YOUNG NEWMAN ON THE ARGUMENT FROM LONGING [this is a significant find for me, in my quote-mining from Newman. It shows that he had pondered what C. S. Lewis wrote a lot about over a hundred years later: the argument from longing and intense, almost nonverbal desire (what Lewis called sehnsucht: from a German Romantic term): elaborating upon a feeling which strongly indicated that we were made for heaven. Nature can evoke these feelings and deep emotions (as it often has in myself and my wife: nature fanatics that we are). Id never seen this particular theme in Newman and am very delighted indeed to discover it.] I am very regular in my riding, . . . It is so great a gain to throw off Oxford for a few hours so completely as one does in dining out, that it is almost sure to do me good. The country too is beautiful – the fresh leaves, the scents, the varied landscape. Yet I never felt so intensely the transitory nature of this world as when most delighted with these country scenes – and in riding out today I have been impressed, more powerfully than I had before an idea was possible, with the two lines – Chanting with a solemn voice, mind us of our better choice. I could hardly believe the lines were not my own and Keble had not taken them from me. I wish it were possible for words to put down those indefinite vague and withal subtle feelings which quite pierce the soul and make it sick. (Letters & Diaries, v. 2; To [sister] Jemima Newman, 10 May 1828)
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 20:26:47 +0000
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