And yet, to the capable, how the pile of amplification lifts out the
naked truth. Read these passages to a score of well-clad auditors,
taken by chance from the thoroughfare of a wealthy city, or from the
benches of a popular lecture-room. To the expanded mold wherein the
passages are wrought, a few--five or six, perhaps, of the
twenty--would be able to fit their minds, zestfully climbing the
poet's climax. To some they would be dazzling, semi-offensive
extravagance, prosaic minds not liking, because seeing but dimly by,
the poetically imaginative light. And to some they would be grossly
unintelligible, the enjoyment of the few full appreciators seeming to
them unnatural or affected.
Now, the enjoyment of the few appreciators, what is its source? By
these passages certain feelings in them are made to vibrate and are
pitched to a high key. A very comprehensive word is feelings. What is
the nature of those feelings thus wrought upon?
The elementary feelings of our nature, when in healthful function, are
capable of emitting spiritual light; and, when exalted to their purest
action, do and must emit such, the inward fire sending forth clear
flame unmixed with smoke.
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