Sigil of scathed Delight

"It was then that I noticed that she had absentmindedly transformed herself into a hundred and eleven perfect, tiny, multicolored fish. Each fish sang a different song. And as she put herself back together again, unable for the moment to remember whether the silver flecks went in the blue eye or the green one, she decided that a dog would be a nice thing to have. And then it occurred to her that there had been a dog around at some point, hadn't there? A nice doggie. And she went off to look for it, trailing the occasional fish."

"He was a very clever doggy. He said things like... like... "I would feel infinitely more comfortable in your presence if you would agree to treat gravity as a law, rather than one of a number of suggested options."

Samuel Taylor Coleridge understood. Perhaps. Or maybe he just said he did so that he could keep on pretending to be deranged.