In the
poetical there is always enlargement, exaltation, purification; animal
feeling, self-seeking propensity, becoming so combined with the higher
nature as to rise above themselves, above the self.
The lioness, pursuing the robber of her cub, if in her rage she
scarcely heed that he (to stay her steps) has dropped the cub in her
path, but, casting at it a glance of recognition, bounds with a
wilder howl after the robber, the incident is purely bestial, an
exhibition of sheer brute fury, and as such repulsive and most
unpoetical. But let her, instantly drawing her fiery eye from the
robber, stop, and for the infuriated roar utter a growl of leonine
tenderness over her recovered cub, and our sympathy leaps towards her.
Through the red glare of rage there shines suddenly a stream of white
light, gushing from one of the purest fountains: wrathful fury is
suddenly subdued by love. A moment before she was possessed with
savage fierceness, her blood boiling with hate and revenge; now it
glows with a mother's joy. Her nature rises to the highest whereof it
is capable. It is the poetry of animalism.
In the poetical, thought is amplified and ripened, while purified, in
the calm warmth of emotion.
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