who deemed it notwholly uninteresting or profitless to trace the path, sometimesdevious enough, of an “inquiring spirit,” even bythe little pebbles dropped as vestiges by the way side.
A book so supremely egotistical and subjective can dogood only in one way. It may, like conversation witha friend, open up sources of sympathy and reflection; exciteto argument, agreement, or disagreement; and, likeevery spontaneous utterance of thought out of an earnestmind, suggest far higher and better thoughts than any tobe found here to higher and more productive minds. IfI had not the humble hope of such a possible result,instead of sending these memoranda to the printer, Ishould have thrown them into the fire; for I lack thatcreative faculty which can work up the teachings ofheart-sorrow and world-experience into attractive formsof fiction or of art; and having no intention of leavingany such memorials to be published after my death, theymust have gone into the fire as the only alternative left.
The passages from books are not, strictly speaking,selected; they are not given here on any prin